Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 3

Episode 19

It had to happen sometime – the human's out of the bag. Ocho may not have fooled quite as many people as he thought during his infiltration of the Harvest Festival (my takeaway from this episode is that Kalego was actually on to him almost from the start and it seems like a very Kalego thing to see what he'd do rather than rushing to take him out) but he did manage to do one very damning thing: put a remote microphone on Iruma's shirt. That means that it picked up Iruma's remark that he's human, so now the worst possible person knows the truth. It's not great that anyone knows, but Kiriwo is just way too excited about it, and that can't be good.

Ocho turns out to have been something of a two-fold villain. He was, as we reasonably assumed, part of Kiriwo's organization, and most of his mission at Babylis appears to have been to see who could be turned or convinced to meet his goals of a return to “true” demonhood. Orobas was merely the means to an end for him, which is what makes the reveal that Ocho is an adherent of the Number Two religion both a total red herring and a very funny detail. It also doesn't say much good about the group, but in all fairness, Ocho seems like he's just not a good person regardless of his religious beliefs. Orobas may just have been a fun target to him because of the assumptions about the whole second place thing. It's confusing why Robin didn't capture Ocho after wounding him, but it's also possible that he took a page out of the black-toothed demon's book and bugged him so that he'd lead the teachers to his lair. That seems like Kalego's sense of humor and/or justice.

Unfortunately, the whole Ocho thing is brief in the context of the episode's runtime. While it's great that we get to the big reveal about Iruma, most of the episode feels kind of pointless. After seeing the various ways the Three Misfiteers' families fête them, we spend most of the show at the teachers' afterparty, which is…let's go with underwhelming. It has its moments, like the torture teacher worrying about offering Kalego chicken because of his fluffy form and the reveal of the bingo prize, but mostly it's just a lot of adults sitting around talking, eating, and drinking. If I wanted that, I'd be watching a slice-of-life show about working adults, not a comedic fantasy about a human at a demon school. The teachers as a whole also aren't as interesting as the students, and while I'm sure that their solidarity will come in handy once Iruma's secret is more widely known, it really does make for an underwhelming episode. I suppose we should just count ourselves lucky that it wasn't a total recap; the brief flashbacks to Iruma's feats could be to remind the teachers of what an outstanding “demon” he is once the truth comes out.

Happily it looks like next week will be a return to the form that originally made this story so much fun, and Opera and Ameri fans should definitely be looking forward to it, judging by the preview. I do like that the series occasionally introduces serious overarching elements, but this episode just didn't balance its various pieces as well as it usually does.

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Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.