It really takes a lot for an individual to watch a show and see past the images. Reading between the lines takes effort and practice; something that should be commended in nowadays. I don’t label myself as an expert in one of these fields, but I have been able to bring this skill out whenever I re-watch shows, especially anime. The first time I did this was for my first writing on a show called “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid”. So even though Dragon-Maid is technically the first show I did an analysis for, I would like to introduce a recurring segment called “Anime 101” where we interpret anime with hidden messages or that hold an important meaning. This time I will be using two anime shows in my arsenal; both are, in my interpretation, a story of change. Not the change pertaining character evolution, but those who are affected by a thing called cultural baggage. Individuals who are affected by this are treated in a certain way without ever having any previous interactions with those who are dealing out the treatment. The best example I can think of is when a cop walks up to a teenager and begins to treat to them as inferiors because they know from past experience that teens have given cops trouble and thus force a predetermined role unto the teens. Another one is when people of minority race and ethnicity are treated with racism even though they have never done anything to deserve it. Moving away from real life examples, the shows that really help convey this message and idea very well are: “The Devil is a Part-timer” and “I couldn’t become a Hero, so I reluctantly decided to get a job”.

Due to the length of each title, I will analyze each show separately. In “The Devil is a Part-timer”, Satan is an all-powerful being forced from his world, Ente Isla, and into modern day Tokyo. He is followed by his right-hand man and general, Ashiya, into Tokyo as well. While in Ente Isla, Ashiya and Satan are ‘devils’ with immense magical powers, but when in Tokyo, their powers are dramatically decreased and must ration it. From all-powerful to a regular joe-schmo, Satan and Shiro take up residency in Tokyo with new names, Satan as Sadao Maou (Sadao is an old-school name) and Ashiya as Shiro Ashiya. Sadao and Ashiya manage to acquire a humble apartment flat after learning how to speak Japanese and must find some sort of income to pay off their rent. Sadao requests that Ashiya refrain from getting a job and learn as much as he can so that they both can return to Ente Isla and Sadao takes up a job as a part-timer server in McDon- wait a sec, MgRonald *cough*cough*. Sadao surprisingly becomes a model employee even though he fell all the way from the status of the Devil King; he even is promoted as Assistant Shift manager.

So where does the point of cultural baggage and change comes in? One night, he is visited by Emi Yusa, a call center agent who reveals herself as Emilia the Hero; she was the one responsible for sending Sadao and Ashiya to Tokyo. Unfortunately, she is also affected by the world and her magic abilities are dramatically decreased, so she becomes more of an annoying nuisance who follows Sadao, making sure he isn’t trying to take over this world. The thing is, as weird as it sounds, Emilia’s ‘stalking’ of Sadao actually helps with the theme of this story. She is plagued and blinded by the cultural baggage of Sadao being the evil tyrant and never trusting him. Whenever she is not at her job, she takes it upon herself to follow Sadao and watches him when he works. She even brazenly goes into MgRonald and takes a seat. Emilia warns Chiho Sasaki, Sadao’s junior worker, to stay as far away from Sadao because he can never be trusted for what he has done in the past. However, this doesn’t faze Chiho because she secretly admires and loves Sadao because of his work ethic and maturity. Emilia is simply stunned because of her past with Sadao, it actually becomes detrimental because her warnings come across as though she is Sadao’s ex-girlfriend and to Chiho, thinks she is in competition for Sadao. Regardless, it is her past and ‘baggage’ of Satan that clouds her vision from seeing that Sadao actually has changed from having an agenda of taking over the world to wanting to sell the most MgRonald’s promotions and becoming the best MgRonald employee ever.

Emilia the Hero discovers that whenever Sadao is around distressed people, his power grows. This happened when they are attacked by Lucifer who is trying to kill Satan in order to return himself back into heaven. They ultimately are surrounded by a large group of humans and Lucifer almost takes down Satan and literally takes down a highway. When all hope is gone, Satan reverts back into his devil form and Emilia is now sure that he will take this as an opportunity to return back to Ente Isla. However, Satan actually uses his powers to defeat Lucifer, fix the highway, and wipe away all the witnesses’ memories of the battle. Emilia becomes shocked by Sadao’s actions and sees that he may have changed for the better. Using the example in the beginning, Sadao could be the potential trouble causing teenager and Emilia is the cop who treats Sadao negatively. The idea in this anime is that people can change, but cultural baggage can cloud change and its’ legitimacy. Sometimes even the heroes can be wrong and must accept that the villain is no longer a threat to pursue. After three whole re-watches of “The Devil is a Part-timer”, only then I was able to read between the lines, hence why I don’t see myself as an expert. “The Devil is a Part-timer” is only 13 episodes and can watched on www.crunchyroll.com. The show is also on going as a light-novel and manga series, with 18 L.Ns. and 10 manga volumes.

As said before, I have two shows that convey the message of change and cultural baggage. To remind you, the second show is called “I couldn’t become a Hero, so I reluctantly decided to get a job”. I will save the analysis of that show for next week, until then, have a great start to the summer. For those who are having finals: you can do it! As you wait for the next week’s edition of Anime 101, watch “The Devil is a Part-timer” and see if you re-connect the lessons and messages to the plot of the story. If you have seen this anime, did you watch it in dub or sub? Did you already see the show and connect the lessons or did you see something entirely different? Did you like the show in general? Leave a message in the comments! *School bell rings* With that, the first class of Anime 101 is dismissed!