Dropkick on My Devil! – Page 2

No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk/Blood – ‘Dropkick On My Devil!’ Episode 3 Review

No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk/Blood – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Dropkick On My Devil’ Episode 3

What’s the show? Dropkick On My Devil!, Episode 3.

So how are things with your sadistic little cute girl show? More or the less the same as last episode, surprisingly less violent but somehow more sadistic.

Jashin-Chan is awful. The character, not the show.

Care to elaborate? Mostly in the form of Jashin-Chan being god-awful toward people—specifically her friend Medusa and poor little Pekola. I was so angry when Jashin-Chan stole Pekola’s food (she’s starving as it is!) that I was ~grinning~ when Yurine arrived to give Jashin-Chan her violent comeuppance, and some food for Pekola.

Someone needs to keep this sweet angel fed.

So the show is overtly hammering home Jashin-Chan’s bad personality and all-around awfulness so you feel good about all the violence perpetrated toward her? If it weren’t for the last part of the episode I would have said that’s 100% what they are doing however for some reason they try and pull a ‘redemption arc’ of sorts (albeit tongue-in-cheek) when Medusa calls out Jashin-Chan on her horrible behaviour. I was hoping it would lead to have character development at least on Medusa’s part but by the end they’re all buddy-buddy again and Jashin-Chan hasn’t really learned anything. This is much to Yurine and by extension—the audience’s—annoyance.

So are you concerned the series isn’t going to develop outside of the central ‘gimmick’ of the show? Oh don’t get me wrong there is actually a bit of world-building and character development here just not from our core-cast, the weird little snow woman returns with her big sister in tow to set the record straight and get some ‘closure’ after Jashin-Chan “abused” her little sister during her visit in the previous episode.

Don’t mess with someone’s little sister, lest you feel the wrath of big sister!

Oh no… how did that evil Jashin-Chan “abuse” the snow girl? Well she whistled in her ear and stuck a bread sticker on her back…

Umm… Yeah, Jashin-Chan isn’t exactly consistent with her ‘bad behaviour’.

Right… So are you still enjoying the show? I don’t know… I mean I’m not not enjoying it if you know what I mean? It still feels kind of weird that a show like this is a full-length series, it hasn’t really shown any narrative legs and is too all over the place tonally to really work as a standard CGDCT show or slice of life series. However I still like Yurine and Pekola and Medusa and Minos and enjoy seeing them interact and the show is still really nice to look at—we just really need a lot more substantial world-building or character development or a semblance of a deeper storyline to coalesce otherwise I might find myself getting bored quickly.

Previous Dropkick On My Devil! Reviews:

Snake Girl Sashimi – Episode 1 Review
Don’t Eat The Yellow Shaved Ice – Episode 2 Review

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Don’t Eat The Yellow Shaved Ice – ‘Dropkick On My Devil!’ Episode 2 Review

Don’t Eat The Yellow Shaved Ice – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Dropkick On My Devil’ Episode 2

What’s the show? Dropkick On My Devil!, Episode 2.

Ah the cutesy cute girl show about torture and murder! Indeed, not to be confused with that other cute girl show about kidnapping and murder!

‘Tis the season, I suppose! Is it?

I don’t know… so what’s happening in this episode? More of the same to be honest… just not quite as much graphic violence as last time—though the episodes first “kill” is pretty damn sadistic! Jaisan-Chan is complaining about the Summer heat, so Yurine strings her up over the bath tub and slowly bleeds her out ‘til she feels “cold” enough.

Yikes! But that’s as dark as the episode gets, if anything the rest of the episode is positively ‘upbeat’! Yurine runs into everyone’s (second) favourite fallen angel, Pekora looking a little worse for wear—okay that’s a heck of an understatement, she’s almost starving to death! So Yurine takes her to a curry restaurant and she even buys her seconds!

So Yurine is a good person? Yes, despite the fact she’s a ‘witch’ and her sadistic streak towards Jashin not withstanding, Yurine is good to people who are deserving of it—something Pekora has trouble reconciling, considering witches are supposed to be abject enemies of angels. Pekora even prays to god for guidance on what to do about her Yurine, after all how can someone who is ‘bad’ on paper do such selfless and kind things!

Shades of grey and all that… more or less, I like that none of the characters are one-dimensional, even Jashin who is considerably ~less~ nuanced gets a bit of characterization here. Her childhood life in hell with Medusa is shown in some detail as well as why the very wholesome Medusa even bothers to hang around with her given her glaring character flaws.

So a good episode then? It’s a bit more low-key and has the benefit of actually leaving Yurine’s apartment for some scenes—there’s even a brief segment set in Akihabara and y’all know how much I love seeing Akihabara in anime! I like that the world is slowly expanding from the very focused and frenetic first episode—we even meet a new character a weird looking snow woman who can make shaved ice on command and flavour it with her bodily fluids, either strawberry or lemon (I’m sure you can guess which fluids). And if the opening and ending credits are anything to go by there’s still a few more characters to be introduced, which is absolutely something this show needs in order for it to feel more like a complete universe and not just a series of sketches with the same five characters.

Previous Dropkick On My Devil! Reviews:

Snake Girl Sashimi – Episode 1 Review

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Snake Girl Sashimi – ‘Dropkick On My Devil!’ Episode 1 Review

Snake Girl Sashimi – An Anime QandA Review of ‘Dropkick On My Devil’ Episode 1

What’s the show? Dropkick On My Devil!, Episode 1.

Okay… and what’s it about? Imprisonment, violence, torture, dismemberment, gore—you know the usual things you’d expect from a slice of life comedy series!

Huh? It’s about gothic lolita Yurine, who after summoning a devil from hell proceeds to imprison said devil in her tiny apartment and brutally murder her every chance she gets. Of course the devil in question, Jashin-chan is a blond-haired snake-girl with a bad attitude and murderous streak to match—the only problem is she never gets the jump on Yurine and always ends up on the receiving end of her machete, or crowbar… or chainsaw…

Watch out for snake loli’s bearing crowbars. Bet there’s a sentence you never thought you’d read!

Wow, okay, sounds kind of grim… Nah it’s actually pretty light-hearted!

Okay, what? Don’t you usually hate ‘violence against waifus’? Usually, though that said it depends on many factors, not only is this firmly a gag anime it’s also so bright and colourful that it really does take the edge off the brutal gore and violence.

Wait, so what’s the appeal of this show? I imagine there’s two target audiences for this show, people like me who are easily amused by anime comedies, especially one with cute girls in them. And the second target audience is people who like watching cute girls being murdered.

You’re not making a sweeping generalization about this show’s possible audience are you? I don’t think so—the characters in the show out and out break the fourth wall on multiple occasions and talk about the imminent “gory service” they’re about to provide the audience.

Well… that’s pretty convincing. Aren’t you concerned though that this kind of “entertainment” is harmful—I know you had some things to say about the violence in the manga ‘Though You May Burn To Ash’? In that instance the problem I had was the conflation of sexuality and brutal gory violence—and that violence was a lot more detailed and graphic than this show’s. This show’s about as violent as an episode of Itchy & Scratchy from The Simpsons. Or for a more anime appropriate comparison Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan. In fact those two shows actually share a lot in common now that I think about, angel/demon symbolism, bloody violence played for laughs, a joke stretched too thin for its own good…

The aftermath. Yeah, this show isn’t *just* all bright and colourful!

Oh, so you don’t like the show? It’s not that I don’t like the show it’s just surprising to me that this is a full-length 25-minute anime and not a short 5 or 10 minute one. Half of the show was pretty funny and I like all the characters (though Jashin-chan is a bit obnoxious—though intentionally so) but there’s the other half of the show where you’re waiting for something to happen and it’s kinda just characters talking and bickering. But on the flip side the show would probably have felt more pointless if there was no characterisation and it was just all violence.

Did I forget to mention she can regenerate? Probably should have mentioned that, hence why she can get murdered multiple times.

So do you recommend the show and more importantly are you going to keep watching? I will keep watching because as I said I like the characters, even the side characters Medusa, Minos and Pekora are a lot of fun. If you like shows like Gabriel DropOut but kinda wished Vignette would take a chainsaw to Gab-chan every time she acted out then this is the show for you! There’s some decent gags in the show, the fourth wall breaks are fun and there’s an unexpected Evil Dead reference that made me grin. I’ll keep watching it, in the hopes that a more rounded plot develops or that it commits to some world-building like Gabriel DropOut did in its later episodes but don’t expect any more reviews unless it does something overwhelming good or overwhelmingly bad, at the moment it’s just overwhelmingly okay.

If you liked my post and want to support my content, please consider supporting my Patreon page, or donating by buying me a coffee on Ko-fi!