Anime Revue: Shinmai Maou no Testament

"Beauty and the devil are the same thing." - Robert Mapplethorpe

Shinmai Maou no Testament (2015)

Studio: Production IMS

Director: Hisashi Saito

Licensed by: Madman Entertainment (AUS)

Genres: Fantasy, Action, Ecchi (AND HOW!)

Based on the light novel series by Tetsuto Uesu

Main Cast:

Basara Toujou - voiced by Yuichi Nakamura

Mio Naruse - voiced by Ayaka Asai

Maria Naruse - voiced by Kaori Fukuhara

Yuki Nonaka - voiced by Sarah Eri Bridcutt

Meet Basara Toujou: the unholy fusion of typical Japanese schoolboy and all that is manly. Raised to be one of the mighty heroes who protect the world, great things were expected out of Basara. That is, until his innate ability to banish anything, (and I mean ANYTHING) went out of control to catastrophic effect, causing him and his father to be exiled from their homeland. Fast forward a few years and Basara's father decides to take custody two girls being hunted by both heroes and their mortal enemies, the demons: Mio and Maria. Did I mention that Mio is the daughter of a former demon lord, Maria is Mio's succubus servant, and that these heroes and demons are mortal enemies? Quite the dilemma we have here; what's a newly minted onii-chan to do? Why, form a slave and master pact with the demon using magical S&M, of course!

Meanwhile, in Tetsuo Uesu's head...

Honestly, the writing score could only be higher if this were a full blown hentai. That way, the copious cliché ecchi scenarios would be a little more expected and therefore forgivable. I feel that a potentially great fantasy action series was cast aside in favor of producing a Highschool DxD knock-off, only with 100% more step-sibling on step-sibling action.

I can feel your hate from here...

SPOILER! I KNOW, IT'S BEEN AWHILE! Basara strikes a deal with one of the devils assigned to capture Mio in a move that triggers a nice little plot twist near the end of the season; but even that, along with somewhat decent character back stories are not enough to put the writing score "in the green".

I did call this series a Highschool DxD knock-off, but I must admit that there is one deviation from that series that this series got half right: Basara is not your typical overtly-perverted-and-generally-useless-outside-of-fighting ecchi/action hero. In fact, he and Yuki share a compelling (albeit tragic) back-story of their youth in the oh-so-originally-named "Hero Village" which reveals that Basara is the other extreme of the anime hero spectrum: OP AS FUCK. It's a refreshing change of pace for these shameless little balls of ecchi parading around as anime series, but it would it kill directors to have somewhat balanced male protagonists again?

*Sigh*

Mio and Maria also share a somewhat compelling and just as tragic back-story which starts to come into it's own in the latter half of the season. The thing keeping this score out of the green is the lack of substantial character development on virtually all counts, with the exception of every female character worth a damn developing a deep desire for THE D.

Oh, don't do it... Oh my god...

Production IMS is a very young studio (established in 2013), but it already has some impressive animation in its portfolio which include: Date A Live II, Inari, Konkon, Koi, Iroha., and Ore wa Twintail Narimasu. The trend continues with Testament, and I also liked the creative censoring which makes for a nice visual gag.

OK kids, it's that time of the week again; let's sit back, relax, and let the animation speak for itself.

Not a whole lot to note here. The voice acting is a respectable performance from a respectable cast. The theme song "Blade of Hope" is a catchy little tune, but a little too "J-Pop-y" for what's supposed to be a fantasy and action series. Overall; the audio is fundamentally sound, but nothing particularly stands out in that "OMG, THIS IS AWESOME" kind of way.

Overall, Shinmai Maou no Testament failed to stand out and really grab my interest. Then again; it was also competing with series like The Rolling Girls, Assassination Classroom, Death Parade, Kantai Collection and Saenae Heroine no Sodate-Kata. The Winter season gave us these five very enjoyable anime; four of which have a very strong chance of vying for our 2015 Anime of the Year Award come next Spring. A mediocre series couldn't possibly hope to keep up such a pace.