There Was a Cute Girl in the Hero’s Party, So I Tried Confessing to Her – Episode 1

What’s it about? Youki was reincarnated into a fantasy world as a demon subordinate for the demon king’s army.  He accepted his fate to fight against humanity until he fell madly in love with a priestess named Cecilia while fighting the hero’s party.  He quickly switched sides and started a new life as an adventurer so that he could become someone worthy of her.

I appreciate a title that’s honest about its story and doesn’t try to be anything beyond what’s being advertised on the box.  Right off the bat, the animation is extremely bland and none of the character designs stand out at all.  It’s probably the most generic-looking isekai this season with only one redeeming aspect—Youki reincarnating as a demon subordinate rather than being a part of the hero party is actually interesting. The series So I’m a Spider, So What? did something similar in that we primarily followed Kumo’s journey to fight for her survival and only find out later that she’s part of the demon army that fights against the hero’s party.  

Kumo’s journey was tons of fun and it made viewers genuinely curious as to why she and other reincarnated characters joined the demon army.  Why were they so determined to fight against the hero’s party’s allies? Youki’s story had the potential to be better with endless possibilities, or at the very least have a heartbeat to an already basic story.  Instead, Youki’s motivation to truly change his life for the better came in the form of falling in love with the enemy priestess, which led to him betraying his side.  That all happened so quickly that I didn’t even get the chance to process how little the story cared about the actual fight with the demon king and skipped it entirely. 

The priestess Cecilia, herself, is void of any personality and her only function is to inspire Youki to become a better person.  While I know that Youki didn’t have bad intentions, it’s still creepy that he isolated Cecilia from her crew just so that he could confess his feelings.  She had no idea what to expect since all they ever did was fight every time they saw each other.  I wish this story would respect the fact that Cecilia said “no” to Youki, but I suppose we are meant to be invested in the chase since this is also supposed to be a romantic comedy.  I’m not saying that can’t be enjoyable, but that’s solely dependent on how that story is told — unfortunately, after starting off on that bad foot it’s a total snooze fest.  The rest of the episode mostly focused on Youki’s new life as an adventurer, but even that’s explained so quickly to the point that even the series was bored at repeating these generic fantasy plot points.  

This is a complete waste of time folks.  There’s a better fantasy show out this season so I highly recommend you check out Sentenced to be Hero and save yourself the trouble.  This ain’t worth checking out any further.