The Devil Is a Part-timer! Season-Finale Recap: The End for Now?

It’s hard not to think about One Punch Man when watching season two of The Devil Is a Part-timer! Even though no one would suggest Part-timer! is as mainstream, exquisitely animated, subversive, or hilarious as One Punch Man, both shows gained popularity because of the fresh take they offered on familiar tropes.

Whether it’s an all-powerful devil having to survive in the gig economy of our mundane world or a hero so powerful he kills everything with one punch and therefore is bored out of his mind, these shows were smartly written; offered characters people enjoyed following week by week; were unafraid to focus on the smallest, most mundane plots; and had good direction for not only their action scenes but their comedic ones, too. Then, season two of One Punch Man was made with a different studio, one that failed to grasp what made the original so good, and delivered a bore of a season, one with uninteresting action and a lack of humor. Granted, there were still some interesting lore drops and character moments, but it felt like a setup for a third season rather than a continuation of the first.

That is exactly where we leave The Devil Is a Part-timer! season two: with the feeling that we got some interesting bits of lore and a couple of nice character moments, all wrapped up in a deeply uninteresting and unimaginative season that seemed like filler.

The episode picks up where we left off, as Team Satan stakes out the Tokyo Towers to find Raguel. There is one funny moment in which Emi simply uses her magical boots to fly out to her spot, while Maou and Ashiya take the subway to one of the towers and then walk up the stairs — before giving up, paying money to go up to the observation deck, only to discover Raguel was on the ground floor eating some ramen all along.

Emi, meanwhile, encounters Gabriel, who tells her that the angels are using all their might to find Lailah because their mandate is to avoid a crisis in Heaven at all cost, something Emi and her mother are causing just by being alive. It turns out that Emi is the key to this whole ordeal, being the offspring of an angel and a human, something that shouldn’t be possible since the two are supposed to be very different species. Emi’s very existence is proof that angels aren’t very different from humans, so Heaven absolutely cannot let the news slip or they’ll risk having humans’ faith and, more important, their worship of them crumble. This comes as a bit of a shock to Emi, but not as much of a shock as learning that her father is actually alive and well, and he’s also in Japan for some reason!

This is rather significant because the main reason for Emi’s vendetta against the demon lord was that Maou’s invasion supposedly caused the death of her father. With her father alive, and with the knowledge of the hardships Maou went through and his goals for his people, this might finally be the moment she realizes there is no reason to fight him anymore. Without hatred, the only thing driving Emi might be Alas Ramus, so it will be interesting to see what becomes of her.

While all this is happening, we catch up to Chiho, who awakens from her coma and is quickly possessed by Emi’s mother, Lailah, granting her the ability to fly and to summon a magic bow and arrow out of thin air. She uses this power to unleash an energy wave that covers a good portion of the city with magic, allowing Maou and Ashiya to transform into their demonic selves. In the meantime, Suzuno goes through her own moment of self-growth when she faces a legion of angelic soldiers and confronts them for suggesting a God who preaches love for thy neighbor would approve of killing innocents and attacking a peaceful country. Since she’s typically the most disinterested of the main characters, it is nice to see Suzuno stand up to the angels through her own faith in humans and God.

With the power to gain his normal form, and with the angel being forced to spend money unnecessarily, Maou starts beating up Raguel. That is, until Gabriel shows up and utterly defeats the demon lord. For the big, climactic fight of the season, there is barely any movement here, let alone choreography. It feels as if the animators just wanted to move to the next thing, as Maou loses in just a few minutes and it’s only when Emi jumps in that he’s saved. At this point, it has become clear that the true protagonist of the story is Emi, not Maou. After all, she is the one with the destiny that affects all of Heaven and the only one who can fight. Meanwhile, what is Maou doing? He cannot use his powers, and even when he does, he is kind of useless. Heck, Chiho does more for the plot and the fight than the demon king. Not that it matters much, because in a very anticlimactic finale, the fight is over as soon as it begins, with the two angels admitting defeat and escaping before anything happens. But, hey, at least Maou has a TV now?

The season ends with Chiho being possessed by Lailah one last time, as she apologizes to Maou for saving him as a boy but not teaching him an important lesson — without saying what that is. She says she wants to restore Ente Isla, Heaven, and the demon realms to their proper form and that it is not a coincidence Maou ended on earth, as it is apparently the closest “sephirah land” to Ente Isla. What is the proper form of these places? Who knows, but she does leave Maou with a new quest: Find the Daath of Ente Island and restore that land.

And with that, the season ends. Overall, this felt very much like filler meant to set up a few threads for the future, planting seeds that will hopefully pay off down the line, but without anything vital or very interesting happening. Was this necessary? No. Was it worth the nine-year wait? Absolutely not. But just like One Punch Man season two, it offered some nice moments for completionists who want to know where the story goes.

Snacks & Sides

• Well, turns out there WILL be a future for this show, as it was announced that The Devil Is a Part-timer! will return for a third season in 2023. Hopefully that means that even if the animation and production remain this disappointing, at least we’ll know if the story pays off.

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