You know, in my personal blog back in the day, I had a post, from 2010, when this anime was just airing. In it, I said the following:
"_I think, that this is a new masterpiece for my collection. I can't see anything wrong with this anime. OP is fantastic, I'm listening to it for the 3rd day straight. Seiyu are perfect, beyond praise. Girl who voiced Korone is absolutely priceless.
Art is, once again, great. The authors definitely had their own style.
Music is not particularly original, but is always fitting.
The story is simple, but never boring. And the characters - oh my god - they are the absolute best! And, imagine this, are not over the top crazy. Especially the protagonist. He's not a mumbler, not a pushover, not a loud showoff or a superhero, he's just a normal, decent guy. It's so refreshing, that it alone is enough to call this a masterpiece!_"
And so, now that I have re-watched this anime, I want to take this "review" apart to see what changed in almost 10 years, now that I have more experience and, hopefully, better taste in anime. So bear with me.
Next one. "Seiyu are perfect, beyond praise. Girl who voiced Korone is absolutely priceless."
You can't even imagine, how hard I laughed when I saw this in a 10 years old post. The thing is, I never really cared about seiyu. I knew the most popular names at the time, like Miyano Mamoru, Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya... you know, the big names. But I rarely, if ever, checked the other ones. It was enough for me that it sounds good, I didn't need to know who voiced who. So, noting a seiyu was a big deal for me back then.
So, with that said, now I know that Korone was voiced by, hands down, my absolute favorite seiyu these days, Aoi Yuuki. This is just destiny. I need to make a statue of this girl and pray at it every morning. So, there's really nothing more to add, seiyu in this anime are indeed perfect.
As for the story and characters. Usually, harem anime follows a simple path of one waifu per episode until they show them all. Daimaou was different in that it showed every single character in the very first episode, and then started to develop them only when the story needed them, and not just because a new waifu must happen.
The episodes are full of content, there's barely any downtime at all. There is no time wasted, the episodes are literally just opening, ending and new content. No flashbacks, no "previously, on Daimaou...", nothing unnecessary. However, because of how packed the episodes are, everything moves a little faster than I would've liked and some moments feel rushed and undeserved. Including the character relationships (especially between Akuto and Junko) and the series finale. This is unfortunate and is probably the main reason this show has such low scores. If only it paced itself a little better...
#Pros: + Characters. Both personalities and design. + Tightly packed episodes, with not even a second of downtime. + Good animation and art. + No censorship (almost). + Opening and the overall soundtrack. + Seiyu. Aoi Yuuki, obviously, but also Yoko Hisaka and Aki Toyosaki among others. + Varied panties :P
Cons:
- Because of how packed episodes are, some moments seem forced.
- The last special ends on the most interesting part! -_-
So finally, for the last point of my original "review".
"I think, that this is a new masterpiece for my collection. I can't see anything wrong with this anime."
And you know what? 10 years later... I think I still stand by it.
The biggest problem this anime has is that it was only 12 episodes. But it's 12 episodes with 24 worth of content. On one hand it's great, because there's never a dull moment, the story keeps moving, the relationships fluctuate... but at the same time, it doesn't let you stop, enjoy said relationships, develop characters, world etc. They do it, but very hastily. Which only makes me think "what if they had at least 24 episodes..."
Still, I got immense enjoyment out of this anime now, just as I did the first time.
Yes, it's a harem anime. A harem anime, in which the hero respects the girls around him, doesn't spray fountains of blood of his nose, doesn't constantly try to look under the girls' skirts, doesn't focus on one single "main" girl shoved in your face by the story. And they, in turn, have reasonable motivation to be with him, other than "he's the protagonist".
This is a good story, covered in beautiful art with colorful panties flying around from time to time. "Harem" is not the purpose here. It's just some fan service that a good author can add tastefully. Which is exactly what happened in Daimaou.
Is it the best anime ever? No, of course not. But one of the best in the genre? Very likely. And if I were to make some sort of a top-50 anime list, there's a good chance Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou would end up in it.
