Love Tyrant

Episode 12

It's been a pointedly rocky ride for Love Tyrant. The show has gone from full-bore parody to gentle satire to just playing harem romance series tropes straight all through its run, and the quality has been a roller coaster along with it. Just the previous episode setting up this finale was a mash-up of dissonant tones so disparate that it was hard to assign a single score to the result. So it's not surprising that this apparent season finale crams in all those elements and then some. Thankfully, it pulls together for this one, and Love Tyrant goes out strong.

Guri's descent to demonhood left the previous episode with a wealth of potential, and this one wastes no time getting down to brass tacks. Love Tyrant's comedy dominates the first half of this episode, with Coraly cheerfully encouraging everyone to go die so they can travel to Heaven, then moving on to Hell in a display so absurd that even Seiji can't bring himself to comment on it. Really, the sight-gag with the warp-pipe to Hell was so perfectly executed, and Seiji not commenting on it showed some solid growth in the series's confidence. Way back when the show first started, one of my main complaints was its habit of over-explaining its own jokes. By now, it's happy to let a visual speak for itself. Love Tyrant's humor, like its characters, has matured a bit.

Maybe it's because so many of these gags have been developed over a full cour, but I must stress just how on-point Love Tyrant's humor is for its swan song in this episode. Stuff like only alluding to Coraly's third transformation, Kami-sama's cardboard armor, or little details like detachable devil-horns are all presented with the right timing and tone, and the result reminds me just how much I like this show's humor at its best. Even the defining disruption in Guri's demon-form façade comes from her overwhelming compulsion to complete Seiji's manzai routine.

The characters carry through this wrap-up strongly as well, of course. Most surprising to me is just how engaging Yuzu has become. She was the first to take an ill-advised turn toward drama early in the series, and I always kind of harbored some irritation for her because of that; the show just took her complex feelings for Akane and developing crush on Seiji too seriously. The attention to her character pays off here though, in her dedication to recovering Guri with Seiji and Akane's help, since the show has developed her strong friendship with Guri so well. Love Tyrant naturally spends a lot of its time ruminating on romantic relationships, so to see a platonic friendship given the same sort of dedication is a unique treat.

Guri's part of the story seems like it should be the most interesting, but in practice, there's just not as much to demon-Guri as the series would like us to think. Her 180-degree work ethic continues to be a decent running gag, but that's really all she has going for her. The series also throws in a last-minute revelation about her being half-demon on her mother's side, giving Maoh his own romantic failings as a motivation for his machinations, but it's all so last-minute and stereotypical that there's no way to really engage with it. Guri's ruminations intersect with some similarly late-game infodumping of Shikimi's past and psychological motivations, but those aren't terribly original or interesting either. The show was already doing fine motivating the characters in the present, so this stuff in the past doesn't add anything.

Once all that is out of the way and the main story resumes, the show is solid once again. There's Akane's absurd entry into the situation, of course (you have to love how much tougher she is than any of the angels and demons in the story's orbit), and everything leads to an expected confrontation with Guri. The actual fighting part of the fight is okay, about what you'd expect from a mid-budget romance-comedy anime, but the actual meaty parts of Guri's final development and salvation give it one last edge. Sure, Seiji finding his dedication to her is no surprise, but Guri's final conclusion is interesting: love isn't just about liking someone, it's specifically about wanting them to love you back. It's a solidly articulated revelation that lays out the even give-and-take that healthy relationships are built on. It's no profound concept espoused by some work of art, but it might make you nod in agreement, and for a silly little anime comedy show, that ain't bad.

Another notch in this climax's favor is that Guri doesn't end her newfound discovery and declaration just on Seiji. Yuzu and Akane are included in her ensemble romantic revelation, delivering on the poly-romantic ideal the show had hinted at a few episodes earlier. Guri also cites both Akane's love for Seiji and Yuzu's love for Akane in her explanation. It's interesting that Love Tyrant often acts as a sendup of the typical harem anime, but Seiji, the sole dude within the orbit of that harem, is actually about as decentralized as you could get in a setup like this. All the girls' relationships with each other (including Shikimi's ancillary antagonism) are given about the same level of build-up, and in this case, Guri's final act of romantic understanding is to extend a welcome to Shikimi into their magnanimous moresome. It's a unique bent for any flavor of romance anime that could only come from a series as offbeat as this.

Love Tyrant's final sentiment is a unique and entertaining one, but the overall structure and quality of the episode was as uneven as the road the whole show took getting there. For the most part, it was a funny series that could keep your attention with its antics, but many times, its ambitions outstripped its abilities. Fortunately, it stuck the landing for this finale and went out on a high note.

Rating: B+

Love Tyrant is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.