Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou

This is my first review and I do not intend to give a long in depth analysis for this manga because to be honest it does not need one. If anything this is more of an opinion than a review.

Originally I watched the anime adaptation of this manga a while back and remember it being enjoyable but unfinished because the anime did not adapt all of the light novel. So i went into this manga hoping that it would be a better adaptation of the LN (which i have not read...), and for those looking for the same thing the answer is: it is not.

This manga is enjoyable if you are looking for a typical harem-ecchi manga. In my opinion the characters are more bearable then your average sterotypical harem characters. I will say that this manga is something that starts off very interesting and has the potential to be much more than it ends up being. There are many plot holes and unsettled conflicts. Ultimately it ends abruptly leaving much to be desired. This is not to say that I did not enjoy the manga but if i was told to recommend the anime or the manga to a person, i would recommend the anime. It has more "story" (i say that lightly) and the ending of the anime is better than the manga but still leaves more to be desired.

I know there were not any reviews prior to this one, so I hope i was able to give enough insight as to whether or not this is worth a read.

I really enjoy this series. It's different from the anime in a lot of ways. However, here we are met with a very sped up ending and a lot of loose ends. It's very nice, but if you want a complete story ending with everything explained, you will definitely have to read the Light Novels. Some main differences come early on from other adaptations, and it slowly diverges itself. I have a ton of good things to say about this manga. But there are its bad point too. There are very cliche moments in later chapters that take up what could of helped the ending. It goes from somewhat relevant story to funny side adventure very quickly. This isn't bad, but doesn't help a limited chapter series get all of its story out. Overall, I give this series an 8. If we can get a side story eventually that tells the rest, I would easily raise this to a 10.

Chapter 1 and the tits are already out, wow, clap clap. Let me start off by saying the score is low which does not mean you shouldn't read it, you should it's very funny and has a lot of nudity which not in the review. Anyway it does mainly show a lot of tits, and ass shots and other things like that no full-frontal I mean there is nothing defined in the front otherwise this would be like a r18(Japanese) instead it's a PG-13 because they don't give a shit about showing tits, it's meant for a younger male audience as it is.

~SPOILERS~

Anyway this guy Akuto wants to become a great super powerful priest and save the world from itself, but, when he goes to school apparently there's some sort of weirdo crow smoking a cigar inside a crystal ball that determines what your future career is, in this case he's going to be some sort of crazy ass demonic Demon King. The synopsis for this manga is nothing like it at all, seems likely to be the overview for the LN, beyond that people don't hate him at least outwardly other than they're jealous that all these girls are hanging off of his dick. I mean I guess he is kind of fighting off monsters but he doesn't really do that that often it's more the advances of the crazy ass chicks it's, he never is studying for an exam, and he's not making friends, other then new chick to bang. He's getting hit on by his Android Observer(who bleeds and can die like a human), but for some reason it seems more forced than a "command" shes given, but I see that as more awkward than advantageous. There's no flying invisible naked girl flying around, he meets a friend from the past who can fly but she's never invisible and is rarely naked, well i mean rare in the sense of a nude harem manga. At the end he marries Junko and rest of the crew so that's 5 girls big tits(Fujiko) who tries to kill him/rape him/drug him, midget president of the school(Lily),weird Android(Korone), long lost friend(Keena). When we meet Junkos father it's pretty damn funny because he's drawn like an actual person instead of a manga character and that was pretty awesome.

The art style is mediocre but just slightly better, the story is pretty good but I probably would say it ok nothing too fancy. Trying to describe the characters I usually think of it as character types, there is nothing special or new except for the Demon King guy that is pretty cool, i mean he is a typical harem guy who's always in trouble with one of the woman and the other harem girls are all over him getting him in trouble with the "one". He acts stupid as he always wants to save everybody which again can get exhuasting and very reptitive when he does it every god damn chapter even though he's supposed to be the Demon King and he's got a fucking pet dragon which is so damn cool and they use it so very litttle. Would I recommend this, yes 100%. Multiple reads that's up to you I would say one reread at most.

I don't even know where to start with this series. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is a novel that pretty much tries to force you to like the jerkass protagonist it has, a totally unsympathetic demon overlord who's infinitely more powerful than everyone else in the cast and who's constantly praised by all the girls despite showing no calms on killing their family if he wants to for no real reason. Hiroshi, a member of the main cast who serves as the foil to Akuto, is called "the hero of the story" by many in-universe, and for a very good reason, he's much better written and interesting than Akuto ever was, and he should have definitely been the MC if the author didn't want all girls to be sucking a jerk's dick, which is what all female characters on the series amount to. The series doesn't even know its identity, constantly changing between being dead serious about themes like the freedom of robots to having jokes about high school girls going around with a dildo on their school. The surreal metafictional elements that pop from time to time before overtaking the series completely by the last books is either a curse or a blessing depending if you like metafiction, but one thing is for sure, it wasn't replacing any plot because this series doesn't have any real story beyond "let's have our massive jerk of an MC fight Hitler wannabes so he can appear as the ultimate hero" and being borderline episodic on that matter. Even the bittersweet ending gets worse because the only likable characters are the ones who end up suffering while Akuto gets his dick suck even more, even by GOD IN PERSON! Overall, this novel had a nice premise, but its execution was just horrible and left a lot to be desired. In all honestly, unless you're an edgy 12-14 years old, this novel isn't for you.

Due to a lack of reviews for this light novel I thought that I'd give my thoughts on Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou in an attempt to make future readers understand a little bit about the series. Before I begin the review I'll say that the anime adaption went from volumes 1-6 and if you feel like skipping the parts that you already know about then i recommend starting from Volume 7. In saying that, it's probably a far better option to begin from the beginning like I did.

Story - 8/10 : The premise for this light novel series is one that you'll often see. Sai Akuto is a demon king who has transferred into a magical academy and from there his wonderful adventures begin. This story is built on the foundations of the Ecchi/Harem genre but by the end of the story I felt that the novel managed to surpass its own foundations even if it did retain its unnecesary fan service. The story starts out fairly weakly and for the most part stays like that as the basic school premise restricts any form of creativity and prevents the story from escaping its cliche bonds. The story however, does begin to pick up pace considerably after Volume 6 as the novel turns its attention from a school to a global issue and the theme of a "story" or "fake world". This is where the novel begins to shine and I felt that the writing turned up a notch with the story becoming more complex in the face of more universal themes and ideas. We have an especially metaphorical ending with Volume 13 reaching completely different grounds to the rest of the story in its attempt to convey its ideas and themes to the reader. The story becomes muddled in this section and instead turns towards a view of the world from a god's perspective. It's enjoyable storytelling for the most part and represented a huge change in pace for the series. For the most part this novel sticks to its foundations and only begins to escape its own shackles in the latter half of the series so it can be a fairly lenghty wait.

Art - 8/10 : I've never and will never expect art in a light novel to be anything special. It is not a necessary part of the story and is really only useful in putting a face to a character or creating an image of a scene. Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou however, has some great even for a novel. The characters look great and some of the drawings are plain hilarious with many a comedic scene being converted into art. The art was helpful and pleasing to look upon and therefore gets a good score from me.

Characters - 7/10 : Once again shackled by its own genre, this light novel series failed to create characters that were three dimensional and instead opted to continue along the given path of a harem series and gave us some typical characters with a few twists. Sai Akuto was probably my favourite because he was by far, the most fleshed out character and had a unique way of looking down upon the world. I quite enjoyed having Akuto's view upon the world evolve as the series progresses and his mentally slightly shift in the wake of a far more serious problem that occurs in the latter half of the series. It's his evolution and retention of his former characteristics that make him so unique at the end of the story that he transcends the characters below him to become a truly three dimensional character albeit with some cliche elements inside him. I wish i could say the same of the other characters. Many of them felt muddled and were either one or two dimensional and I lacked the connection with them that I had with Akuto. That isn't to say that I didn't sympathise with them or didn't sympathise with them. I'm trying to say that their cliche characteristics really threw me off from completely liking them. Yes, they are great characters and I enjoyed reading about them but their lack of dimensions meant that they were sub-par at best even at the end of the story.

Enjoyment - 8/10 : Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou was a great read for me. You will hear talks about light and heavy stories in the series and if you've read it you'd understand that for a good part of the series (probably volumes 1-11) the story was extremely light until Volume 12 where the story became extremely heavy in its attempt to convey a message. I think the author mentioned a bout of depression and panic disorder which clearly showed in his writing. This is by no means a bad thing and in fact I throughly enjoyed the latter half of the series. I felt that the sudden shift in pace was oddly jarring and threw me off for a bit before drawing me back in. Overall though, the series really drew me in and held me tight until its final moments where a satisfying yet saddening ending ensued leaving me, like usual, feeling a sense of emptiness at finishing another series.

Overall - 7/10 - Simply put, Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, presents a great theme and presents par if not good characters in a fictional world (pun intended (you'd need to finish the series to understand that one) ) full of magic. It falls flat however in the blindingly obvious shackles of the Ecchi/Harem genre that prevents the story from ever davancing beyond its light theme. That is, until Volume 12. You will find yourself jarred by the odd change in pace but I found it delightfully pleasing reading something that didn't advanced far but sent across such a deep message (volume 13).