Seasonal First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about a currently-airing anime’s first episode or so.

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Where does the time go? It feels like only yesterday that I was going over the relative merits of The Demon Girl Next Door—Machikado Mazoku to most, and throughout the rest of this article–over on GeekGirlAuthority. But it’s actually been nearly a full three years. Machikado Mazoku is a product of the pre-pandemic era. And perhaps it’s that knowledge, as much as anything else, that makes me consider the anime to have a throwback feel, for better and for worse.

If anyone’s definitely not feeling the passage of time, it’s the show’s characters. In-universe, only a few days have lapsed since season one’s finale, and the show wastes zero time with catching anyone up. Instead, it strolls on in like no time has passed at all. If you could prevent someone from looking the information up, you might be able to convince them the seasons aired back-to-back.

The core conceit here is simple. We follow Yuuko Yoshida (Konomi Kohara), rarely-used alias “Shadow Mistress” Yuuko, a demon girl, as she attempts to corrupt her ostensible rival, the magical girl Momo Chiyoda (Akari Kitou). In practice, they’re basically girlfriends-in-denial, and that dynamic only grew stronger over the course of the first season. It’s back in full force here, complete with the usual suite of miscommunications.

Supporting characters include Yuuko’s ancestor, the demon Lilith (Minami Takahashi), who is stuck in a statue, and the cursed, citrus-themed magical girl Mikan Hinatsuki (Tomoyo Takayanagi), who plays a fairly major role in this first episode.

What does not play a major role is pacing. While this first episode is definitely funny–and there are a lot of individual great gags–it’s also very quick. Quicker than I remember the first season being, although, again, that could just be my memory failing me here. Most of it is fine, although combined with the haphazard subtitle work (a lot of effort went into it, maybe too much, since I’m not sure literally every tiny “gurgle gurgle” sound effect or what have you needs a translation) it can make the episode oddly hard to follow on a basic, visual moment to visual moment level.

Does this interfere that much with the actual plot of the episode, a boondoggle wherein Yuuko now finds herself living next door to both Momo and Mikan on opposite sides?

Not really, but it is a touch disappointing, and it makes one hope that the subsequent episodes will handle this aspect a little better. Beyond that, though, there’s really not a ton to say here.

The Takeaway: It’s more Shamiko. Most likely, you already know if you want that or not.

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