Amid a busy year for anime, whether it beremade classicsor brand new tales ofmagicalandfighting people,Daemons of the Shadow Realmhas been there as a reliable Saturday fixture from spring to fall. Despite some pacing lulls and a bit of imbalanced character economy, the debut season ended strong and in such a place that its recent season two renewal is both expected and much deserved.
Within the first dozen episodes,Daemons set up several plates for itself to spin, from Yuru and Asa’s predestined powers and the clans warring over them to the various dynamics of everyone caught up in that battle. It’s good, then, that the show developed a nice habit early on of explaining (or reestablishing) its mythology and how characters intertwine with one another. By shonen standards, the show’s cast now likely equals many anime in their first season, but there remains a good number of people to keep track of. A lot of them are clustered in the same location, but frequent check-ins are nonetheless helpful and in some cases, make for some surprising swerves.
Some episodes are better at this than others, but they all reinforce the show’s theme of family that Bones and mangaka Hiromu Arakawa are interested in playing with. The idea of found family runs throughDaemons of the Shadow Realm,but the show isn’t interested in propping that up over blood family or vice versa. Instead,it’s more interested in presenting how either can shape a person and what happens when those two types of life unexpectedly collide.
This idea is best embodied in Yuru, who barely has time to adjust to his new status quo before circumstances lead to younger characters being thrown into his orbit. Unlike Yuru, Ryu (the half-brother of Yuru’s handler Dera) and Azami (one of the kids from his village) have no supernatural powers to speak of, they’re just normal kids now involved by association. Ryu and Azami being around puts Yuru into a big brother role he otherwise can’t have with Asa, and while these aren’t major threads at the moment, there’s definitely something to come from this dynamic, even if it’s just more gags about him acclimating to the modern world.
In general, the show’s pretty good about who’s used for comedy and how—it’s just so much fun seeing comparably normal supporting characters like Hana and Haruo react to the weirdos in their respective circles—but makes sure its cast exists to represent the ideas it wants to explore. Through minutes-long flashbacks or conversations that linger on a photograph, these moments help and largely succeed at illustrating where characters are coming from. No one’s had a truly surprising backstory, but their pasts are revealed to be sad enough without being overly grim, and a few end up being moving in their own way.
For as many characters operate in different shades of “good,” it’s a bit surprising Daemons has so few actual antagonists right now. Whereas FullMetal Alchemist (which was also written by Hiromu Arakawa) established many of its chief villains early on, this show really only has the one, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Introduced early in the first half, Ivan Yosano makes for a fun bad guy a show of this type needs. However intentional this was on Arakawa’s end, he’s the perfect marriage ofFullMetalvillains Kimblee and Wrath, and his mouthy sword daemons give him a different, more demonic energy than other daemon wielders shown thus far. With a mini-arc in the second half devoted in part to him, Ivan gets plenty of time to show how much of a problem he can be for everyone else and makes for some of the best action and narrative beats.
Bones is clearly having fun when characters like him and Kagemori leader Gonzo show out with their daemons, and they’re admittedly worth the investment. It’s just unfortunate that at times, it feels like Asa gets lost amid the shuffle; despite being in most of the episodes, the show isn’t always interested in exploring her life as a Kagemori agent or her own person generally as it is showing off her always-on love for her brother.
These moments are fun, and Asa’s voice actors Yume Miyamoto and Molly Zhang sell each beat, it just feels like the season’s not fully invested in her until it’s nearly over. Even with a flashback revealing the circumstances of Asa receiving her Break power and losing her eye, it can feel like she’s a bit out of step with the others narratively, though that gap does shorten whenever she’s allowed to bounce off of Yuru or Gabby or her scenes deliberately mirror her brother’s. To the question of “Can Yuru accept this girl is actually his sister?,” the show lands that plane quite well, and hopefully they’re on screen together more often next season.
If only that were the actual finale. For as good as the last three episodes are, they feel more like preparation for what’s next in the way new characters are introduced and further expansions of the world are teased out. They don’t take away from how solidDaemons of the Shadow Realmhas been, but they will make you feel like you’re getting an early tease of what’s next to come. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we see where things go next.
The complete first season of Daemons of the Shadow Realm is available on Crunchyroll.
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