Season Overview

The Demon Girl Next Door 2 (Machikado Mazoku: 2-choume / まちカドまぞく 2丁目) is the second season of The Demon Girl Next Door. It’s also very similar to the first season. I rated both seasons the same. But, I slightly prefer season 2 over season 1.

The biggest difference between the two seasons is the introduction of more characters. This is why I like season 2 more. The new characters are actually better than the existing characters. I like Shamiko and Momo enough. But, the new characters are way better.

I kind of want to say that this season also focuses a bit more on the plot. But, I’m not sure if that’s actually true. Shamiko and Momo continue trying to figure out the mystery of the town’s past. What happened to Sakura? Why was Shamiko’s father sealed in a box? You know, things like that.

With that said, I don’t feel like the plot progressed any more in this season than it did in the first. I’d still consider the majority of the season to be slice of life content. And, that’s also my biggest complaint with the series. It has an interesting story but that story isn’t the main focus.

Of course, that’s kind of to be expected. The source material for The Demon Girl Next Door is a 4-panel manga. It’s not exactly the best medium for writing a deep and complex story. In fact, I’m surprised that the story is as involved as it is.

But, I don’t want you to think that I watch this series for the plot. The slice of life content is definitely the draw. Still, since there is a somewhat interesting plot, I’d like if it progressed a bit more. It feels like a bit of a waste as-is.

New Characters

There are 3 new characters in this season of The Demon Girl Next Door. Though, 1 of them only appears at the very end of the season. If a third season ever happens, I’d expect her to play a larger role at that point.

Anyway, the first of these characters is the Manager. The Manager is a tapir demon who runs a restaurant in town. He’s just a talking tapir that walks on 2 legs and wears glasses. At some point during the season, he convinces (tricks) Shamiko into working for him.

One of my favorite things about the Manager is that he’s not a humanoid tapir. He’s actually a tapir that stands upright. And because of this, he always has back pain — his spine isn’t designed for upright locomotion. It’s the little details like that which make him entertaining, to me.

Along with the Manager, we also have Lico. Lico is a fox demon who takes the form of a fox girl. Yes, she’s humanoid, unlike the Manager. Lico is my favorite character of the entire series. I wish she was around from the very start. But, at least she’s here now.

Despite working for the Manager, Lico’s really the one in charge. The food she makes has magical — sometimes psychedelic — properties. And she uses the threat of feeding her food to the Manager as a way to keep him in line.

The final new character is Ugallu. Ugallu is the spirit that Mikan’s father sealed inside her. She’s the reason Mikan has the curse that causes misfortune upon those around her. I’m not a huge fan of Ugallu’s design and we don’t know much about her as a character yet. But, she could be a good addition.

An Exhausting Watch

I’m pretty sure I mentioned this in my review of the first season. But, The Demon Girl Next Door is exhausting to watch. It’s not an anime I can throw on at the end of the day and relax while watching. And that’s not something you’d expect from looking at it.

I’m sure you’ve experienced an anime like this before. Sometimes, there’s so much going on that you have to concentrate so as to not miss anything. In the case of this series, it’s the dialogue — and therefore subtitles — that you have to concentrate on.

My main problem with this is that the payoff isn’t there. There are many anime that I have to devote my full attention to while watching. Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is one example. It doesn’t have fast dialogue, but the dialogue is all very important.

In a series like Rakugo, the payoff is the ability to follow the story. In The Demon Girl Next Door, the payoff is usually something as simple as getting a joke. The payoff isn’t worth the concentration. So, why not simply pay less attention to the series? Surely that’s the obvious answer.

To an extent, yes. But, the problem with that is that if you aren’t keeping up with all the jokes in this series, why are you watching it? It’s a comedy series. I doubt many people are watching it for the plot or anything else.

And so, that’s the real issue with The Demon Girl Next Door. It’s a good anime. But, even with the slight improvements that the second season brings, it was never an anime I wanted to watch. It always felt like a commitment. And after watching each episode, I wanted to take a break from anime.

Conclusion

The Demon Girl Next Door 2 is a 7/10. If not for the Manager and Lico, I would have rated it as a 6. But, those two really carried the series. I loved their interactions with both each other and Shamiko.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server to discuss anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

Series Overview

The Demon Girl Next Door (Machikado Mazoku / まちカドまぞく) is a comedy, slice of life anime that’s surprisingly based on a 4-panel manga. I say surprisingly because I had no idea that was the case until I began writing this review.

Most anime based on 4-panel manga feel like anime based on 4-panel manga. While The Demon Girl Next Door has some elements that feel that way, overall I’d say the series doesn’t. It feels like it’s based on a standard manga.

This series follows the misadventures of Yuuko Yoshida, now known as Shadow Mistress Yuuko — or just Shamiko for short. One morning, Shamiko awoke to find she’d grown demon horns and a tail. Her mother then reveals that she’s a member of a demon clan and needs to defeat a magical girl to break the seal on their family.

Unfortunately for Shamiko, she’s extremely weak. And the local magical girl, Momo Chiyoda, is extremely strong. There’s simply no way Shamiko will ever be able to defeat Momo in combat. But, something like reality isn’t going to get in the way of Shamiko’s goal!

Despite Shamiko’s intentions, she quickly becomes best friends with Momo. This is in part due to Momo not wanting to fight Shamiko and also in part because Shamiko’s not very bright and is easily tricked.

Whenever Shamiko challenges Momo to a duel, Momo turns the situation around and the two end up doing some sort of activity together. For example, before one of their first “duels,” Momo convinces Shamiko that they need to warm up first, and they end up going on a multiple mile-long jog instead.

Other times, the mere mention of exercising is enough to scare Shamiko away since she knows how intense Momo is about that.

Main Characters

You probably already have a good idea of what Yuuko “Shamiko” Yoshida is like. She’s a good-natured, clumsy, dumb girl who just happens to have awoken as a demon one day. Shamiko is also probably the best character in the series, which is good considering she’s the protagonist.

Momo Chiyoda, the local magical girl, has a very dry personality — especially when compared to Shamiko. Shamiko is always freaking out about something. Meanwhile, Momo generally keeps a straight face and doesn’t get flustered.

Also, since momo (桃) means peach in Japanese, that’s the theme of her character. Her color scheme is pink and her special attacks have the word peach in them. As we’ll see, fruit is a recurring theme when it comes to magical girls.

You may have noticed that Shamiko is holding a questionably-shaped object in the cover art for this series. That object is a statue that houses the soul of her ancestor Lilith. Lilith is, supposedly, a powerful demon who was sealed within the statue around the time of the Roman Empire.

According to Shamiko’s mother, if the ancestor statue is soaked in the blood of a magical girl, the seal will be broken. And as we see in the anime, just a small amount of Momo’s blood touching the statue allows Lilith to speak aloud.

The final character worth mentioning is another magical girl who shows up around halfway through the series. This is Mikan Hinatsuki. As with Momo, Mikan is named after a fruit. A mikan (蜜柑) is a mandarin orange. And, as you might have guessed, her character design is based on this fruit.

Something unique about Mikan is that she’s also cursed. If she gets flustered, her curse causes those around her to suffer misfortunes.

Fast-Talking Comedy

Something I wasn’t expecting from The Demon Girl Next Door is how quickly the dialogue goes by. It’s not as fast as the dialogue in The Tatami Galaxy — because nothing it — but it was fast enough that I actually had to pay attention and make an effort to read the subtitles.

Typically a series that looks like this one isn’t going to require my full attention just to keep up with what’s going on. However, there were many times when watching this that I had to focus on the subtitles rather than the visuals.

That made the anime a bit less enjoyable to watch. But, I think the comedy made up for that. Usually, the majority of jokes in comedy series don’t land for me. A truly good comedy will have most of the jokes land, even if they don’t make you laugh out loud. And I’d put The Demon Girl Next Door into this category.

I think what helped this series in the comedy department is that the comedy was a combination of dialogue and visuals. You get the lead-up of the joke via dialogue, and then the visual follow-up hits. This seemed to work better than what a lot of other comedies do, which is to make the dialogue after some action the main part of the joke.

It should also be noted that jokes didn’t overstay their welcome. That’s a huge problem with a lot of comedy anime. They reuse the same jokes way beyond the point at which they stopped being funny.

The Demon Girl Next Door will use a particular gag a few times, usually spread over the course of 1-3 episodes. For example, in episode 1 there’s a gag of people grabbing onto Shamiko’s horns. That disappears afterward and is replaced by fresh gags.

Conclusion

Originally, I rated The Demon Girl Next Door as a 6/10. But, I think that was just because I was tired after binging the series. After I had a chance to reflect on it, I’m going to say it’s actually a 7/10.

I’d wanted to watch this series ever since it aired, but never got around to it. However, the second season is going to begin airing next month, which is why I decided to binge it now.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Season 2 is available now.