The Devil is a Part-Timer was a top-tier isekai I watched perhaps a year ago for the first time. It had a solid premise, good comedy, and was animated by studio White Fox, a rather top-tier studio. When Season 2 was announced, and that there was a studio change, to Studio 3Hz, I was skeptical, but of course I’d give it a try. The character designs were certainly a step down from Season 1 (which already didn’t have the greatest designs), and with time, the animation degraded immensely. It wasn’t just the production that took a nosedive though, the plot did too, and it became quite the snoozefest at times.
My grading criteria: Story: /25 Art: /10 Music: /10 Characters: /20 Enjoyment /15 Thematic Execution /20
STORY: 7.5/25
Was this show always this slow and was it really a slice-of-life? There were a few interesting plot points to be explored, but they never really went to solid detail with them. There was the introduction of a new character, Alas=Ramus, who was the new Anya Forger of the season in her cuteness, but where she came from, and who she really is wasn’t really explored well. I remember that Season 1 at least had some fight scenes and villains, but in this season, there was barely anything going to advance the plot, a lot of meandering, random romance elements, and not enough mention of Heaven or Ente Isla to keep things intriguing. This was not the show I remember, I don’t remember it being this boring.
ART: 3/10
The character designs don’t really feel like designs you’d see in a fantasy anime, but more like designs you’d see in CGDCT or slice of life show. They also looked very flat and round at the same time, which was weird. The fight scenes were very disappointing, with a lot of still imagery and janky movement. The production continued to degrade with time, and even simple movements became very awkward.
MUSIC: 6.5/10
Not very stand-out at all, OP and ED were your sub-par songs, and the soundtrack was quite unnoticeable.
CHARACTERS: 7/20
The characters were very flat this season, with not much development whatsoever. There was a huge emphasis on romance (even between side characters), and that was quite insignificant and unnecessary. With a weak plot, the characters wouldn’t be very good either obviously, and none of them really added anything to the table this season.
ENJOYMENT: 6/15
Quite the snoozefest at times, considerably more boring than Season 1.
THEMATIC EXECUTION: 7.5/20
I mean, the comedy is still ok, but everything else, such as the romance and action themes were in the mud this season. It’s mostly the bad production that hurts how the themes were executed, but the plot has really degraded as well, and with that, you can’t expect the themes to be done right.
OVERALL: 37.5/100
A huge shame honestly, 9 long years, and this is what fans got. Should this season have been made in the first place? Yes and no. There’s some nostalgia to be had here, but not much more than that, and with the supposed bad LN ending that fans were talking about from what I heard, right now, this series is in the mud, and that’s just incredibly unfortunate.