The classic mantra of “Watch three episodes before deciding to drop an anime” saved this one for me. (Though realistically it was more like four or five.)

Dropkick On My Devil has a rough start. Literally — it drops you right into the story with no explanation. Hopefully you read the synopsis, but even if you did it’s a stilted introduction. From there, it plays out like you’d expect from reading the synopsis: Jashin-chan tries to kill Yurine in some way, fails, then gets a gory punishment. There are things like supporting character interactions to make each section long enough, but that’s the general gist of it…but only to a point.

If you’re coming here to see how many murder ideas and fatalities the writer could come up with, you won’t get much of that here.

Before getting into that though, the question might be “What makes this beginning part so unenjoyable?” The biggest problem is Jashin-chan — the main character — being insufferable. She’s cocky, annoying, and cruel. The point is probably to make her that way so her getting what she deserves (and then some) is satisfying. But personally she was just making the whole experience unenjoyable for me. Adding plenty of fourth wall breaking and random stuff on top of that was more annoying than anything. (You might also not like the fact that she’s always naked for the entire anime sans a couple of segments.)

However, by around Episode 3, the anime starts to change. First, the whole “murder” plot of the anime stops happening for the most part. Jashin-chan only has the occasional thoughts of killing Yurine. Yurine subsequently doesn’t maim her too much, mainly only doing so for minor things like Jashin-chan being rude or lying. The violence that’s inflicted is turned down as well. From here, the anime becomes more of a slice-of-life that follows how its peculiar characters go about their random days. If you came here for the actual premise of the anime, you’ll no-doubt be disappointed. However, a fan of the slice-of-life genre might find it to be noticeably more pleasant because…

Jashin-chan also becomes much more bearable. Her being mean can still get frustrating at times, but other times she can even be a jerk with a heart of gold. Thus her antics (and punishments) start becoming comedic. She still lacks the art of being an enjoyable scumbag like the cast in KonoSuba or It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, but I'll take it. (And for the record, I think this subdued Jashin-chan could’ve worked while still having her focus on murdering Yurine.)

Still, a lot of the supporting cast tend to be Jashin-chan’s punching bags. Medusa is so adorable that she would bump my score up by a point alone…if her appearances didn’t come with the dread of Jashin-chanin evitable (and boldly) abusing her for her money. Pekora’s a forsaken angel who’s homeless but tries her best, making her an easy target for Jashin-chan as well. Another angel has a rivalry with her. And a couple of yuki-onna sisters are bullied by her as well.

The only characters that don’t get abused by Jashin-chan are Minos and Yurine. The former probably gets no screen time because of this, which is a shame since her pep is always nice. The latter obviously discourages Jashin-chan’s bad behavior and retaliates. It’s great that she’s so kind-hearted despite her deadpan face and violent tendencies. I suppose the cop also counts, but she barely shows up which I think is a good thing.

Thanks to Dropkick On My Devil mostly dropping its plot after a few episodes, it’s hard to recommend to people hoping for a lot of that. And since it can take up to five episodes to start becoming enjoyable, it’s also hard to recommend to people who don’t care for the plot too much. But if those aren’t enough to deter you, I’d say I surprisingly ended up enjoying watching the episodes by the end. At least, enough to want to see what else these characters do in a second season.