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[series:4844#628] | ||||||
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(Nine episodes watched): I was wondering whether this show would be comedy or drama, and in the end it is looking like mostly drama with a touch of comedy. Demon Lord Veltol seems to be being built up as the protagonist (though he thinks he sees a modern day hero Gram on the street). Veltol has been betrayed by Marcus and has gone from one of the most powerful to one of the least. He encounters a teenage hacker creating mischief, and will no doubt recruit her to help him gain revenge against Marcus. I frankly don't know what to make of this; magic has never thrilled me and now a whole new tier of it is introduced. For all the supposed wonders of magic, people still sleep in alleys. It is difficult to suspend disbelief and buy into this premise, but it seems odd and I am left curious. I guess a second episode will be needed to make clear just what Veltol intends and how he plans to do it. Veltol hasn't given up on taking control of the world once again, but for the time being he is very pragmatic and accepts his new status without anguish. He is kind of naive as he goes looking for a job and lists all sorts of fantastical accomplishments that are of little practical use today on his resume. We see how he and Machina first met which explains why she (secretly) adores him. Veltol's power seems to come from something known as 'faith' which he gets from the fear and respect of countless other people. So, he figures what he needs is to make it known to many that he has returned, and he is helped by Takahashi, the hacker girl, who turns out to be a friend of Machina. Nothing about Marcus in episode two. I still had little idea where this was going but was still curious as well. Takahashi's plan is, of all things, to help Veltol set up a livestreaming program in which he plays a difficult videogame and offers a running commentary. They do this and he steadily racks up new viewers. Many scoff at him but that's fine, he gains Faith from both positive and negative attention. His strength rebounds rapidly, as we see when he gets into a fight with an ogre. Also, he runs into Gram who was granted a sort of immortality (I think he just never grows old, but could still be killed) as a reward for defeating Veltol but has become disillusioned. We see that Machina's apartment is under surveilance by someone, probably Marcus. This was amusing and fun, and I got the impression that this was a pretty clever show. In episode four Veltol and Takahashi discover a shocking conspiracy to exploit and murder immortals, which is just what would rile the Demon Lord. Putting an end to this will obviously be the central conflict and goal to be accomplished, but I wish it had been a little more intriguing than it felt. If Veltol would be of inestimable value, why didn't Marcus just seize him the first time they met, when Veltol was very weak? In episode five (this show seems to be running one week behind all the others) Machina is kidnapped by Marcus and his sinister secretary/fighter woman, and Veltol must rescue her lest she meet the same fate as many other immortals. But he's not yet strong enough to take on Marcus all by himself, and it wasn't difficult to guess who he had in mind to assist him. Veltol persuades Gram, who was once his mortal enemy, to help out. Episode six was largely about Gram fighting the secretary so that Veltol can reach Marcus and Machina. Magic and heroism versus magical technology, basically. An episode-long fight could easily have been boring but I thought this one was pretty gripping and exciting, though it seemed unlikely that either character would get killed seeing all the effort that had been put into developing them. You would think the same could be said for Marcus, but in episode seven he and Veltol fight it out to a once-and-for-all conclusion. It felt like this should have been the final climax episode of the entire series, but instead Veltol will need a new arch enemy for the remainder. Basically, Marcus seems to have won until Veltol ascends to some amazing additional level of strength which only Gram has ever encountered before. OK, I guess that could happen, but wasn't Veltol pitifully weak until very recently? If I understood correctly, Machina replaces him as head of IMHI, though she has never worked there, has she? I guess the reactor has enough 'fuel' to run for the foreseeable future. Now that Marcus has been dealt with, Veltol decides that what he should do next is track down the surviving members of the 'Six Dark Peers', and to do that he will need their records book, which has been missing for 500 years. Takahashi uses her near-magical computer skills to deduce its probable location in a vault at a magic school in Akihabara and to fabricate a sort of guest student scholarship there for Veltol. Veltol's bragadoccio is probably the best part of the series; it walks the line between supreme self-confidence and idiocy at times. It gives him a distinctive personality. Veltol makes no secret of why he has come to the school, but impresses the president (who is also curious what the vault might contain) nevertheless. She explains that three magical relics are needed to unlock the vault; one is at hand, the location of another is more-or-less known, but another is missing. Some unpopular blond girl with one red and one yellow eye appears several times in this episode (one of the Dark Peers, perhaps?). This, we learn in episode nine, is Lady Hizuki Reynerd-Yamada, the heir to a noble but 'ruined' family, who has little if any magical talent and is scoffed at at the academy (though Veltol seems to detect some hidden ability within her). Veltol gets into a duel with Albert, a typical jerk nobleman who liked to harass Hizuki, with predictable results. Then Veltol, Takahashi and Machina visit 'Electric City', the future version of Akihabara, complete with maid cafes. Last updated Tuesday, December 17 2024. Created Friday, October 18 2024. | ||||||||
