Fino has received her first paycheck. Well, you know what they say about fools and money.
What They Say:
Episode 09: “How the Demon Lord’s Daughter Spent Her First Paycheck”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Fino gets her first paycheck and it excites her greatly. Seara then treats the staff to dinner (as she always does on payday) and suggests that Raul accompany Fino for shopping on their day off the next day. All the while, a sinister man sits in the background (the guy who came out of the mirror in the Amada boss’s office at the end of last episode). Will this shopping trip involve some danger?
Fino’s big shopping expedition is to a dollar store where she gets over-excited about getting a points card and other first-time shopping experiences. Fino also gives us an economics lesson, noting how other people’s spending leads to her salary, which enables her to spend which provides money for others (this is all true, by the way). There’s nothing like this in the demon world, apparently. Are the writers secretly the force behind Abenomics? (Just kidding).
Perhaps the most important thing for the relationship between Raul and Fino, however, is an event that might seem small to Raul, but likely has changed some things for Fino. For when Fino goes running off in one of her usual bits of hyper behavior, she almost gets run over by a…I guess you can call it a car, even though it’s being pulled by some monstrous creature? Whatever the case, Raul pulls her out of the way, saving her from serious harm and looking at Fino’s reaction, it may well have had a strong effect on her.
As they continue to walk and window shop, Raul then gets distracted by a sword so Fino wanders off. She gets pulled into a dark alley…
…and comes out wearing a nice dress.
Even Raul the Dense cannot help but be impressed by how cute Fino looks in her new dress. Unfortunately for Fino, she then went on a spending spree buying a whole load of junk that takes up her entire paycheck. It looks like Fino is going to need help living until her next paycheck. After this, however, we veer off into lovey-dovey land as Raul buys Fino a crepe and then Fino thanks Raul for everything he’s done for her up to this point. Have we wandered into the realm of romantic comedy now? Of course, knowing this show it must be time to deflate the mood and the gift Fino gives Raul, a rather demon-favored cellphone strap, does the trick.
Schmaltz time over, things move towards seriousness. While Raul stops at a vending machine to buy drinks, Fino walks ahead. A few moments later, we hear Fino scream. Raul comes running, but it’s too late, Fino was already attacked. She is not seriously injured, but it seems some people roughed her up. Why? They want Fino to become the next Demon Lord. After all, a lot of people are out of work and several businesses (arms and armor) have closed down. Who roughed her up? Heroes (well, wannabe heroes).
The questions we are left with are whether these attacks have anything to do with the sinister man (if he is a man) tied to Amada and whether Fino has been thinking about these things all along, but didn’t want to bother any, including Raul about them. We also have to wonder about the events that transpired immediately after Fino’s father was defeated. Is he dead? How did Fino make it out of the Demon Lord’s castle alive, if there really was a hero powerful enough to defeat her father? In a classic fantasy RPG, you generally kill all of the minions first before getting to the Big Boss. I know it sounds somewhat odd to speak in these terms but think about it, this is literally the kind of world Yusibu takes place in, so it should follow those types of rules (with which the Japanese, from my limited knowledge of Japanese versions of Western-style RPGs, do seem fully familiar). Normally, everything “evil” in the Demon Lord’s castle would have been hacked or spelled to death before the Demon Lord himself was taken down, unless somehow Fino was smuggled out earlier.
It gets more complicated if you factor Amada into the mix. What does a corporation that sells magic appliances have to do with the Humans v. Demons war? If anything, peace should be good for business and business appears to be quite good for Amada. Sure, their manufacturing methods involve the subjugation of demons, but heroes generally don’t capture demons, they kill them.
We are left with lots of questions and one very scared little girl.
In Summary:
Fino gets her first paycheck and goes on a spending spree with Raul. It’s almost as if they’re on a date (and one may well suspect that Seara, who arranged this, wants it to be so). It’s cute to see Raul and Fino awkwardly engage in the courtship dance, even if both parties do not quite seem fully aware of it. Things take a sudden turn for the dark and serious, however, when the couple are on their way home from shopping. It will be interesting to see what direction events take from the next episode.
Episode Grade: A-
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
