Cut to 2018, when I was barely more than a few anime and Animeheaven was still alive. Instead of using livechart, I just used to wait for the anime updates on Animeheaven to see what new anime were coming out, since I’m not as involved in finding out information about anime as I’m for light novels and manga. Honestly, I fully enjoy very few seasonal anime, with only one or two anime I really like each season.

How not to summon a demon lord, or Isekai maou to shoukan shoujo dorei majutsu(I like saying this instead of the english name just to see the confusion on people’s faces) is one of them.

The story follows a hikkikomori gamer by the name of Takuma Sakamoto wo ends up getting isekai’d to the world of the game he was playing, Cross Reverie. The twist(if you can call it that) is that he was summoned by two beauties, an elf princess by the name of Shera and a panther-girl by the name of Rem.

They end up becoming his ‘slaves’ because they used a magic which is used for contracting with summoned beasts on him, believing him to be a summoned beast as well, which ends up backfiring because this guy has a ring which deflects all magic.

Then normal isekai shenanigans ensue with a small difference. Takuma is not our regular isekai hero. He was so OP on earth that after he defeated the current boss of the game all alone, he became known as a demon lord due to his appearance and the fact that he totally crushed anyone opposing him.

This leads to the entire crux of the series, Takuma, being a hikki-NEET, is hilariously inept at social situations. It is to the point that just to talk normally to Shera and Rem, he assumes the personality of Demon Lord Diablo, the moniker given to his character as aforementioned.

This leads to a situation where whenever he fights against one of the many demon lords or villains, he ends up proclaiming himself a demon lord before subsequently crushing them. He also has a fake tyrannical personality which his companions have learnt to see through, but to unknowing people, he comes off as incredibly stand-offish.

And of course he has a diverse harem with many women ready to fuck him at a moment’s notice for absolutely no reason other than isekai.

The anime currently has one season, and it covers upto volume 3 or 4, I don’t remember exactly. It’s an overall decent quality anime, with good animations and art style and really good ecchi. One of the greatest strengths of this anime is actually the voice acting, which while not phenomenal, is incredibly fun to listen to.

The light novel currently has twelve volumes, with the eleventh volume currently ongoing an unofficial translation. This light novel has also been officially serialized by J-Novel Club and currently has nine volumes officially translated. The ninth volume came out just a few days ago.

You can check it out here and here

Here’s some more info on the anime as well.

J-Novel Club is obviously amazing, and the quality of translation is also amazing, you can support the author all the while getting a beautifully translated light novel. Of course for those that can’t afford it or don’t want to afford it, they have their sources…(*wink**wink*)

This light novel is undoubtedly isekai trash. It has generic situations, improbable isekai harems, stupid reasons for characters doing the shit they do and so on and so on. Despite all of this, I will be the first person to say, give this light novel a read.

The story, while being semi-generic, does have some unexpected depth to it. The characters are not all one-note and can be really fun to read about, and Diablo himself is quite a unique isekai protagonist.

Also, if you don’t want to read the light novel, there is a manga adaptation which is currently ongoing and is further ahead than the anime.

You can find it here

To me, Diablo presents a conundrum. On one hand, he’s a powerful sorcerer(and later on, he start studying the path of a warrior as well) and incredibly brave and powerful on the battlefield, on the other hand, he’s a complete sissy when it comes to inter-personal relations.

Diablo is both an awesome isekai protag and a awkward and dense harem protag, while also being a fake it till you make it hikki-NEET. I mean, there are certain aspects to his personality that just make me want to smack him right across the face.

He’s surrounded by hot women who want to do shit with him(heck, he gets married to Shera in volume 7) and the motherfucker freezes and starts freaking out whenever when one of them is forward with him, while when they’re not forward but doing lewd things ‘by accident’, he’s mostly fine with it.

That man is a fucking hypocrite, and that aspect of his existence irks me to no end, to the point that in the middle of reading volume 8, I just stopped reading and only finished when volume 9 came out.

This aspect of Diablo’s personality is probably the biggest obstacle to enjoy reading this series. And the thing is, it’s not exactly apparent in the anime, as the light novels start getting excessively extra from volume 5 onwards, so I didn’t know this going into the light novel. You have been warned.

This is probably my biggest problem with most of forms of japanese media which employ harem settings. It’s like what the fuck, why is our normal human protagonist suddenly losing ninety percent of his thinking capabilities when a girl is even talking to him! Why the fuck is he so indecisive?!

But I have understood long ago why this romantically dense protagonist is a thing. If you ever go to Japan, those people over there are wholly indecisive and not upfront about things as a society. Like, I remember the first time I went to a restaurant that was completely full and there was no space, but the guy doing the bookings, instead of telling me there’s no space, kept being like, “We’re seeing, we’re seeing,” for half an hour before one of my friends was like, that means they’re full and they don’t have any space.

This open secret type aspect of japanese society is fully condensed into the romantically dense protagonist. That’s the thing, those people thing that being romantically dense is a good thing for guys. And girls are meant to be cute and helpless. Why do you think in every JAV, the actresses are busy crying? Indecisiveness and denseness are fetishes for Japan as a society.

It still doesn’t irritate me any less.

Still, check this light novel out, it’s pretty good.

Farewell for now my dear readers, I apologize for going incognito for a week and a half. I had some stuff come up which left me mentally and physically tired, so the only thing I found time for was reading manga and light novels. We’ll go back to a regular schedule from now.