Recap: After surviving the earthquake, Emi remembers her past and wonders why Maou is so kind now. She tries to confront him about it but their conversation is interrupted by Chiho, who runs off when she sees the two together. As the group tries to find her, they discover their real enemy.

Jel’s Thoughts: Once a series is over, is three bad episodes too much to forgive? I ask because The Devil Is A Part Timer delivered its first decent episode this week. Just about all my previous issues with the show are still on the table and there were some outright lazy parts of the story, but this was the first time I actually felt interested in what was going on. More importantly it’s possible, and I emphasize only possible, this show may finally be on the right track.

If you’ve been keeping up with my ranting you’ll recall one of my main issues has been the underuse of the fantasy elements of the story. Introducing Maou’s former general and having him strike in broad daylight was the kind of shot in the arm this show needed. I’d be interested in seeing what would happen if all this angel and demon business went public, although I’m 90% certain the people watching will either get their minds magically erased or it will all be explained as cosplay theatre. I also really liked the scene with Emi’s co-worker, which brought in the surprising reference to the Kobe earthquake from several years ago. It was a bit of a blunt force way to introduce the theme, but at this point I’m just happy to see we even have one.

Like I said though, The Devil Is A Part Timer may be steering the ship in the right direction but it’s still sitting in dangerous waters. Another point I keep harping on is Maou’s complete lack of evilness, and while I was glad they tried to address that I’m still not satisfied with the answer. I would think such an important fundamental change would merit a lot more attention than it got, which is to say it got NO ATTENTION. I’ll give them some more time to work on that, but I’m not going ignore how lazy they continue to be with Emi’s character. Her backstory was laughably predictable, to the point when I saw her dad talking to her I said to Lifesong (who was watching with me), “How long before that barn is on fire?” One minute and nineteen seconds later the barn was on fire and a good laugh was had by all. Tack on the silly glowing heart bath scene and the convenient trip down the stairs to keep her in Maou’s apartment and you wonder how this could be the same writer of that nice scene earlier with her co-worker.

For the very first time I am actually looking forward to the next episode of The Devil Is A Part Timer, not because I really loved this episode but out of my curiosity to see if they really can fix this thing. If I had to guess I would suspect our new incoming heroes (assuming they are heroes) will bail everyone out of their current jam and it will be back to business as usual. I really need to see more than that though if I’m going keep doing this every week. For now though, this episode has at least kept me on board.