It's another of the fan favorite "Beauty and the Beast" inspired romance and officially the worst of the three musketeers namely "Niehime", "Mahoutsukai no Yome" and now "MaDoMe".
Niehime was truly special, the greatest of the "B&B spinoffs". The adaptation of “An Archdemon's Dilemma: How to Love Your Elf Bride” only helps to make that show even more impressive.
In Niehime, the beauty and the beast are obvious, In this series, The "Archdemon" is the beast and the "Elf "is the beauty.
The early Arcs share a lot of similarities and the overarching conflicts can be compared with many correlations. I believe that Niehime is more similar to this show than MahoYome.
Now back on topic, instead of a proper structured review i will rant.
The genres of this show are Action, Fantasy, Romance.
It barely scratches any of them. This is a huge problem because the show cannot be good unless it does as least one of these justice.
The so called "Action" is erratic, either too pointless and fleeting or just utterly ludicrous. It gets even worse when they try to make the situation more serious, where it often concludes the confrontation in the utmost anti-climatic fashion. The powers they use and exhibit are inexplicably formed and manifested which stifles any of my interest. Are you here for romance? There's some crumbs that hopefully will whet your appetite.. They seem to touch on several fantasy themes and ideas but never go deeper, which is incredibly disappointing.
Why does writer make official use of shortened names? it's one thing to shorten it only in secret, but to maintain this distortion of a name outwardly, causing others to adopt this broken form is utterly atrocious. Let me give you an example of why you don't shorten names; in the UK if you are called Gary, or Gareth, they call you Gaz. Likewise if you're called Barry, Basil or Sebastian you are nicknamed Baz. Notice how the original name is robbed of it's glory, it's symbolism and respect. What is the purpose of this? Apparently, "to show affection". What is this shortened name called commonly? A "pet" name. Well that's exactly it, reduced from person to pet, your respect taken for such a fleeting thing such as affection. imagine being called Sebastian and someone shouts to you "Baz" randomly in front of people, how can people take you serious? The shortened name sucks. In short the elf's full name is fine and necessary for an immersive fantasy experience, we should not make the mistake of shortening it for so called "affection".
What is the obsession with putting a large potentially dangerous, intimidating character in a slick full suit of armour and revealing them to be another annoying fan-service tool which only cheapens the experience? These editors love this garbage, they want recognition, they want sales, they want retention, but for binge watchers like me it's just utterly revolting. Remember when characters took of the mask and turned out to be Obito Uchiha? Gone are the days. They did the same trick with "The wrong way to use healing magic" as a result, the fight suffers, the stakes suffer, the stories suffer, the emotion is reduced a crawl the immersion is smashed, broken. It's disgusting and I'm sick of it. I ended up reducing the score of that show by an entire point, what a terrible way to ruin the experience.
"Arch-demon" Oh dear.....
Perhaps the source portrays him better, but this adaptation does no justice to his character.
What about the way he achieves this obviously prestigious title/role? A true marvel in terrible writing.
You see the powerful and intriguing word "Arch-demon", and I know just like me you're expecting some Alucard-like middle-age or older warlord just overflowing with charisma, aura and confidence, drowning in a wealth of experience with his wisdom, knowledge and understanding sharpened by the mentoring of remarkable teachers and the whetstone of life.
However..........
We're left in total despondency. For this MC you've really got to depress any sentient brain activity to have any shred of pleasure with him on the screen. Can writers just stop making everyone an orphan/ bastard. It's the easy way out, you write without attachments and it's still awful. His level of achievement and power is completely impossible with the background we were briefed on. He is obviously too young, and too inexperienced which completely counteracts any serious writing here. When he's supposed to look and act badass, it never quite hits, it feels fake and forced, whilst the “romantic” scenes completely bastardize him. Nearer to the end he’ll appear in places and make sharp and intelligent decisions, pulling out powers and wisdom like a rabbit out of hat, because the plot requires him to. It’s all too boring and superficial for me to care, perhaps I’ve just watched too many of these shows.
As for the romantic interest, undoubtedly she's the best part of this show, however she suffers from a similar but different issue, she's either too good, almost angelic or too ridiculous. It just doesn't seem realistic, she’s like a fantasy, in a fantasy. Unsurprisingly she is written as a bastard with zero attachments which makes me very skeptical as a lot of the decision making seems far beyond her background. This kind of untouched, unattached, beautiful, well-mannered, well-raised woman who also happens to be abandoned as a child without proper parental guidance, doesn’t exist. It wont all be negatives as the writer does quite wisely understand the true power of women, showing what the MC is inspired and influenced to do due to the actions and character of this woman. It was pleasant to watch this character hold back from conventional actions because she understood her feminine role in the situation as to ascertain a greater future regarding the relationship and others. She needed a flaw to be believable, you might say her flaw is "she loves mc too much, too readily" but this is nonsense as this cannot be a flaw of women as that is their purpose.
The other characters just didn’t impress. Too many women and every other man that gets significant screen-time is basically a dunce or cynically evil. The interactions are sometimes funny and cute, I just didn’t care for it, after watching a show like Niehime it just wasn’t good enough.
The omni-benevolent nature of some these characters just kills the tension, curiosity and the drama produced by these conflicts. When someone tries to kill you, you can’t just instantly forgive them. Even if that’s the case it has to be o nly one unique character like this, most sane people do not invite threats into their house, or turn their backs to their enemies, treating them with care.
I will say, the show shines with the dialogue between the characters, it's quite enjoyable despite lacking quality in the writing.
The plot depicted by the direction of this show is another rather embarrassing attempt of saving the world and mending longstanding divisions between sub-national factions. It ends up leaving a lot to be desired and oversimplifies too many elements. The conflict is also confusing and illogical subsequently the conflict resolution is even worse.
Sound and animation did the job but were not powerful enough, in harmony, to produce any spectacular moments I could recall.
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It falls short of doing anything particularly well.
If the story intrigues you, perhaps consider reading the manga or light novels, I assume the general sentiment will be more inline with the author's initial intended ideals.
