Vermeil in Gold – Episode 1

Content Warning: Nudity and Sexual Harassment.

What’s it about? Alto Goldfield is a high school student who dreams of becoming the master of all magic.  Unfortunately, he’s not doing well in his classes and is at risk of being held back a year until he summons a power demon named Vermeil.  She agrees to help Alto achieve his dreams on the condition that she kisses him deeply whenever she runs low on magical energy.  

I’m kind of amused that the series writer Takahashi Tatsuya (also the main writer for World’s End Harem) is involved with this show.  It’s not often I see recurring names in anything I review, but it’s nice to see them again in another low tier show.  Yup, this isn’t a good either folks, and it’s disappointing that there are a lot of flops this season.  

To be fair, at least I knew what I was getting into before I watched this premiere and it delivered on all the gross things I expected to happen.  The show wastes no time introducing Vermeil in her entirety (she’s naked folks, naked) and takes any chance she can get to shove her big boobs into Alto’s face.  Vermeil’s very adult grabby hands know no bounds in regards to the teenagers around her (who are all drawn to look especially baby-faced even for high schoolers), and she promptly used her perverted hands to win a duel against Alto’s childhood friend in front of the entire student body – it was done off screen, but those moans clearly tells me what happened and if nothing else, I’m grateful I didn’t have to see it.

Aside from creepy sexual tension, the rest of this premiere reminds me of every other magical fantasy school based show that seems to be really popular in the isekai genre.  Alto himself is a boring protagonist and his eventual group of friends look like every archetype seen in high school settings.  

Surprisingly, there was one thing that I liked about this premiere and that is the music.  The music used in Vermeil’s introduction reminded me a bit of Coraline and Hocus Pocus, which wins points for me since there isn’t anything for me to latch onto in this episode.  I hope the musicians involved in this production move on to better projects in the future because I can see their potential.  

Honestly, I don’t expect this to get any better in later episodes and it’s clear based on the opening theme that Alto and Vermeil are going to build a bond no one is invested in.  For all of World’s End Harem faults, it at least tried to have a cohesive story, meanwhile Vermeil in Gold doesn’t even care to try to explain its power based system or the world the characters are living in.  I ain’t kidding when I say this is a very dead season so far and Vermeil in Gold is a show I don’t expect people to remember long after this premiere.  

In short, I didn’t like this episode and would rather catch up on my backlog this season.