Demon Lord, Retry! R is a bad sequel in almost every way. Barely a thing has improved over last season, and a lot of its flaws have been carried over here. The action is as flat as ever. The animation barely moves an inch. The battles are unengaging and anti-climactic, especially the final fight at the end of the season. Every attempt at humor feels flatter than a Better Cheddar cracker, and as a purveyor of bad jokes myself, I would know.

For starters, those character designs still lack originality. I originally wrote that things looked like Azuma's Database gone wrong, yet watching all of Demon Lord, Retry! R has made me realize it's more than that. With so many character designs aped from so many different series, everything appears like a weird multiverse fanfic here. Saber from Fate is alive and well here, and she's still called Killer Queen. Aku doesn't look like Rem anymore, but we still have a girl with blue hair and a girl with red hair holding hands like Rem and Ram do in Re:Zero. Kamina from Gurren Lagann is still annoyingly here, and yes I know the character is played for ironic goofs. But I've read enough David Foster Wallace to know that ironic attempts at self-awareness eventually defeat the point. That not enough for y'all? Okay, how about we throw Sephiroth into the mix, but now he's a vampire? How about Oliver from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and we'll even take that furry-slave subplot of his too! And because we can, let's throw in Senko-san while we're at it!

The worst part of Demon Lord, Retry! R? It never felt like it had a consistent and thorough plot line. Akira's goal—finding out how he got into the video game so he can escape it—presents itself more as a premise than a fleshed-out story. In fact, what little story there is unfurled before us as a sequence of events that just...happen. Hey, remember the Every Frame A Painting video essay where they say that a satisfying narrative structure has to be a series of twists and turns and not a series of “and then”s? I'm not sure if Demon Lord, Retry! R received the memo on that because the bulk of the series is a giant string of “and then”s without the proper amount of “but then”s peppered in.

Here's what I mean. In the middle of the season when the aforementioned slave subplot happens, the bird-girl Eagle is driven out of her village and persecuted. But then she finds a safe space in the fishing village! But the guards somehow found out about the fishing village and persecuted her again! And then she's almost executed and then sent off into slavery. And then Akira comes to the rescue later, and there are some fight scenes (and of course, none of them are that interesting). When that plot line is resolved, Akira goes to the woods to meet up with a hooded girl who has lost her taste for some reason. And then he has to fight monkey men, and then he meets up with a vampire, and then, and then, and rinse, and repeat.

What makes this even more of a shame is that all these events interrupt the more interesting backstory behind Akira and his former roommate who made the game Demon Lord, Retry! R takes place in. There are some tiny moments here and there, especially in the first two episodes. But for the rest of the time, the backstory doesn't develop as much as it sometimes reminds you that it's just...there. The final moments of the finale hint at a possible new season where we might see more things develop, but I ask again: who will watch it anyway?

Was I expecting any more? Absolutely not. You already know what you're in for after two episodes. So yes, Demon Lord, Retry! R is pretty bad. However, it is not without some merit. There were moments when things became an entertaining snark fest for me, and a few other redeeming features were bundled in, too. As of writing this piece, it's still the holidays, and therefore, still the time for joy and cheer. There's no reason for me to be a total Grinch here, so I'd be remiss if I didn't list some positives.

First, the soundtrack is decent. A lot of it is admittedly stock fantasy orchestras and symphonies, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't like the guitar-driven tracks that play during some of the series' more tense moments. Granted, it's still very cliche and uses the type of heavy metal you'd expect from this type of anime, but I can never resist a good riff or two. Things jump from sludge metal licks to power metal solos to classic '80s stylings sprinkled here and there. What can I say, folks? I'm a guitar freak through and through, and those few tracks tickled my fancy.

Secondly, there is exactly one funny moment in the season, which happens right at the end of the sixth episode. Akira beats the Oliver-looking dude's mammoth golem machine in the big climax. When Akira has Oliver cornered, the non-diegetic music rises to a climax and then abruptly stops when Akira gives Oliver the ultimate bitch slap of a lifetime. It feels like an attempt at slapstick comedy with the way it's timed and executed, which works, although I'm not sure if this was intentional. But hey, after seeing this show's comedic side bomb on every level, I'll take whatever laugh I can get.

And third—well, at least I made it through the whole thing without feeling like I needed to get a pillow. I remember writing in the Fall Preview Guide and was hoping this new season wasn't a snooze. It got close; but the proverbial cigar was not there. Still, I knew this demon lord anime would not be worth retrying.