If I had a central tenet that radiates throughout my life as a floodlight would to a wayward invasion fleet, it would be that there is always at least one harem anime worth watching each season. Watching all the harem anime that come out in a given season isn't for everyone. It's a life filled with Freezings, Maken-kis and School Days, but without it one mightn't experience the D-Frags, Outbreak Companies, and No Game No Lives. Sure one could just wait for the season to finish and look up reviews and the like, but it's the journey through the toxic wastes that makes the discovery of something like Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo so much more satisfying. So in some ways you could say I might admire Shinmai Maou no Testament to an extent...except that you can't.
So let's start with what the anime does right—it's first episode. By the end of the first episode I was intrigued. It was a great piece of exposition: I wanted to know more about Basara's banishment from the village of heroes, I wanted to know more about how the politics of the demon underworld worked and I was interested in how it was going to deal with morality with a sucubus and demon lord as the protagonists. It was a good bait-and-switch episode that played with my expectations and made me want to watch more. So I did. Then Basara and his new sister formed a pact that placed Master-Slave relationship on the two of them which causes the latter to fall under a 'aphrodisiac curse' if they disobey. It's like going into a rundown fifties diner, expecting a greasy burger cobbled together from a myriad of mystery meats only to be greeted by a wafting smell worthy of a five-star restaurant accompanied by the satisfying snap of hot oil. Then you're served the dish and, not only it not the gourmet burger you thought you smelt, it's slathered with engine oil and hard enough to fool an archeologist into thinking it a fossil.
At this point my motivation for pushing through this show was making this review and a slight case of masochism. The next few episodes stomped on and cremated my hopes for an interesting take on morality (as far fetched as they were), as we are introduced the hero clan—who wants to kill Basara's new sister for her being the heir to the position of lord of all demons. Instead of, I don't know, making a case for the lesser of two evils (where the lesser is exponentially less evil than the greater) Basara and company make some weak-sauce argument that one would expect to find on the site of the Flat Earth Society and leads to another battle. The good guys win and Basara gets to keep his childhood-friend-turned-harem-member who wants to enter the Master-Slave relationship—because of course she does.
Perhaps you might be thinking 'This sounds stupidly fun! Let's crack open a couple cans and have a laugh!'. There's a miniscule chance I might've done so myself if not for the whole attempted rape arch. See, the attempted rape trope is something I could have hung from the gallows tomorrow and not lose a wink of sleep over. See in and of itself I have no problem with attempted rape...wow that came out wrong. *Ahem* As a plot device, I have no problem with attempted rape. Theoretically it can be implemented well and develop character, provide valuable commentary, etc. Yet tell me—how often does that actually happen? With how often I see it popping up, I'd argue too much. Too often it's used as a throwaway gimmick to establish a quick 'knight in shining armor' moment for the protagonist, get the audience behind hating a particular villain without doing any work, or as a way to pander to a demographic they really shouldn't be pandering to in the first place.
Testament manages to do all three! There's gotta be an award for that, let me see...
In summary, Shinmai Maou no Testament is not worth watching. It stops one step short of being used in the Ludovico Technique.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this anime, congratulations on making it this far or scrolling down the page. It's getting another season this fall—for worse—so there's that. I'd love it if you would favorite, share or follow me.
Afterword:
So I found this channel called douchebagchoclat, which is a channel which does a segment called 'Should You Watch', so I'm going to change what I'm doing to 'Is X worth watching'. Not that I think it's going to matter (I mean seriously, this blog gets about 100 views a week—tops), but better safe than sorry.
 |
| No pandering |
So let's start with what the anime does right—it's first episode. By the end of the first episode I was intrigued. It was a great piece of exposition: I wanted to know more about Basara's banishment from the village of heroes, I wanted to know more about how the politics of the demon underworld worked and I was interested in how it was going to deal with morality with a sucubus and demon lord as the protagonists. It was a good bait-and-switch episode that played with my expectations and made me want to watch more. So I did. Then Basara and his new sister formed a pact that placed Master-Slave relationship on the two of them which causes the latter to fall under a 'aphrodisiac curse' if they disobey. It's like going into a rundown fifties diner, expecting a greasy burger cobbled together from a myriad of mystery meats only to be greeted by a wafting smell worthy of a five-star restaurant accompanied by the satisfying snap of hot oil. Then you're served the dish and, not only it not the gourmet burger you thought you smelt, it's slathered with engine oil and hard enough to fool an archeologist into thinking it a fossil.
 |
| See, I could include more screenshots of this anime or I could tell you about better Harem anime...this is D-Frag—watch it. |
At this point my motivation for pushing through this show was making this review and a slight case of masochism. The next few episodes stomped on and cremated my hopes for an interesting take on morality (as far fetched as they were), as we are introduced the hero clan—who wants to kill Basara's new sister for her being the heir to the position of lord of all demons. Instead of, I don't know, making a case for the lesser of two evils (where the lesser is exponentially less evil than the greater) Basara and company make some weak-sauce argument that one would expect to find on the site of the Flat Earth Society and leads to another battle. The good guys win and Basara gets to keep his childhood-friend-turned-harem-member who wants to enter the Master-Slave relationship—because of course she does.
 |
| It's not a harem, but it is fantastic. It's called World Conquest Zvezda Plot, it has a name in Japanese and you should watch it. |
Perhaps you might be thinking 'This sounds stupidly fun! Let's crack open a couple cans and have a laugh!'. There's a miniscule chance I might've done so myself if not for the whole attempted rape arch. See, the attempted rape trope is something I could have hung from the gallows tomorrow and not lose a wink of sleep over. See in and of itself I have no problem with attempted rape...wow that came out wrong. *Ahem* As a plot device, I have no problem with attempted rape. Theoretically it can be implemented well and develop character, provide valuable commentary, etc. Yet tell me—how often does that actually happen? With how often I see it popping up, I'd argue too much. Too often it's used as a throwaway gimmick to establish a quick 'knight in shining armor' moment for the protagonist, get the audience behind hating a particular villain without doing any work, or as a way to pander to a demographic they really shouldn't be pandering to in the first place.
Testament manages to do all three! There's gotta be an award for that, let me see...
In summary, Shinmai Maou no Testament is not worth watching. It stops one step short of being used in the Ludovico Technique.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this anime, congratulations on making it this far or scrolling down the page. It's getting another season this fall—for worse—so there's that. I'd love it if you would favorite, share or follow me.
Afterword:
So I found this channel called douchebagchoclat, which is a channel which does a segment called 'Should You Watch', so I'm going to change what I'm doing to 'Is X worth watching'. Not that I think it's going to matter (I mean seriously, this blog gets about 100 views a week—tops), but better safe than sorry.
