(Average+) Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Series in one sentence:
It's not Ed, Edd n Eddy, internet, stop comparing.

Series in more sentences:
Three unlikely friends come together to create anime shorts, but have to deal with the strict rules their school has set up for all clubs. Each member has their own quirk that helps them get through their demanding projects, as for each other.

2D animation interests me and I do it myself, but I can't say this show managed to hype me up for it. Not consistently so. Many scenes in Eizouken were boring to me; and ironically.. often the imagination sequences. When the characters were about to reach their goal, that's when the story kicked up the pace.

I wish I liked it more. The subject and way the characters brainstormed should've appealed to me, but I felt impatient watching.
The big animation project the series ended with was lackluster as well. I wouldn't have known what I was looking at if the characters hadn't explained the plot to me beforehand. It was badly edited, with an odd music choice, like it was made by a bunch of inexperienced high schoolers. Lewl.

Anyway. That's all I have to say. I'll likely never watch this again.

(Average+) Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun

Series in one sentence:
Unluckiest luckiest boy alive becomes luckiest unluckiest boy alive.

Series in more sentences:
An abused boy with horrible parents and the inability to say "no" gets sold to a demon and taken to the Netherworld.. to be his grandson. The eager demon immediately signs him up for demon school, while giving the young Iruma no guidance on how to behave around the aggressive creatures.

Nevertheless, dumb luck is at his side and it doesn't take long for him to build up a reputation and get devoted friends.

A simple set-up, good humor, I loved it. It seems to know it's catering to the common anime fan, and that helps sitting through some of the more cliché/cheap events and dialogue. The show just wanted to have fun with itself.

I do have to say that it drags at one point; and this one particular incident gets way more attention than was necessary. Would've liked to had seen more screen time for Iruma's classmates, as the series seemingly wanted to start doing this by the time the season had reached its end. The last episode was a strange waste of time where nothing happened at all.

There are still alot of plot points that need further discussion, I hope the show is granted a second season.

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21-9-2021 UPDATE:
You need to be a real fan to handle the disappointment season 2 brings.

It starts off with an unwanted B plot, which was really bold, since the last season promised us a cool conflict with Iruma suddenly waking up evil.
The majority of episodes were filler nonsense, and when the above storyline finally happened, it left me unsatisfied. For some reason, Iruma is not allowed to be anything but overly empathetic, and so, even his "evil self" was a good guy. Boring, I hated it. I wanted Iruma to be absolutely foul, intimidating, and yet for his new self to be the only reason he climbs the ranks and is considered for the position of demon king. Why was this not the story?

The show plays off in a demonic world based on Hell, so why is the anime evading the actual topic of evil? Evil acts are consistently being punished, but at the same time, these demons sing about eating humans, worship things that "look evil", and the show argues these very perceivably emotional beings don't actually care about each other and would let children die. You can't have it both ways. Are they reformed, civilized demons, or do they only obey those stronger than them and have evil ingrained in their biology?

Iruma-kun tries to explain these topics at times, but is more interested in being cutesy and it really tested me this time. I'm tired of seeing Iruma in optimistic bliss, this season gave the right opportunity to raise the stakes and show him act out, and they did nothing with it.

I won't lower my original score for this show just yet, but definitely will if season 3 ends up being as unfocussed.

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05-03-2023 UPDATE:
Season 3 was unbearably boring, until the school competition finally began and we had something to fucking look at. Afterwards, it was unbearably boring again.

Like always, the show believes that throwing overly cute and quirky scenes at you qualifies as entertainment, forgetting there's a story it's supposed to tell; that of the human Iruma, trying to succeed in a world that is dangerous to him. It's a shame when a series introduces a good plot, but forgets about it halfway. It's why I stopped watching My Hero Academia as well.

The overabundance of filler tested my patience. I kept skipping through scenes and eventually started watching the series in 1.5x speed, and when you do that, it's pretty much over for you.
The fan service is ironically what made me no longer a fan. Why does Iruma keep having to dress up as a girl and sing stupid pop idol songs? Why is Hell still so lame? Why does the show keep wasting their audience's time with these Sesame Street episodes? There are no stakes, because no one is truly evil, no one gets truly hurt, and no one ever dies.

I'm lowering my score.