In a world thats full of magic powering our appliances and enhancing our daily lives there are few callings for an ambitious young soul to pursue... But thats okay because theres only one calling that matters and thats the call of heroism Driven by a desire to make something of themselves and a compulsion to improve the world around them and protect the souls who depend on them heroes train day and night to battle it out against the Demon King But what happens when its over? Where is a prospective hero to go what are they to do how are they to live once the Demon Kings been killed and the call for heroes has ended? Well for a hero in training named Raul there really isnt anything left that puts a sparkle in his heart so he gets a dead end noskill retail job. Hes doing okay but hes not challenging himself hes content to just tread water... Until Fino comes along. Will this former aspiring hero be able to put aside his differences and work alongside the princess of hell? I Couldnt Become a Hero So I Reluctantly Decided to Get A Job is a very long title so its good news that the Japanese gave it a mercifully short subtitle Yuushibuu which Ill be using for the rest of this review. However the production side of things for this anime is somewhat less merciful as its just unfortunate news all around. Yuushibuu was produced by Asread a company that got their start by producing Shuffle but dont worry it gets worse. They also produced Future Diary and Corpse Party two shows I really like that are not especially known for their dazzling visuals as well as Arifureta which I did not like and I genuinely dont remember how it looked. Aside from production assistance and inbetween animation for countless anime over the years none of their primary production output has ever looked great and while I guess Ga Rei Zero may have been an exception to this they didnt produce that one alone. Things get even worse when you look at the resume of the director who is primarily known for titles like End of Summer Legend of Lemnear Plastic Little the Queens Blade franchise basically the kind of anime that I wouldnt quite call soft core hentai although they are mainly only sought out for the nudity contained within. Oh and of course theres a bunch of actual hentai on his resume the tamest of which is probably two episodes of the four episode Kekko Kamen OVA. His most legit works are Arifureta which might be the only anime in his resume that doesnt contain any uncensored fanservice Unbreakable Machine doll which contained a little And Yuushibuu which is somewhere between the two. If I didnt know all of this and you told me Yuushibuu was directed by a guy who mostly worked on spank bank material with only brief tastes of mainstream success I would believe you honestly because that is exactly the vibe I get from Yuushibuu. Okay most of the time Yuushibuu is not a bad looking anime. Theres some action... I mean fighting action at least for now... And its usually pretty cool looking really fast paced and fun swords and sorcery type stuff. It relies a little on the same kind of broken frame runny egg animation that shows like Sword Art Online made famous but not to as egregious a degree. CG effects are well handled and smoothly integrated especially when it comes to magic effects and the occasional monster asset but this is mostly a slice of life anime and its very clear that the budget was not managed very well because when the animation gets cheap its noticeable as hell. There are extended conversations where characters who arent talking just stand there awkwardly in suspended animation neither blinking nor breathing until its their turn to speak. Weird looking physical interactions cheap closeups on walking cycles just about every budget saving trick is here all so the animators could splurge where they wanted to and neglect the rest. The design work is okay but a little on the generic side. There are multiple characters who look way too similar to each other and I think the only character who really manages to stand out visually in any kind of memorable way is the mechanic character Loa. The nudity looks good... Its an improvement over Future Diary at least... But with the exception of the OVA finale episode at least sixty percent of the fanservice is censored in some way and the remaining forty percent revolves entirely around only one character. The world the story takes place in isnt worth writing home about either. It mostly just looks like modern day Japan which I know was the intention but just because it was on purpose doesnt make it look any less boring or generic. The magical appliances still look like normal basic appliances and while I applaud the commitment to accuracy theres still nothing really exciting about it. Sure the demon world looks really cool but we dont really spend all that much time there. Speaking of the Demon World before I go any further there is one question I have to find an answer for Is Yuushibuu an isekai? Thats complicated. An isekai is defined as a story where the main character gets transported to a new world right? Well the main character doesnt get transported anywhere except for some fighting in the demon world in the beginning. Fino is from that world so I guess you could call it a reverse isekai like Dragon Maid and The Devil is a Part Timer? But that also really isnt the same thing because Fino doesnt get transported to OUR world in fact both of the worlds in this show are fantasy worlds... The magical world and the demon world which are kind of implied to have been familiar with each other for an undisclosed amount of time. Is it an isekai if the real human world isnt part of the occasion? Does Fino running away to the magic human world count? I dont fucking know so Im just going to call it an isekai for the sake of familiarity. If you dont like that well I apologize to the six people who get to read this before it gets bumped off of the front page. All that aside this is an isekai anime and its a really interesting one too. Is it interesting in a good way or a bad way? Yes. Its both kind of. I already went over the core concept of this series in the plot synopsis but basically this world has all the comforts and conveniences of our world except it all runs on magic instead of electricity. Thats a pretty out there concept and since the main characters all work in a magical appliance store thats a pretty good sign that youre going to get a front row seat to all of the wacky ideas the creators had for this concept and they had... Some. They certainly had some ideas. I cant fault them for that. When a product breaks you dont fix it by tinkering with it physicallyalthough it does physically look like its real world counterpart they fix it with magic spells and transmutation circles. When a product is defective it basically just becomes a magical death trap that has to be manually deactivated to save the customer and whoever else is nearby. As part of the warranty on some higher end products employees of the store will regularly visit you to recharge the magic in your device and Ill be honest when this concept is introduced it leads to the two best episodes in the series where Raul Fino and Loa have to go out and perform customer service for a family that just cancelled a purchase leading to such a fun exciting and heartwarming series of events that Im not going to lie even if this overall concept is presented in underwhelming fashion the rest of the time its worth it for these two episodes. If it wasnt for these two episodes I would be sitting here saying that this show would have been better in the long run if they had just scrapped the magical appliances idea and just set the story in the real world with electricity and stuff. Thats not to say that this was a bad idea hell it wasnt even an uninspired idea but it was an idea with a very clear ceiling and the writing never really manages to find a way to break through that ceiling. If it wasnt for those two episodes I would question whether or not it was worth it and if just having Fino react to our real world would be better. Going beyond that concept and looking at the wider plot Im sorry but this show is actually pretty dumb... You could probably already guess as much from the fact that nobody guesses Fino is a demon at first glance despite her long pointy ears but believe it or not it gets dumber than that. So what were supposed to believe is that the heroism industry relied entirely on the war with the Demon King to be a feasible career and once the Demon King was defeated that industry collapsed. There was no more need for heroes so once the immediate fighting stopped all the heroes had to go their separate ways and get jobs and Im sorry what? What sense does that make? Think about it even during peace times most developed nations still have militaries. Are there no more conflicts that heroes can fix? Are there no wars brewing among the humans in their world? Especially now that theres no war with the Demon King to unite them all? There are clearly monsters in the human world so why not have the heroes become guardians to protect people from them? Adventurers to explore their own world? The other half of the plot involves Fino refusing to take her fathers place as the new Demon King which creates a conflict with some of the retired heroes who want her to take over so they can be useful again... Im sorry whos to say she cant become king and then strike peace with the humans? Even then maybe the Demon World would have use of heroes. Maybe Fino could hire heroes to battle other demons in the demon world who threaten the transition of power. Hell whats stopping another demon from becoming king? With Fino in the human world playing retail wouldnt that just create a power vacuum back home? Power vacuums do not remain empty for long. They tend to get filled by those who are ambitious and opportunistic enough to seize and consolidate power. But overall I just find it bafflingly idiotic that the hero industry would dissolve overnight just because the Demon King was defeated when a new Demon King and a new Demon Army could establish itself at any moment. What the fuck you guys. I try not to think about all of this and not take the implications of the plot too seriously but its kind of hard when it plays such a major role in the story and youre constantly being forced to think about it. I like the series when its not dwelling on all of this. For one thing I work retail myself and I do feel a significant bias towards stories about retail workers in general... Shows where a cast of characters from all walks of life put aside their hopes and dreams to coexist together in a dead end 9 to 5or 9 to 6 if you get regular hourlong lunch breaks which you should and this show does that really well. As fish out of water characters go Fino is a really likeable and charming ball of chaos who is somehowsurprisingly never annoying. Raul is a fairly well balanced straight man acting as her foil/victim. I like Loa she works well as the specialized veteran worker who knows exactly how to do what she does. The manager has a really fun way of affecting the plot and her support manager is appropriately direct and responsible but less threatening. Again I work retail. Then again not all of it works. Theres some pretty mixed messaging about sexual assault and sexual harassment in the workplace. When it comes to grabbing the butts of female employees in revealing uniforms its apparently okay for old men to do it as long as they get a light semiflirtacious scolding but a drunk middle aged man must be told off for it. Id like to think that all of this was coincidental and the writer didnt mean anything by it because that would honestly be the best case scenario here. Theres a lot about the Demon World and monsters in general that is left frustratingly unexplored and some related plot points get dropped and never resolved. The biggest problem though is that there really isnt anything here that you couldnt find better anywhere else. As an isekai the concept is definitely interesting but Ive seen way more interesting ideas get explored and fleshed out to a much larger degree. As a show where a royal Demonic Figure escapes to the human world to work a normal job you know where Im going with this The Devil is a Part Timer is basically the much better version of Yuushibuu. Thats not to say you cant watch both shows but if you had to choose yeah Id recommend a trip to MgRonalds. I Couldnt Become a Hero So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job is available from Sentai Filmworks. A thirteenth OVA episode is included in all physical releases. The original light novel by Jun Sakyou and a pair of manga adaptation are not available stateside. I like this show I honestly do. Its pretty funny to the point that I laughed at least a couple of times while watching most of the episodes and there are at least two episodes that I genuinely loved. Theres a lot of fanservice which I get can turn some viewers off but its at least somewhat selfaware and it isnt just constantly being thrown in your face without restraint. On the other hand the plot doesnt make a whole lot of sense the unique concept its built upon falls short in a lot of areas and the visual quality is inconsistent at best. The characters are mostly likeable but the circumstances that brought them together are hard to swallow and kind of ring hollow. Overall this show isnt good enough or bad enough to really stand out or warrant much of a recommendation leaving it with the unfortunate designation of just being kind of mid. Still Id say its far enough on the positive side of mid that I dont regret watching it even a second time. I give I Couldnt Become a Hero so I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job a 6/10