Can Beel make his first conquest in the human world?
What They Say:
The Great Demon Lord wants Beel to appear on “My Very First Conquest”, and instructs Hilda to film it, but can Baby Beel even make it past the first corner where angry dogs await?! Also, Furuichi falls in love. Is it finally time for him to find happiness?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The break from the larger storylines continues and tis time we get things being pushed a bit more by the Great Demon Lord. He’s mostly been off screen for the majority of the series but the couple of times that we do see him, he’s ended up being the catalyst for things to happen to Beel and Oga. And that happens exactly here as he spends some time at a bar in his demonic region and gets an idea from both a TV and a female bartender that he’s flirting with there that will cause plenty of problems. Seeing the show “My First Conquest” comes across as an ideal thing for Beel to do and Hilde gets instructed with making sure it’s all filmed for him.
Unfortunately for Oga, he has to go along with all of this because of the distance limitation, though he’s not actually supposed to help since it’s sometihng that Beel has to do himself. Oga’s not going alone though as he’s dragging Furuichi along against his will. While we’ve had little real focus on Beel and Oga as of late when you look at the episodes as a whole, going back to them is definitely fun. Especially as Beel isn’t exactly the big conqueror that he should be. There’s some very timid scenes he has early on in his conquest here that’s definitely a little cringe inducing when you get down to it and consider his power levels and what he’s capable of. Of course, things just go from bad to worse with everyone following from a distance, especially with Lamia knocking everyone out with a dart gun.
The second half of the episode focuses on Furuichi in particular and that’s definitely been something fun in the series to date which does continue to surprise me. Furuichi’s life has gotten a bit of a (temporary) turnaround as he’s ended up with a girlfriend named Yuko. It’s got him walking on air and definitely a lighter and happier kind of guy which has everyone else doubly curious as to what’s going on. Because Yuko has some issues, Furuichi does whatever he can to make her happy as he wants to be someone that she can be into. Of course, there’s plenty of misunderstandings along the way and it has a comical twist that Furuichi just doesn’t see. Combining a couple of different tropes together is normal but this one with Furuichi just works perfectly.
In Summary:
Beelzebub has a good bit of fun here that has no long term impact and it’s exactly what it needed. While I’ve generally enjoyed the bigger arcs here and the fighting that comes with it, I also really enjoy the standalone fluff pieces that just has fun with the absurdity of the situation. They haven’t done half episode stories like this often but it works very well since it doesn’t overextend a concept that can’t support it well. Some ideas work well in shorter form and both of these are ideal for it as it lets the humor feel a bit sharper and less worked into the ground. They both go for different ideas and aren’t just extensions of each other and that’s definitely a plus, leaving me quite happy with both and laughing a number of times. Definitely another good episode in the series.
Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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