By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

This series started off with very powerful characters, and it’s only been adding more and more of them as it goes on. Even the comedy relief crybaby girl is an incredibly powerful archangel, and there are all new archdemons, each of which are, when viewed apart from the story itself, utterly terrifying. As such, it’s rather refreshing that we spend a chunk of this story with Micca, the lowest-ranked archangel, who is on the team merely because the swords choose their owner, and thus still feels like a teenage boy struggling to provide for his lower-class family. He’s a nice kid, and will happily help the mysterious, robotic-sounding maid girl try to find her master despite being obviously suspicious. So of course this guy finds himself, at the climax of the book, to be the fifth person in a battle to the death between four of the most powerful people in the world. Some days you really should stay in bed.

All Zagan and Nephy want to do is have a cute ice cream sundae date, but things keep getting in the way. Well, mostly it’s Asmodeus, who wants to try to make a deal with a somewhat irritated Zagan because she knows that “throw demons at Zagan till he’s overrun” is indeed a strategy that could work. She’s also, like many villains in this series, slowly turning out to be not so bad after all. The same cannot be said for Glaysa-Labolas, who is definitely the villain this time around, as he finds the location of Forneus, an archdemon who might be able to help Zagan, as well as Shax and Kuroka, who are supposedly on their “honeymoon” but in reality are trying to gain his support. Unfortunately, Forneus also turns out to be the owner of the maid girl I mentioned above, so when she and the teenage archangel all arrive at the same tavern, everything gets very messy.

This series tends to run on “very powerful people who can destroy the world are useless dorks when it comes to love”, and no one has been a bigger dork in the past than Shax, who the reader has wanted to throttle many times. But eventually (I assume, the anime only adapted two volumes, meaning it could theoretically come back for 8 more cour) this series is going to have to end, meaning that some of these people are going to have to get their shit together at some point. And Shax and Kuroka look to be the closest to doing so, as Chastille and Barbatos are stuck in comedy relief land (I love that her “curse” is “no, you’re just that clumsy”) and Zagan and Nephy are stuck in Archie Comics-style romance. They both get several chances to be cool here, and there’s even some accidental kinky ear biting, showing, as with every other catgirl in Japan, the ears are an erogenous zone to Kuroka.

One complaint: if the text is going to describe a dead person as “diced”, don’t draw interior art showing them with a bit of blood loss. Beyond that, this was a decent Archdemon’s Dilemma, a series that really should wrap up soon, please.

By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

These books are getting increasingly hard to review, as there’s simply not much that’s left in terms of “dangling plotline” beyond one or two minor things introduced here. Zagan has gotten to the point where he’s ready to propose to Nephy, and has a ring, but a) is waiting for Nephy to be emotionally prepared for a proposal, and b) has to use the ring as a magic tool when battling a demon. Barbatos and Chastille are still trapped in tsundere hell, but are at least able to go out on dates now, and it won’t be long before they manage to somehow get married while denying it to the last breath in their bodies. The only real ongoing new plot of interest is Asmodeus, who, as predicted, is trying to pretend that the whole Lily thing didn’t affect her, but it totally did.There’s also getting spirits out of angelic swords, but unless we meet any of these spirits, I don’t care.

Chastille’s birthday is coming up soon, and Barbatos is *so* bad at romance that Gremory actually asks another archdemon for help, Vepar. Vepar would rather chew glass, as he regards Barbatos as evil and thinks Chastille is being forced into this, but after a while hanging around Barbatos he starts to get the picture – Barbatos is just lame. Vepar, meanwhile, wants a chance to fight his former master Asmodeus. While this is going on, Barbatos is also approached by Astrologian Eligor, who is trying to recruit Barbatos to switch sides and fight against Zagan. Most of what follows is a string of wacky misunderstandings. While this is going on, actual demons have been appearing in the country more and more, and both Zagan and Asmodeus are trying to stop it. Though Zagan’s may be hard, as it’s 10.000 demons standing on each other wearing a trenchcoat.

There’s nothing really wrong with this volume. The humor is funny if you like tsunderes. The couples are cute, though I’m less fond of Selphy, Lilth and Furcas’ love triangle, possibly as I suspect Selphy will end up on the losing side of it. Zagan gets to do cool things, Nephy gets to do cool things. And another innocent kid walks down an alleyway when they hear a noise, which has happened in this series already about four times, and I feel the need to remind the populace about taking basic safety lessons. But while there’s nothing wrong with the book, it’s not exciting either. It’s there to incrementally move things along, but it has the air of “I can drag this out as long as my publisher lets me”, and it’s starting to show. The manga spinoff that just started probably isn’t helping.

So fans of the series should read this, but don’t be surprised if you, like me, feel a bit tired of the whole thing.

By Fuminori Teshima and COMTA. Released in Japan as “Maou no Ore ga Dorei Elf wo Yome ni Shitanda ga, Dou Medereba Ii?” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Hikoki.

If the 13th volume in this series was the big climactic finale, and the 14th was a short story interlude, then this new volume is very much “start of the next season”. We are reminded that there are a few archdemons that we still have not met, and that many of them are terrible people in almost every way. We also have fallout to deal with from the previous “season”, which means that Kuroka has to go into hiding and Foll needs to get used to being one of the main players on the board. And of course there’s also room for love – Nephy’s birthday is coming up, as is Chastille, and the men in their lives are scrambling for the BEST present. Alshiera’s old crush has been resurrected… as has her old husband, Zagan’s dad. Love triangle? Not so much. Zagan’s dad may, in fact, be there to torpedo the one yuri relationship in this series, alas. In any case, A LOT OF STUFF.

After the big battle from Vol. 13, there are new Archdemons galore… though unfortunately, there’s no room for Barbatos, as there’s a missing sigil meaning he doesn’t get to join in the fun. Fortunately, he’s too busy competing with Chastille in “who can be the lamest possible person” sweepstakes to care. Foll, meanwhile, has been designated by Zagan to handle the Nephilim, who regard Zagan as The Enemy but might be more amenable to a dragon girl. Foll is pretty much sweet as pie and also hella strong, so things go well… till an amnesiac girl arrives. Though she calls herself Lily, her true identity is Asmodeus, one of the Archdemons, and a mercenary who will steal anything and sell out anyone. Is she faking her amnesia? And if so, is it right to just kill her?

The book does not really answer that last question all that well. It’s framed by Asmodeus towards the end of the book that she was faking it all along, but given that we even had POV narration from “Lily” that belied that, I’m inclined to believe she’s lying, possibly to herself. She’s an interesting character… but there’s also a sense that we’ve seen her character arc before with different people. It’s even pointed out they have ANOTHER amnesiac girl to help her out, in a case of non-subtle lampshading. As for the other new Archdemon (well, the one who gets actual screen time), he’s clearly not here to be redeemed by the power of niceness the way Asmodeus is, so is allowed to simply be a terrible monster, though his debate with Zagan about what you should feel when murdering something is interesting in a “cool motive, still murder” sort of way. And for all that this book starts off making a big deal about getting Chastille and Barbatos to admit they’re in love, it really doesn’t follow through at all, does it?

So an OK volume of the series, that will probably read better when this new “season” really gets going. Who knews, maybe the anime will have a release date by the time the next volume comes out, and I can’t see this series ending till that airs.