Once in a blue moon, Production IG makes a comedy. The results are… weird. This time in particular, they put Tsutomu Mizushima in the directing seat. The result is a completely vulgar and outrageous piece of animation with no sense of shame whatsoever.
There is a sharp difference between this series and Hen Zemi, which aired in the same block. Hen Zemi didn’t care how disgusting it was. Yondemasuyo Azazel-san doesn’t care how insulting it is.This show is outright sadistic and knows it, and that’s part of its charms. The characters are all the biggest bastards and yet their antics are really fun to watch. The delivery is chock full of the most ridiculously distorted faces which somehow works out quite well. It’s got a great sense of chemistry which often is much more enjoyable than the actual jokes it tries to tell.
The jokes are where this one just isn’t as good as the OVA. It just feels like at times this series just doesn’t seem to have any inspiration for jokes. At about half the episodes, I didn’t really know what this series was trying to make funny, and it came across as really forced comedy. The two arcs where this becomes especially clear are the fish arc and the Otaku arc. Throughout the series it becomes really clear that this series hates Otaku with passion, but it portrays them with so much bile and anger that it just forgets to make jokes, and just continues spewing fire without actually doing anything with it.
On the other hand though, the good episodes are totally worth it. Moloch in particular is an awesome character who despite only appearing in a few episodes, completely steals away any scene he’s in. The rest of the cast are also really enjoyable to watch when they’re on fire, and it’s often the small jokes that work out the best in thsi series.
In a way this is a typical series of Tsutomu Mizushima. I consider him to be an awesome director, but his pure comedies have always had this weakness of losing themselves in their shock value and forgetting to actually be funny (take for example Dokuro-Chan, Dai Mahou Touge, Kemeko Deluxe). He has been getting back to his level of Hale Nochi Guu, though: both this series and Squid Girl were quite good, but this series still shows his flaws as a comedy director.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 – Completely outrageous, vulgar and bile. |
| Characters: | 8/10 – Excellent chemistry between the main character that makes this show enjoyable. |
| Production-Values: | 8/10 – A unique look, courtesy of Production IG. |
| Setting: | 7/10 – Lacks inspiration to remain consistently funny. |
Suggestions:
– Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu
– Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt
– Hen Zemi
I always have felt like this was a more vile, disgusting version of Nichijou. You can see the obvious similarities between the two in terms of how they try to create humour.
Heh, the otaku arc and the stalker arc were my favorites. 😀 I think you took the otaku story more seriously than intended – being labeled an otaku is pretty much a stigma in Japan and the story simply played on the common otaku stereotypes.
In any case, I think it’s admirable (in a way) how close they managed to stick to the manga regarding the violence and overall vulgarity. Obviously the OVAs were able to go further and because of this they had more edge, but for a TV anime Azazel-san did pretty well, and it even managed to add hilarious original material (Marshmallow DJ, Strawberry Magic…)
I really hope that we’ll get a second season or at least another set of OVAs. It would be a crime to deprive the anime world of Lucifer.
Moloch is a great character…? That’s trolling, right? Also, did you feel personally offended by the otaku arc? lol.