The Devil Is a Part-Timer! Volume Seven is a collection of four short stories that are all set before the beginning of Volume Six. Because of where these stories fall in the series’ timeline, you don’t have to worry about getting spoilers if you’ve only seen both seasons of the anime adaptation.

The Devil Is a Part-Timer! Volume Seven
Written by: Satoshi Wagahara
Publisher: Kadokawa Corporation
English Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: April 18, 2017

The first story in this volume is, “The Devil Pledges to Stay Legitimate.” This story would be set right after the end of Volume Two, which would be after the confrontation with Sariel. Ashiya is taking on a temp job in order to earn back the money that Urushihara spent on the tracker that he placed in Emi’s purse. Urushihara tries to sell something to get some of the money to help pay it off, but he turns out to be scammed by somebody pushing merchandise on him rather than buying what Urushihara is trying to sell. After learning how much money Urushihara spent on this scammer, Maou takes it upon himself to try to get the money back. But he gets some unexpected help, and the resolution of this story is logical, yet also hilarious.

On the one hand, it’s a little disappointing that this story wasn’t adapted as the opening of the second season of the anime, because it would have been fun to see this in an animated form. However, since it wasn’t truly necessary in order to get the next story arc going, I can see why this story wasn’t adapted.

Next is “The Devil Plucks a Cat off the Street,” and it’s set after both the arrival of Alas Ramus and her fusion with Emi’s Holy Sword. After getting off his shift, Maou finds an abandoned kitten by the MgRonald’s and takes it home with him. Unfortunately, Urushihara turns out to be allergic to cats, and they’re not supposed to have pets at the apartment. Emi can’t have pets in her apartment, either, so she can’t take the cat. And Chiho’s father is allergic to cats, so she can’t take it. This ends up being a sweet story about Maou trying to find a new home for the cat, learning how to properly take care of a cat, and the attachment that forms between Maou and the cat.

In a lot of respects, this story feels more “slice-of-life” than one would expect from this series, but that’s not a bad thing. While there is some humor included in the story, it’s overall a bit more on the serious side than usual for this franchise.

The third story in this volume is, “The Devil and the Hero Go Futon Shopping.” In this story, Emi wants Maou to get a futon for Alas Ramus so she can sleep over at his place when the little girl wants to spend the night. Emi actually offers to pay for half of it, and she, along with Alas Ramus, go with Maou to look at futons. As they have their outing, Emi has conflicted feelings about it, and is stressing over how the three of them must look like a family unit.

This story has its serious moments, but it slants more toward the humorous side. But this is something that needed to be done for Alas Ramus, so it makes sense that Wagahara wrote a story revolving around buying a futon for the little girl. While this would have made for a nice story to include in the anime, I can see why it wasn’t in the second season. But at the same time, I would have rather seen this than that filler farm story that took up two episodes in the second season.

The final story in Volume Seven is titled, “A Few Days Before: The Teenager Is a Part-Timer!” This story is a prequel that takes place shortly after Maou starts working at MgRonald’s. From the title, you can tell that the focus of it is on Chiho, and we see what leads up to her applying at MgRonald’s, getting the job, and being trained by Maou. We also see the beginnings of Chiho’s romantic interest in Maou.

This story sees Chiho at school quite a bit, which is something that we normally don’t see in this series. We also meet two friends she has, who are both in the kyudo club with her: Kaori and Yoshiya. I thought this story added some wonderful character development for Chiho, and that it helps the reader to better understand her motivations for getting a job and why she acts the way she does during the series. I have to be honest and say that this was my favorite story to appear in Volume Seven. Don’t get me wrong, the other stories are a good and enjoyable read, but I thought this one was the strongest in terms of fleshing out the world of The Devil Is a Part-Timer!

There’s an afterword at the back of the book, where Wagahara briefly explains the inspirations or the reasons behind the four stories included in this volume. I appreciated getting the author’s insights.

I thought the stories were quick reads and were a nice change of pace from reading an overarching story. However, I’m ready to continue the adventures of Maou, Emi, Chi, and the others in future volumes of The Devil Is a Part-Timer!

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