The Misfit of Demon King Academy

Episode 7

“In which we learn our hero's priorities.”

Last episode, we discovered that Lay's mother was a half-spirit dying of an unknown disease common only to spirit half-bloods. While the logical assumption was that Lay was himself a mixed blood, this episode reveals that he is, in fact, a pure-blooded demon. When he was kicked out of his home as a child by his abusive biological parents, a half-spirit woman took him in and raised him. For all rights and purposes, he considers her his mother.

With all this out in the open, Lay's sudden heel turn this episode makes total sense. For the chance to save the only parental figure who's ever loved him, he's willing to throw away anything else. Obviously by joining the royalist cause himself, she gets to stay in the best hospital in the city but that's only the start of his sacrifices. He not only allows them to implant a magical device that will destroy his soul if he betrays them, but he also gives up on his budding friendship with Anos as well.

As we learn from his mother, this is soul-crushing for Lay. All his life he has had to hold back in the one area he was good at: sword fighting. It wasn't just that he was better than his peers, it was that he was overwhelmingly stronger. Then, he suddenly met Anos—someone who he could not only go all out on but who turned out to be stronger than him as well.

Of course, Anos suspects something like this from the start and doesn't blame Lay for the betrayal. He even comes up with a way to treat Lay's mother.

Lay's mother is falling apart because spirits are creatures of legend as much as corporeal beings. To exist, there needs to be some belief in them—or in their legacy at the very least. However, Lay's mother doesn't know her own legacy so it's hard to reconnect her to that. Luckily, Anos has a backup plan.

As a fellow half-spirit, Misa can perform a transfusion of sorts—transfer part of her renowned into Lay's mother. After all, Misa is more than a little famous for being the head of the Unitarian students at the school. Unfortunately, the process is horribly inefficient and trying to do it all at once could not only kill Misa but destroy her soul.

But here's the thing about Misa: she's willing to take that risk. All she has done up until this point had been for the sake of helping half-bloods who need it. Faced with one on the edge of death, she can't stand aside, even if it's the smarter play in the long run. After all, if Misa's dead, that's the end.

But what's interesting is that when Lay discovers Misa mid-transfusion, he doesn't let her continue it. Despite the deal with the devil he has made, he won't let his new friend die to save his mother. This, more than anything else, shows the conflict raging inside him.

On the other side of the episode, we have Emilia. As a true believer in eugenics, having Anos in her class has been torturous—especially as he has managed to outwit her time and again. However, seeing her brother—the embodiment of her pureblood beliefs—defeated so easily by Anos is too much for her to bare. She is determined to show Anos his place in society—i.e., below her and those like her.

At first, her plan is simple: use a loophole in the rules to get Anos disqualified. All she needs to do is make sure that he doesn't have his sword the following day and Lay—a pureblood—will win by default. However, Izabella, Anos' mother, is unwilling to simply give up the sword to her and things quickly go off the rails.

In the end, it doesn't matter to Emilia how she gets the sword—and the thought of killing Izabella doesn't even give her pause. However, at this point, the girls from Anos' fanclub step in.

Despite the fact that he has refused to acknowledge them and let them join his squad alongside Misa, they remain loyal to him. While their love-struck nature may be a recurring joke, they clearly do believe in Anos as the Unitarian messiah—the one person who can give them the families they were never able to have. To save his mother and the sword, they are willing to fight their own teacher—someone who far exceeds even their combined power.

And it is when Anos arrives on the scene, finding the eight charred bodies protecting his injured mother, that we learn something important about Anos: his priorities.

First, he neutralizes the threat, freezing Emilia with his demonic eyes. Then he heals his mother followed by the girls—i.e., healing first the person most important to him and then her saviors. When the girls are on their feet, he asks for their names, committing them to memory. While they were once unworthy in his eyes, he thanks them and lets them know that this is no longer the case. It's only once his priorities have been settled—that everyone on his side is safe and rewarded—that he exacts his revenge.

This is not the first time we have seen Anos torture a person to death. However, this time it is personal. With the noble brothers who attacked him in the first episode, he simply wanted to teach them two lessons—one about not being so full of oneself and the other about brotherly love betrayed. Still, after all was said and done, they were released free and healthy—though more than a little embarrassed.

With Emilia, he wants to leave a permanent mark in addition to the lesson. First, he kills her, forcing her to acknowledge him as the Demon King as he does so. Then, instead of resurrecting her, he reincarnates her in a new body—a non-pureblood body. In this state, she will no longer have the rights and privileges she is used to. Moreover, due to the stigma against mixed-bloods, her family will likely reject her—even if she is able to convince them of her identity.

Anos spitefully hopes that this will teach her what it is like to be in the minority—to see her past ideals for the pure BS they are. But as Anos abandons her naked and alone in the arena where he defeated her brother, something tells me that Emilia's going to miss the point.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• The big lore revelation this episode is that some forms of demonic eyes (like Anos' and Emilia's) can see whether a person is a pureblood or not. That means that it's likely impossible for a half-blood to be hiding in the royal faction—further explaining why half-blooded sons and daughters are so readily abandoned.

• I think it's safe to say that killing eight students (i.e., Demon King candidates) and a parent would have spelled Emilia's doom anyway—especially if some of their noble parents learned of it. They may not be able to interact with their kids but if even one of them loved their murdered daughters, I'm pretty sure a new corpse would have been found soon.

• My first thought when Emilia showed up to take the sword from Izabella is: “Where the hell is Misha?” I guess when Anos and Misa went off to the hospital and the fanclub set out to walk Izabella home, she just went off somewhere.

• I burst out laughing at the incredibly impractical fantasy world umbrella Lay's mother had been holding in the flashback. Sure, it looks cool but there's a reason that, around the world, umbrellas have had a similar design.

• Why is Lay's mother suddenly strong enough to talk today? Probably because her “legacy”—aka Lay—won several matches in a public tournament.

The Misfit of Demon King Academy is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.