The Devil Is a Part-Timer!!, the second season of The Devil is a Part-Timer! anime, is based on a Japanese light novel series written by Satoshi Wagahara and illustrated by Oniku. The anime was produced by 3Hz and was directed by Daisuke Tsukushi. The 12 episodes of the season aired on Japanese television from July 14-September 29, 2022. As of this writing, Crunchyroll is streaming The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! on its service.

At the beginning of the series, a portal to Ente Isla opens up and a golden apple falls out of it. A small girl named Alas Ramus “hatches” from the apple and declares that Maou (the devil) is her father and Emilia (the hero) is her mother. Maou takes in Alas Ramus, and he, along with Ashiya and Urushihara, have to adjust to having a young child around. An angel named Gabriel is also introduced, and he’s on a mission to try to take back Alas Ramus. But as we see later in the season, his failure to capture the child forces him to take on a new assignment that makes his character important in the final couple of episodes of the season.

This leads to Maou and Emi taking Alas Ramus to an amusement park after they get tickets from various friends. Ashiya, Rika (Emi’s friend from work), and Chi follow them around, and this leads to Rika becoming interested in Ashiya. Unfortunately for her, Ashiya doesn’t pick up on her interest.

But the amusement park leads to a lot of exposition about the truth behind Alas Ramus, as well as introduces a mysterious woman from Ente Isla who seems to know a lot about what’s going on. The truth behind her identity is revealed near the end of the season, and this new character plays an important role in the season finale.

After MgRonald’s is closed down temporarily for renovations and the landlady temporarily evicts the tenants of the apartment for repairs needed for the building after a fight with Gabriel, Maou and his roommates are offered the chance to help out at a beach shack owned by a relative of the landlady. Unfortunately, it’s not all fun and games at the beach when demons start appearing. But it’s not entirely Maou and his group responsible for taking care of them… a strange cyclone appears and takes care of most of the problem. An important fact is revealed to the characters about the landlady’s relative, and the group is forced to stop working at the beach shack due to what happens during this arc.

There’s a two-episode arc where Maou and the others are offered a temporary job to help out at a farm owned by Chiho’s relatives. Unfortunately, nothing truly important happens in these two episodes, and they felt more like filler than anything else. The final three episodes of the season bring about the final story of the season, but the final episode makes it clear that the story’s not finished yet. Fortunately, the “To Be Continued” text that appeared on the final shot of Episode 12 makes it clear that there is more to come for the anime. After the episode aired, it was reported on Anime News Network that The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! anime will be getting a sequel in 2023.

As The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! began its simulcast, I went into it with high hopes, since I really enjoyed the first season of the anime. Also, it had been nine years since the first season aired, so there was a lot of anticipation to finally be able to continue the story after all that time. Unfortunately, since it was a new anime studio and new director behind the second season, there were some noticeable differences in the character designs. While the new designs didn’t bother me too much when I watched the first episode, I ended up noticing it afterwards when other bloggers shared screenshots and pointed out the differences in character designs between the two seasons. I’m not really coming up with the right word to describe the new designs for the characters, but these designs don’t look as good as they did in the first season of the series. The characters had more of a “realistic” design to them in the first season, and the designs in The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! just don’t look as refined as the first season.

When it comes to the storytelling, I overall enjoyed the first four episodes. The first episode was a little slow to get the story going, but I did enjoy the story that took place at the amusement park. While the start of The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! may not have quite been as strong as the start of the first season had been, I found these episodes to be an enjoyable enough watch.

Episodes Five and Six were decent, but I started having issues with Episode Seven. The previous two episodes felt like they were building up to something major happening at the beach, but then Episode Seven turned out to be anticlimactic. Maou and the others were able to get rid of the demons way too easily, and there really wasn’t much of a sense of tension. This was directly followed by the two-episode arc on the farm that didn’t truly add anything to the series and felt more like “filler” than anything else. After such an anticlimactic episode, having two filler episodes following it made me feel like the series was starting to drag a little. The first episode after the farm filler was basically setting the stage for the final arc, and things started improving a little with Episode 11. After watching the final episode of the season, I thought it was one of the strongest of the season, even if it did feel a little rushed at times.

Now that I’ve finished The Devil Is a Part-Timer!!, I have to say that I think it would have been a little stronger if the anime studio had been willing to produce a 10-episode season instead of a 12-episode one. The two episodes on the farm could have easily been cut, and I think this really would have helped with the pacing and the flow of the season.

Also, I think this season wasn’t quite as strong as it could have been. Ultimately, it’s here to serve as a bridge between the first season and what’s going to be happening in the sequel to this season. The characters that are introduced and the events that take place in this season are important to move the story along, but it felt as if this season just wasn’t strong enough in its own right. And knowing how far ahead the light novel is in comparison to the anime, it also makes me wonder why the anime studio didn’t go ahead and do this season and the forthcoming sequel series as one longer season.

I’m holding out hope that the sequel anime for The Devil Is a Part-Timer!! will be stronger than this season. I definitely intend to watch the sequel anime when it premieres in 2023, but I’m likely going to be going into it with lowered expectations.

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