The Spring 2021 Manga Guide

I Was a Bottom-Tier Bureaucrat for 1,500 Years, and the Demon King Made Me a Minister

What's It About? 

In this spinoff story of I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, enjoy Beelzebub's misadventures in her early days as the demon Minister of Agriculture, after she was promoted from entry-level office worker right to the top!

I Was a Bottom-Tier Bureaucrat for 1,500 Years, and the Demon King Made Me a Minister is based on a spin-off novel of Kisetsu Morita's I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level series. The manga is drawn by Meishi Murakami and Yen Press released its first volume both digitally and in print for $8.99 and $15.00 respectively

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

If there's anything that this manga with its lengthy title suffers from (apart from the lengthy title), it's that it just doesn't do all that much to be interesting. In fact, I had the same basic reaction to it – mildly amused boredom – that I had to I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, so it was no great surprise to find that it's actually spun-off from that other series. That should tell you whether or not you're likely to enjoy this book, because they follow the same story-telling formula: a young-looking woman does one repetitive task over a long period of time, and then something suddenly changes. Whereas the immortal witch of Slimes suddenly acquired apprentices/roommates, Beelzebub spends 1500 years as a low-level office drone before being suddenly promoted to Minister of Agriculture by the new demon king. (Who is a woman; “king” appears to be taking on a gender-neutral sense in manga.) Now she's got a job she didn't want, a fancy new manor house she didn't need, and two secretaries who may or may not be more trouble than they're worth.

Once all of this is established in the first chapter, things basically stagnate. Beelzebub learns to dress and talk the part and gets sought out by King Pecora (who seems to have a thing for her) and otherwise carries out her duties – audits, paperwork, lunches…not exactly a thrill a minute. In one chapter her parents, who are country greengrocers, do come up for a visit, and it is rather more entertaining as they both speak in a near-unintelligible rural dialect that even Beelzebub can't quite parse at times. Even if they're doing this on purpose (and I can attest to this being considered an excellent gag to play on people from away) it's really pretty funny, especially when her dad translates a three-word sentence into three full paragraphs of meaning. There's also a great gag about Pecora and Beelzebub meeting a human on a mountaintop as he searches for the one flower that can, specifically, cure a childhood friend who is dying of an illness, only for Beelzebub to realize that the plant grows just fine in fields. The story is at its best when it's playing at being self-aware.

At the end of the day, “harmless” is probably the best way to describe this book, although I admit to almost wanting to go with “toothless.” It isn't bad, but it also isn't all that interesting either.