YMMV / Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun

aka: Mairimashita Iruma Kun

• Adorkable:
  • While she maintains the image of a perfect representation of what demons should strive to be like to the public, Ameri shows herself to be an absolute dork who obsesses over a romance manga when she's either alone or with Iruma. Her interactions with Iruma, in particular, exude this in spades, as not only does she act incredibly awkward when she's around him, but said awkwardness increases as she develops genuine romantic feelings for him.
  • Not unlike his daughter, to the public Henri projects the image of a no-nonsense security chief who always does what's best for demonkind, but beneath that is a man who absolutely adores his daughter, is extremely protective of her wellbeing, and has been shown to be just as capable of acting awkward in certain situations, such as his first meeting with Iruma, where, due to some choice words by Ameri when she tries to explain how she knows Iruma, causes him to come to the (at the time) misunderstanding that Ameri wants to marry Iruma.
  • Balam is a major Gentle Giant that is obsessed with everything having to do with "imaginary creatures" (translation: fauna from our world), and is giddy upon learning that Iruma is a human. While he comes across as terrifying to others, it's cause he has No Sense of Personal Space and the Face of a Thug, but as Iruma and many others came to understand, once you get past that, he's one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • Some anime viewers felt this during the Battler Party arc when Kiriwo tries to blow up Babyls Demon School. This mostly stems from several episodes where it felt like it was stalling to finally get Kiriwo's plan moving.
  • The Harvest Festival and Heartbreaker Promotional Exam arcs can fall into this due to the simple fact they're two of the more lengthy arcs of the series at 41 chapters and 43 chapters respectively, which are twice as long as the Battler Party Arc listed above. The former in particular retained this status when it was adapted in the anime's third season, lasting for 15 Episodes, taking up more than two-thirds of the season on it's own.
  • The Evidol Games Arc felt like very long filler to some. Adding a Psycho Lesbian that a lot of readers were put off by didn't help matters.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Season 1 opening, Magical Babyrinth by Da Pump, is an incredibly energetic and catchy bop that fits well with the series.
  • The Season 1 ending, Devi-kyuu by Yuu Serizawa, is much the same as the OP, though with less catchiness and more energy.
  • Iruma's personal leitmotif, which is played whenever he's at his most badass. It starts off with a rather spooky organ tune, before introducing a classical rock beat that gradually increases in intensity, eventually topping out right at the moment where Iruma truly shows off how awesome he can be.
• Base-Breaking Character: Chima, Kerori's younger sister. Those who like her think she's cute and find her crush on Iruma to be adorable. Those who don't like her find her crush on Iruma to be rather single note and pretty obnoxious.
• Broken Base:
  • The Season 1 opening theme is a point of contention among anime viewers. There are those who truly like it and consider it to be legitimate Awesome Music, while some people find the repetitive lyrics irritating.
  • Whether or not the series is part of the Harem Genre. As more and more characters began demonstrating interest in Iruma, many debates began popping up as to whether or not the series was actually a Harem Genre series, and if the series was gonna go down the Marry Them All route. Fans for the idea its a harem series point out the many characters that demonstrate legitimate romantic attraction towards Iruma in unambiguous manners like Ameri, Clara, Kerori, and Chima, along with the fact that, after Ameri actually confesses to Iruma and he hints he reciprocates, that Iruma still feels he needs to reevaluate what his feelings for the people in his life that he cares about are, the girls in particular. Fans against the idea believe that Ameri is the only legitimate love interest, stating characters like Clara and Kerori are either more platonic in nature or have other love-interests like Gyari, that the idea it's a "harem" series is simply a gag that even the series pokes fun of, and that even if anyone else has romantic feelings for Iruma, Ameri is the one with the closest relationship to Iruma, and his reciprocating her feelings after her confession means she's already won. Debates for or against the idea in particular can get pretty heated, and possibly ties into Die for Our Ship, specifically whether Ameri is more than enough for Iruma.
• Cant Unhear It:
  • D.C. Douglas as Kalego. Imagine Yoshikage Kira being in a Misfit class after being Dragged Off to Hell and getting annoyed at Iruma and Sullivan's antics or Albert Wesker being a Bird-like familiar and the result is his take on Kalego. On the other side of the Pacific, you'll be hearing Jotaro instead.
  • Also, what if Naofumi ended up like a hammy version of Raphtalia? The result will be Billy Kametz's (and later Stephen Fu's) take on Azz.
  • Is he Headmaster Sullivan or Kiryu Kazuma in Japanese and Ryu/Escanor/Kamina in English?
• Cliché Storm: There are many, many cliches about the premise and setting, and they become especially obvious if you've already read/watched a lot of other shonen series. However, the series is well-executed enough that it still makes for an enjoyable Deconstructive Parody of the typical Academy of Adventure.
• Complete Monster: Baal is one of the Thirteen Crowns presiding over the Netherworld. Disgusted with the Netherworld's current state of affairs, Baal longs to revert it back to its days of primal violence and savagery. Taking Kiriwo Amy under his wing, Baal tasks Kiriwo with trapping the students inside the school and then killing them all with a magic bomb; this would lead the distraught families of the victims to relapse back to their vile behavior out of grief. On his end, Baal incriminates the school's principal Sullivan of infiltrating the human realm as a means of preventing him from interfering. When Kiriwo was arrested and forced to do manual labor at the Walter Park, Baal orders the infamous terrorist organization the Six Fingers to break him out and annihilate the amusement park, showing no concern for the thousands of demons and their families who would be in the path of destruction.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Iruma's Hilariously Abusive Childhood is so over-the-top, to the point that he had to start learning how to survive unfortunate situations while he was still a toddler!
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The alternate personas of Iruma often get strongly liked among fans, even though they never stay in the story for long, and are notably treated as entirely separate characters in terms of popularity:
  • His first persona, Irumi the Evidol, simply involves him as a Dragged into Drag Wholesome Crossdresser, but is decently close to Irumean in popularity due to how she is all about taking the inherent cuteness of regular Iruma and amplifying it into heart-snatching adorableness that can make even the most steadfast demon swoon. Her purpose as showing how Iruma has potential for things outside just surviving fights, such as singing and dancing, also helps give her some inherent character outside Iruma's normal attitude. Her high popularity is such that, when the author decided to have another Kerori arc to give her some character development, she decided to go ahead and bring this persona back, and also take things even further by having Iruma develop a genuine evidol mentality as Irumi, something fans of the persona found both bizarre and perfectly fitting for Iruma's current level of Character Development.
  • His second persona, Wicked Phase Iruma (A.K.A. Irumean), which involves a genuine personality change, is utterly adored for how he had most of Iruma's good points while trading out his at-the-time major flaws, showing just how effective he is as The Leader and giving him numerous moments where he acts utterly badass, which is added to by trading his regular cuteness for a suaver, sexier look and attitude. The sheer intensity of his popularity was such that Season 1 of the anime includes a Sequel Hook stinger for the second season with the express purpose of showing that, yes, the next season is coming and will adapt his arc.
  • The incredible popularity of both personas eventually culminated in the author embracing them, not just giving Irumi a second arc, but also trying to figure out a way to utilize Irumean in a way that makes sense. The way she figured out how to do this involved the creation of Wicked Phase Irumi, combining both personas into one incredibly confident and willful evidol.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Ever since it was revealed that Azz' Bloodline magic is not fire and that he feels reluctant to use it, it was near-unanimously agreed upon that his true Bloodline magic relates to Lust in some way, whether as a Charm Person or a Gender Bender, the second guess usually drawing on another Epileptic Tree that Azz is secretly a girl because of his Gender-Blender Name, due to a combination of his mother's title being "Lord of Seduction", Asmodeus representing the sin of Lust, and Azz' frequently being embarrassed by his mother being flirty, which altogether provides potential implication that he doesn't want to be like his mother to the point of refusing to use their seduction-related Bloodline powers.
  • Some speculate that "Ali" might actually be the missing demon king Delkira, with fans giving two reasons: First, Ali's full name is Arikled... which is "Delkira" spelled backwards. Second, Iruma somehow possesses Delkira's magic, even though he's human and not a demon.
  • It's widely theorized that Wett from the Six Fingers is Soi's missing older brother. The two are close enough in appearance that it could easily be a family resemblance and while Wett has not been seen using the Purson Bloodline magic specifically, he does seem to specialize in magic centered around stealth and hiding. Perhaps most indicative of a connection is during the Heartbreaker Exam where Soi thinks back to his brother showing him a powerful usage of their Bloodline magic while his face is conspicuously hidden. Atori sees through Soi's own use of that magic and attributes it to him knowing someone with similar abilities, drawing a clear parallel between Wett and Soi, and by extension Soi's brother.
• Fandom Rivalry: Has a bit of this with the My Hero Academia fandom. Especially when it comes to comparing two things. 1) Which series handled their primary class of students better? Iruma's Misfit Class, or Midoriya's Class-1A? 2) Which series handled the school aspect of the series better? The latter started leaning heavily towards Iruma-kun once it became clear that Iruma and company have actually moved on to become second-year students while Midoriya and his class of heroes are currently in series endgame content despite the fact that they're still technically just first-year students.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Given the very premise of the story involves a human coming to the underworld and having to keep his true identity a secret out of fear over how other demons will react, it naturally is a common fan plot to speculate on what might happen if every demon outside the present Secret Keepers learns that he's human. It especially comes into play for how Azz, Clara, and the rest of the Misfits might react to learning that the boy they've developed such a strong bond with is something meant to be their food.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Blue Deku" for Iruma, notably for his similar appearance (especially in the anime adaptation).
  • When Iruma goes through his Wicked Phase, fans often refer to him as "Iru-mean" or "Chadruma". The release of the Character Booklet revealed that the author herself uses a version of the former to describe it.
  • Building off the previous nickname, when Iruma becomes Wicked Phase Irumi, fans decided to refer to him as Irumeani(e).
  • Caim Kamui often ends up being called "furry Mineta" to go along with Iruma's nickname, due to both being Chivalrous Pervert Tiny Schoolboys constantly ogling the ladies. Many also call him "better Mineta", due to Nishi doing a good job making Caim into a genuine Lovable Sex Maniac that fans like, unlike Horikoshi doing such a poor job trying to write Mineta as a Chivalrous Pervert that fans view him as The Scrappy.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Outside the Ship-to-Ship Combat involving Iruma, there's a plethora of fans who enjoy shipping Azz and Clara, as the devotion they have towards Iruma while also possessing a Vitriolic Best Buds dynamic act as a perfect source for Belligerent Sexual Tension fuel. Fans of this ship are also Ship Mates of Iruma X Ameri, since it gets Azz and Clara out of the ship harem pool while still having them close to Iruma.
• Genius Bonus: Despite Soi Purson being generally unknown to most demons outside of the school, he's managed to make a reputation for himself as "The Pixie", due to his incredible proficiency with the trumpet. An important fact about his Ars Goetia namesake, Purson, is that "before him, there can be heard many trumpets sounding". In other words, Soi is announcing his presence with a trumpet, almost exactly like the demon he was named after!
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ever since the introduction of Iruma's Dragged into Drag Wholesome Crossdresser persona Irumi, there were tons of fans clamoring, half-jokingly and half-seriously, for the idea of seeing Wicked Phase Irumi, both because of the hilarity and because of how much it might amplify Iruma's natural charm. Then comes the Evidol Games arc, which also brings Irumi back, and amusingly enough those fans that wanted Wicked Phase Irumi got their wish near the end of the arc.
  • This is a story taking some name inspiration from the Ars Goetia. Two of the named characters, Paimon and Barbatos, have a very antagonistic relationship with each other. Not too long after the first appearance of this rivalry in the story, the game Genshin Impact was first made available to the public with its own Paimon as a main character, and when it introduced a character named after Barbatos, both of them also ended having an antagonistic relationship. When Chapter 200 came out a year after Genshin Impact went into public service, and with it the return of both characters having insulting arguments, a few readers noted the familiar names attached to rival characters.
• Ho Yay:
  • Azz's relationship with Iruma is the most obvious one, covering almost all their interactions after Defeat Means Friendship.
  • Sabnock gradually develops a similar fixation on Iruma, but it is more rivalry-based.
  • Mixed with a dose of Foe Yay Shipping, but Kiriwo has a somewhat creepy fondness for Iruma, getting up in Iruma's face and touching him, and even feeling his heart race from seeing Iruma after he has once again foiled his evil plans.
• I Knew It!: Many readers predicted the fact that Baal was Sabro's uncle due to their similar hairstyles. Interestingly enough though, Sabro notes that Baal and his father are not actually related by blood, making their similar appearance something of a coincidence.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: It is very telling that in a show about demons, Iruma's biological parents are the most hated people, as while the demons are morally lacking and self-serving, with quite a few outright engaging in cold-blooded attempted murder, all of them have enjoyable traits such as coolness and sexiness, while Iruma's parents mentally and emotionally broke him into being an obedient tool for their whims, along with being both average in looks and never getting depicted as cool in any way.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Iruma is paired with more-or-less all of his peers, such as Azz, Clara, Ameri, Kerori, Eiko, Kiriwo and more.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Many jokes have been made that Iruma is a long-lost brother of Midoriya from My Hero Academia or Hayate from Hayate the Combat Butler. The former because Iruma's facial features are very similar to Midoriya (in addition to the anime airing new episodes at the exact same time as MHA's fourth season), and the latter because Iruma and Hayate have blue-hair along with both having similar backgrounds that involve having terrible parents.
  • When a non-Japanese speaking fan reads ahead in the yet-untranslated manga chapters and tries to piece the story together purely from the visuals, it's referred to as "Pulling an Ameri," after Ameri's habit of doing the exact same thing with her secret manga collection.
  • It's an incredibly common thing for first-time readers/viewers to comment that both the art style and story feel like something out of the early 2000s. As a result, many have commented that it's like they've time-traveled to an earlier era of anime/manga whenever they watch/read the story.
  • With the anime's first OP, a combination of Indecipherable Lyrics and repetitive lyrics has people asking "Who the hell is Bobby Lou?"
• Moe:
  • Iruma is absolutely precious for a male MC, always doing his best and coming off as endearing. At times it gets to the point where the audience can easily understand why Sullivan feels so doting towards him.
  • Clara, so very much due to her high energy, childishness, and innocence.
  • Kerori, in both her normal and her Kuromu identity.
  • Ameri comes off like this when she interprets situations that are similar to her "Forbidden Books" or in the Human world, Shojo Manga, and after meeting Iruma.
  • Sullivan, despite being roughly thousands of years old, is an energetic demon who constantly coddles his grandson and often takes on a chibi-fied form.
• Moral Event Horizon: Both Kiriwo Amy and Baal are cohorts working to destroy the school and use the casualties to revert the Netherworld back to its days of chaos. Kiriwo in particular practically gets off at the thought of killing several of his classmates.
• Narm: When the teachers surround Kiriwo after his school bombing has failed, each one summons their magic to attack the terrorist, but the anime adds Kalego using his catchphrase, "Silence!" when he calls up his. This takes away from the seriousness as nobody else was actually speaking or making noise in the sequence.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: There are some fans who ship Clara with Zom from the spinoff manga due to their similar personalities, even though they have never interacted with each other before.
• Signature Scene: Wicked Phase Iruma sitting on the Demon King's Throne near the end of the Royal Classroom arc makes for one hell of a defining moment for the series. It's no coincidence that something similar to this is used for the opening of each episode in the anime.
• Signature Series Arc: The Royal Classroom arc where readers get their first look at the potentially awesome Wicked Phase Iruma. It's no surprise that The Stinger at the end of Season 1 to hype up viewers for Season 2 was a glimpse of Wicked Phase Iruma. It's also the first arc where you get to see what the supporting cast is truly capable of where most of the Abnormal Class are off doing their own objectives to earn Royal One. This would continue on in later arcs focusing on the Abnormal Class including the Harvest Festival and the Heartbreaker Promotion Exam arc.
  • The Music Festival is considered the other high watermark arc. Not only does it properly introduce Purson as a classmate (and a rather popular among the readers classmate at that), it involves the entire class working together for the first time since the Royal Classroom arc that culminates in one of the most artistic sequences in the entire thus far when they perform their musical number for the school. Generally when people talk about which part they want to see animated, the musical festival is at the top of the list.
• Spiritual Successor: Some fans think of the series as a comedy-focused version of Rosario + Vampire, as both series focus on a human attending a school full of supernatural beings (monsters in Rosario and demons in Mairimashita) with the threat of death if their true nature as a human is discovered.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: With the exception of Kalego becoming one for Iruma by freak accident, it's easy to forget that the demons have pet familiars due to how underutilized they've been throughout the series. Amongst the misfits in particular, the only familiars that have gotten any moments of note have been the ones owned by Azz, Clara, Sabro and Jazz. And even then, the moments these familiars got were still relatively minor.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some were left a bit disappointed that Kalego remained as Iruma's familiar for the 2nd school year instead of shaking up the status quo by either handing Iruma something else, or having him push forward without the need of a familiar. Part of the problem is that this event was given a 3 chapter Story Arc, and seemed like it was building up to something major, only for it to turn out in the end that nothing had changed.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • While Opera was deliberately made in both design and writing to have an Ambiguous Gender, the fact the only true source of confirmation about that is from Word of God while it's otherwise left vaguely implied in-story has resulted in various viewers, both of the show and of online clips, frequently assuming them to have a specific gender identity, whether it's male due to leaning a bit more on the masculine side of androgyny, female due to thinking becoming the chaperone for the all-girls group at Walter Park meant they were included when Clara exclaimed "girls' time team", or even taking the gender-neutral writing as meaning they're non-binary.
  • Murmur Tsumuru, the Babyls teacher with twin ponytails, was generally assumed to be a woman due to his hairstyle until his first voiced scene in the anime where he has a distinctively male voice.
• Writer Copout: During the Masquerade Deviculum, the author relied on the "phone call interruption" cliché to keep Iruma's secret as a human living in the demon world from being told to Azz and Kalego. Even worse is that it was done twice in back-to-back chapters. At the very least, a few chapters later has Kalego figuring it out himself based on the hint his brother told him that Iruma's human.