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[An Archdemon
AKA: 魔王の俺が奴隷エルフを嫁にしたんだが、どう愛でればいい? (Maō no Ore ga Dorei Elf o Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dō Medereba Ii?)
Genre: Fantasy, romance
Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 24 minutes each
Distributor: Currently available streaming on crunchyroll.
Content Rating: PG-13 (Violence, mature situations, mild fanservice.)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness.
Notes: Based on the light novel series by Fuminori Teshima, illustrated by COMTA, published by Hobby Japan under their HJ Bunko imprint.
Rating:

An Archdemon's Dilemma: How To Love Your Elf Bride

Synopsis

Zagan is a powerful sorcerer, albeit a somewhat unknown one among the community, yet he is still one of the potential candidates to become the next archdemon among the 13 after the death of former archdemon Marchosias. Still, on the urging of his "best friend" Barbatos, Zagan attends an auction where Marchosias's items go under the hammer, and that's where he meets Nephelia. The last "item" of the day in a world where humanoid beings are used as sacrifices, Nephy (as she's usually referred to) still manages to completely steal Zagan's heart. And so he spends his entire fortune on her, only to find out that, while he is a great sorcerer, he has absolutely no idea how to talk to or interact with girls.


Review

The setup for this show might be one of the most rudimentary romantic angles you can think of, but Archdemon's Dilemma is still a pretty generic power fantasy at its core.

I don't particularly want to be mean towards this show, but Zagan is honestly like a personification of a chuunibyou personality. He's young, pretty much acting like a teenager, but he is of course an unparallelled magician because... well, because. Archdemon's Dilemma does try to give him a backstory; of him as a child living in extreme poverty in a world that is pretty crapsack as worlds go. He is never short of a snappy retort, and while he does save people from robbers or other sorcerers twice over, he nevertheless feels he has to sound like a supervillain. And that's not even going into the whole aspect of being an Arch Demon; the absolute bombardment of self-important dialogue you'll have to endure. In some respect, Zagan sounds like Diablo from How Not To Summon a Demon Lord, and it wouldn't surprise me if Archdemon's Dilemma took a few inspirations from said show. That includes Zagan's absolute inability to talk to someone in a normal way, particularly a girl and particularly squared if that girl is Nephy, the elf Zagan immediately started crushing on. Thing is, while Diablo had his villain-type speech simply because he had no idea how to interact with people normally, Zagan does. He just has this incessant need to sound like an unfeeling bastard at all times, although at least part of that comes out of necessity. Crapsack world and all that, as I'll go more into later, but it's because of that image he tries to hold so hard on to that makes him so unprepared for Nephie's kindness or any sudden bursts of grace he himself has to show, which immediately sends him into a panic filled with internal monologues.

As for Nephy herself, the show makes no mention of which kind of elf she is, or even if this world has different races of elves. Like Zagan, her backstory is anything but happy. As it turns out, she is also in posession of incredibly powers, which made the other elves in her village ostracise her. And then her home was raided by slavers, hence how she ended up as a prize in an auction. While she seems rather emotionless at first, living in Zagan's castle and being allowed some measure of peace eventually brings her out of her self-imposed walls. And, as it turns out, her personality is very soft-spoken and servile, as she quickly takes up the mantle of being the castle maid. In fairness, Zagan does want -- and encourage -- her to study magic as well. It's still all part and parcel of the whole wish fulfillment deal, chuunibyouness and all.

Continuing the thematics of crapsack worlds, Zagan and Nephie's pasts aren't the only indications. Zagan's "buddy" Barbatos the Purgatory -- they do love giving themselves titles; Kimaris the Black Blade, Gremory the Enchantress, Valefor the Apparition... and so it goes on -- can hardly shut up about how he's going to misuse and abuse lives for the sake of his ambition. In a weird twist, his introduction as a twisted psychopath just gives the comedic moments later on an extra kick, as he questions Zagan's callousness and inhumanity with the most audacious lack of self awareness. Or maybe "Barbatos the Purgatory" really is all words, which is appropriate for An Archdemon's Dilemma. Having watched the dub, Barbatos's English voice also absolutely nails the character, particularly during the latter half of the series.

And if the regular people don't catch the interest of sorcerers, there is still the great risk of being robbed and killed by bandits should they venture out of town. The church is also a player in the grand sceme of things, and not necessarily for good. There is no doubting Chastille's heart, though. Put to use as an agent of the church and wielding one of their holy blades, she still tries her best to make the world a better place for just about everyone involved. Seeing her serve as a victim for Zagan to save is a bit odd, until I realized it was mostly so that Chastille couldn't just hunt him down and kill him later in the show, but that still doesn't make any sense. When we first see her, she acts like the most stereotypical damsel ever, and then an episode or two later, she's a very capable warrior. It makes no sense, because either she has no combat training whatsoever, which would make the initial scene make more sense. But that would mean that her fighting abilities later on is solely based on the powers of her sword, which... well, just feels off somehow. There is some talk about how the sacred swords choose their wielders, but if they can and do choose noncombatants as their preferred wielders, that would mean that said sacred swords are either malicious or stupid. Or maybe she has had enough combat training and field experience to be promoted to knighthood, which means that the scene where our evil side red shirt goes into detail about what he wants to do to Chastille... well, her reaction to that makes no sense either. Even considered the fact that a lot of the comedy in this show is centered around making her cry comedically big tears.

Past the halfway point, we are also introduced to new characters. First one is For, a young dragon girl who finds herself in Zagan's castle, and through circumstances finds herself as the newest member of the family. The show doesn't really explain the wheres and whys, but she spends most of her time in the form of a little girl, with the horns on her head being the only constant indication of her draconic origins. She seems to be completely in control of her abilities, though, as she will often sprout wings and a tail. By and large, however, she acts like a little girl, because that's exactly what she is. Then there is Raphael, the Lord of the Holy Knights, and a particularly devoted one at that. With the church being the absolute primal threat against the sorcerer kingdoms and also dragons like For, Raphael comes across as a complete lunatic at first, but given the general tone of the show and its complete inability to be quiet about plot-based suspicions so far in the show, you have to be completely not paying attention to anything going on not to start picking apart the happenings so far. Early rumors has it he has even partaken in dragon flesh, which is a very un-church-like thing to do, but the show even presents some allusions to this through For's own tragic backstory, because... y'know, crapsack world. Did I mention that earlier? But oh, while we do indeed see Raphael hunched over next to the bloody part of a dragon's corpse, we never really see him eat anything, much less having been the one inflicting the wound. An Archdemon's Dilemma looks like it wants us so bad to come to the wrong conclusion, but it also can't help itself setting up the scenes in a way that makes us feel all smart for having figured it all out before the big revelations.

Archdemon's Dilemma's moralizing is honestly kind of cloying at times. The problem is that the show frontloads all of this with dialogue, and pretty trite one at that. The amount of "as you know", and "this isn't right" lecturing it throws at your feet is frustrating to listen to. Even when the show tries to be cute, the monologuing can get a bit insufferable. It's not a complete loss, though. Zagan panicking and overthinking things can get amusing at times. Whenever he and Nephy keeps the chatter to a minimum, they do share some surprisingly sweet moments, only really tempered by the fact that Nephie is wearing a slave collar. Honestly, I wonder if this show would have been better off just being a straight-laced romance without all this posturing nonsense. And, of course, the slave collar. In fact, I almost had my hopes up when the show actually removed it from Nephie's neck, only to put it back on a few episodes later. Just... why?! Archdemon's Dilemma, if you need a stand-in for an engagement ring, why not use an actual ring?

My stance on this being better off as a straight-laced comedy mostly comes from how this show is flip-flopping in tone and content. The title itself is already a spoiler of its own, but Zagan's ascencion to becoming an Arch Demon happens pretty early, and doesn't really have much to do with anything anyway, at least for the remainder of this season. Newer characters and plot revelations quickly fall into place in a somewhat predictable fashion (as mentioned earlier), despite the few attempts the show makes in obfuscating the twists. I called it too many times, even when I wanted to be wrong. You just don't do that.

There's also the fact that, while the villainized speech patterns of How Not to Summon a Demon Lord's Diablo worked because of his situation, Zagan's tough guy talk comes across as more obnoxious than anything else, mostly because he does this all the time, particularly during confrontations. Aggravatingly, An Archdemon's Dilemma has genuinely nice moments from time to time. Being a child, we're mostly spared the show's pompous dialogue whenever For is running the show, and even Zagan has it in himself to show understanding whenever he's dealing with her and her circumstances. His adoption of her was genuinely one of the sweetest moments in the entire show, and while his relationship with Nephie is.... very traditional at best, it would have been far more tolerable if they hadn't made the slave collar into a symbol of engagement, because I refuse to believe the original creator doesn't understand the unfortunate implications to this choice, even if she was the one to suggest it.

In the end, An Archdemon's Dilemma is honestly more irritating than cute. For arrived a little bit too late in the show to save it, and while I do appreciate its moment of fun and heartwarming, this is yet another case of "too little, too late". Maybe future seasons, if any, can salvage things somewhat. Stranger things have certainly happened before. But until that time, my rating shall be as such.

A few sweet moments drowned in posturing and the indecisiveness of wanting to be mysterious and also not wanting the audience to feel like they can't figure things out.Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: The show is fairly violent, but not in a particularly direct way save a few times. The topics of dialogue does sometimes stray towards the many terrible things that can be done with the less fortunate, although that too doesn't get too into specific detail. There is also some mild fanservice, although the only ones that comes to mind is when Zagan takes Nephie clothes-shopping and the proprietor of the store puts her into a rather... interesting outfit as her first choice, or in the very beginning where Chastille is attacked by a magician who decides to underscore the situation by cutting up the front of her dress to show her underwear, because when you're attacking a caravan, you're required to do this by law or something.



Version(s) Viewed: Digital stream courtesy of crunchyroll.
Review Status: Full (12/12)
An Archdemon's Dilemma: How To Love Your Elf Bride © 2024 Brain's Base.
 
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