Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 2

Episode 7

Seven episodes in is a bit late for me to have noticed something in the ending theme, but here we are. Who is that student who keeps fading out of existence and then reappearing on either side of the Misfit Class when they're all in shadow? Even when the light shines on them, I don't recognize the character, and while that could be due to the lengthy hiatus between seasons of the show, I doubt that's the case. Is this a classmate who's been there all the time and no one noticed? Or someone new who's coming later in the season, possibly once the class obtains the Royal One? Given that we saw Keroli's alter ego in last season's ending theme long before she actually showed up in the storyline, it seems like something worth paying attention to.

But if they're coming in, it doesn't happen this week. Instead, the focus is on Iruma's plans to obtain the teachers' seal (signatures) to allow the class transfer from their crappy classroom to the purportedly fantabulous Royal One, something Kalego is bound and determined to stop. He still may, because the episode ends with him as the lone holdout, but he also doesn't appear to realize how far the Misfit Class will go to make this happen, or how crafty Evil Iruma actually is. Neither would be all that surprising, especially since Kalego isn't the kind of person who shows approval even when he likes what someone does. He's been generally down on the entire Misfit Class from the start, and Iruma making him his familiar just cemented his feelings about the Chairdemon's grandson. But he's also operating without all of the pertinent information, because Normal Iruma hasn't really displayed the sort of cunning that Evil Iruma has no trouble calling upon. Iruma's base personality didn't change when he was forced to enter a simulated Evil Cycle, which implies that he's always had the potential to be a brilliant schemer/tactician; he's just usually so sweet that it would never occur to him to actually do it. While people like Asmodeus never doubted what Iruma could do if he put his mind to it, Kalego's general dislike of him has given him a major blind spot, one which grows even larger when you consider that because he doesn't think much of Iruma, it may not occur to him that Clara and Azz-Azz aren't the bizarre exceptions – they're the rule.

That's why the first part of Iruma's scheme goes off without a hitch – Kalego never sees it coming. When he's approached by Iruma and Jazz, he's got two things in his pockets: a notebook and what looks very much like his seal, a carved block used to sign things. Even if the presence of super pickpocket Jazz clued him in as to what the plan was, he fell into the same misunderstanding of Iruma's strategy that I did: assuming that Jazz would steal the seal. Instead, Jazz went for the notebook, a treasure trove of Kalego's thoughts and feelings…which Iruma and Jazz then used to bribe Mononoki-sensei into giving them her seal, using her crush on Kalego against her. That's the basic thrust of Iruma's tactics here – he sends in teams of two Misfits, then has one of them use their underestimated powers in an unusual way, such as Elizabetta being the threat when Lead challenges another teacher to a Clara-made board game (which I'd totally play) or Sabnock apologizing to a teacher he antagonized. It's brilliant and should make others very, very grateful that Iruma's only after a classroom, and that's only because of his Evil Cycle, because if this boy wanted to, he could clearly take over the world.

He's already taking over Ameri's, something he's very conscious of when he decides to play Creepy Shoujo Hero for her benefit in order to secure an official letter condoning his plans. We may all admire how he's going about this, but I have the distinct feeling that when the Evil Cycle is over, Iruma is going to be in for a lot of second-hand embarrassment from his darker self.

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Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.