Alternative title: Oroka na Tenshi wa Akuma to Odoru
Manga Adaptation by Children’s Playground Entertainment
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Akutsu is a teenager from Hell. No, literally. He’s traveled to Earth to recruit humans to join the fight against the angels from Heaven, a fight which they are currently losing. Akutsu asks a fellow transfer student for help, but there’s something not quite right about her.

Euri’s verdict: Almost enjoyable

After watching some real stinkers from this season, I was more than ready for even a middle-of-the-road romcom. The Foolish Angel Dances With the Devil doesn’t exactly hit the ground running, mostly thanks to some tryhard jokes as Akutsu transfers into a human school, but there are signs of an interesting premise lurking under all of that. No big deal – it’s still introducing the supporting cast after all.

The show makes it very clear halfway through that there’s something up with Amane, a fellow transfer student and the girl Akutsu sits next to in class. As the name of this anime strongly suggests, it’s all set up for future devil versus angel classroom hijinks, and that’s at least a semi-interesting spin on the usual school romcom formula.

Towards the end of the episode, Akutsu confesses to Amane that he’s a devil. She already knows, of course, revealing she’s an angel before engaging in a superpowered fight scene. This was the point in the show that got me on board; a love-hate relationship between these two characters with some excessive fight scenes thrown on top? Sounds good!

But right as I became sold on this ridiculous premise, the show proceeded to pull the plug and drain my interest away.

The show decides to make Amane a massive sadist because you see, she’s an angel, but what if she was the real devil actually? This is fine on paper, really, but what I don’t have an interest in is having this literal child making rapey sexual innuendo as she proceeds to forcibly collar the guy and make him her slave. I especially don’t care for the following scene having her allude to smoking after sex, while Akutsu sobs in the fetal position nearby.

I’m sorry, but it just isn’t funny. Sure, many people are not going to care, and I’ve seen more than a few people online saying this scene is hilarious, but nonetheless it sets the tone for what the show will be going forward. It isn’t for me.