Hataraku Maou-sama

I'm interested and confused by what I'm hearing of the source material.

Emi is something of a fanatic with good reason to try killing Maou, but doing it for that is just otaku-pandering misogyny.

Does it give any more detail on why Maou left behind his villainy so easily? Or whether he could return to it at some point?

He wasn't really a villain in the first place. For the most part he just screwed up.

Yeah. The novels make is pretty clear that he was really just doing what was best for his people and that where things went wrong is that he let the power get to his head somewhat and that he didn't keep his generals in line. It's stated that he didn't even know what his generals were up to for the most part.

Three more novels got translated since then. Man, I didn't realize this thread has been dead since 2016. Anyway, the cast is basically all in agreement about literally refusing to do anything interesting. And Emi has some really serious mommy issues. Holy hell girl Lailah may be a little manipulative but trying to decapitate her is a bit much.

Also, something that's been annoying me more is that it's hard to tell who the hell is talking sometimes. There can be anywhere from three to ten people in a conversation and there's nothing to identify their speech in particular like 'said x' or whatever. Or when it is mostly just two people, a third person can interject without the narrative pointing out it's not one of the two people from before, which takes me a moment to catch on to.

Perhaps I should just check out the manga. Or pretend only the anime exists.

Honestly Maou and Lailah (and Ignora alright) are entirelly at fault. Even if Emi killed them both she wouldn't be wrong. Well, not killing Maou early make her very bad hero, that much is truth. That thing about her farm was bit dumb, but given it was practically only memento she had of her "murdered" father, being bit dumb is not that big deal.

edited 4th May '18 12:50:58 AM by Tenzen12

She had her actual father back at that point. And slapping Lailah is one thing, but intending to kill her is another. By volume 12 Lailah hasn't done anything wrong besides being a bad mother and arguably making a mistake by being merciful to a dying child.

Also, killing Maou is one thing. That's removing a threat to the world or at least punishing a criminal. Emotionally torturing him for her own satisfaction is pure sadism.

edited 4th May '18 1:02:45 AM by Arha

Well, that and implanting said child with idea unite demon race (which leaded to magic deficiency), told him about whole new conquerable world and also is responsible for Emi becoming "hero".

Also Emi never "sadisticaly tortured Mao", she delivered some poethic justice by giving experience same pain he caused to others, he deserved it and given alternative would be death, he profited from it. When he showed appropriatte remorse she stopped and there is no particular pleasure while she were doing so to be seen.

edited 4th May '18 4:21:13 AM by Tenzen12

You have very strange morals.

In all honesty and withouth any jokes, I was actually thinking same about you (no offense, really. I wouldn't say it here if you didn't come with it yourself).

I mean getting away with slaughtering thousands possibly hundred of thousand with only week or two of grieve is incredibly cheap no matter how you look at it. Maou would deserve to get Alas Ramus be taken away from him for real (she of course doesn't, but that's different matter).

When even such discount justice is too much for you, what would Maou had to do deserve punishment at all?

edited 4th May '18 11:50:57 AM by Tenzen12

As far as I remember, even the reason for Maou's invasions were changed as well to reflect the "emotion = magic" thing, which if anything made it even less sympathetic.

This is thing about rulers. They need prioritise own people. War over resources is sort of matter of course. Winner can claim being righteous and I would say Maou would eventually became good or even great king for humans as well, probably better than any they had. But ends justify means only if it's reached and hurt people always have right demand justice regardless of reasons.

There is not much room solve such contradictions...

edited 4th May '18 12:18:22 PM by Tenzen12

Uniting the demon race is a noble goal, even if it had unintended consequences for his people. Lailah's not some horrible monster. She's a flawed person like anyone else.

I don't think I've ever said Maou doesn't deserve to be punished. I said that you shouldn't delight in causing people emotional pain. If he's such a bad guy then just kill him, don't try to hurt him by taunting him about the apparent death of his daughter. And Lailah has done basically nothing wrong. At least not to the extent of cut off her head grr!

I mean I admit I'm way behind on the novels but did Maou do anything worth punishing him for? Yeah he started a war but it's been established that he only did so to feed his people and he didn't order all the terrible things his commanders did as he left them to make their own decisions. Now you can admit that this makes him dumb but I don't think he needs to be punished for being dumb. If anything Urushihara and the other generals are the ones who deserve punishment instead.

He was their commander. Their actions reflect on him. He would be better off morally if he had removed Lucifer and the Malebranch guy for excessive brutality.

Alas Ramus was supposedly taken back to heaven, not killed.

edited 4th May '18 10:42:10 PM by Tenzen12

Light Novel has ended, though not without rage in the shipping department.

I'm going to assume Emilia won and they ushered in a new age of peace and so forth after thwarting the heavens.

Do you want me to respond to that honestly?

Sure, why not. I dropped the light novels anyway.

The summary I got was Emi and Maou fight for some reason. Emi kills Maou then brings him with a kiss. Maou is human now, he confesses to and plans on marrying Chiho. He also throughly rejects the harem option.

Haha what a shitty ending.

This is the, what, 4th romance resolution this year that results in pure flames by the fanbase? Always quite the sight

Edited by Mami on Aug 8th 2020 at 4:42:38 PM

Saying this as someone who didn't even ship Maou and Emi, Maou and Chiho is just a terrible pairing. They didn't have any chemistry and Chiho was ridiculously jealous. Their relationship also completely failed to evolve over the ten volumes or so I did read while his dynamic with Suzuno and Emi absolutely did. I did expect him to be turned into a human, though, given the strong implications from pretty early on that demons are just humans mutated through magic.

Edited by Arha on Aug 8th 2020 at 10:52:02 AM

Well now I'm glad I dropped the novels after volume four or five (Whichever one had the McRonalds girl fight and beat an angel.) if that's truly the ending.