Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today it seems past time that we check back in on The Demon Girl Next Door, and make sure Shamiko hasn’t fallen into a pit or been cornered by a scary dog or something. It really doesn’t take much to best our local demon girl; really, if you leave her to her own devices for a few days, she’s liable to best herself somehow.

Fortunately, Shamiko now has Momo to protect her, and the two have been getting along better than ever. In spite of being allegedly destined foes, their burgeoning friendship seems to be the most rewarding element of either of their lives at the moment. That’s not too surprising; with each of them feeling poorly represented by their assigned identities, the only person they can actually relate to is their equally miscast counterpart. The very system that’s supposed to build them into rivals is instead forcing them to find common solidarity, making for a natural commentary on the inherent injustice of this system (and through their class disparity, further tethering that commentary to the caste systems of the real world). But beyond that themey-wemey stuff, the two are also just ridiculously charming together, so I’m eager to get back to their nonsense. Let’s return to The Demon Girl Next Door!

Episode 5

We open on an establishing shot of Shamiko’s crummy apartment. The show has been able to keep the reality of this situation light through its farcical tone, but Shamiko’s family really is desperately poor, and not in any funny ha-ha sort of way

Shamiko’s little sister is conducting interviews around the neighborhood, and is starting with her sister

“I’m just a helpless high schooler who suddenly awakened to the powers of darkness.” This show continues to mine significant comedic mileage out of the base contrast between Shamiko’s assigned destiny and literally everything else about Shamiko

The script is also a tad sharper and smarter than the anime comedy standard. Her sister’s response here is “it’s okay, I’m good at exaggerating,” to which the default and deeply lazy anime response would be for Shamiko to get violently upset, the sort of “Whaaaaa” punchline that adds nothing but volume to the previous line. Instead, Shamiko actually praises her sister, complimenting the deadpan swipe of the initial punchline with an added dash of absurdity, and subverting our expectations before the joke’s even finished. This mangaka understands how to construct a simple but multi-step gag that relies on multiple different strains of comedy, putting them in the upper echelon of anime-adjacent comedy writers

I like that the show proper’s voiced background effects carry over to the OP, with a goofy chorus of background singers complimenting the lead singer

Shamiko arrives at school, proudly wielding her earnings from her after-school job. I love how Shamiko’s “big victory” essentially translates to “the power dynamics felt weird when you were buying everything, so now I’ve got spending money to buy my own snacks on our next date.” Great going, Shamiko

She wants to immediately pay Momo back, but Momo doesn’t want her to. Momo offers a variety of reasons for this, but it seems most fundamentally that she just wants an excuse for them to keep hanging out together

Momo suggests she buy a “statue of ham” to commemorate her first payday, and Shamiko is very nearly tempted

Ahaha, I love that each character actor does their own character’s sound effects. Momo plopping her hot dogs into her bread is accompanied by a subdued “plop plop” in Momo’s usual deadpan

Momo admits that she doesn’t have any family, and for the first time, Shamiko actually gets to take pity on Momo, claiming her pathetic hot dog sandwich in familial solidarity

Shamiko agrees to let Momo join her on an expedition with her sister. The show’s early dynamic centered heavily on Shamiko’s hilarious ineptitude, which was the correct choice – it’s an easy, immediate hook, a type of comedy that requires almost no prefacing to land. As a result, Momo was generally framed as the straight man, mostly just reacting to the absurdity of Shamiko. But now that we’re a few episodes in, both characters have been established more thoroughly, and it’s more frequently appearing like Momo is the lost and lonely one. Shamiko actually has friends and a loving family; Momo is totally isolated, and has to strong-arm Shamiko into letting her stick around

That may be one of the great curses of being a magical girl: you’re expected to be distant and perfect, and so you can’t really gain close friends

Shamiko introduces Momo as her best friend. Wonderful faces for both of them, and it is indeed great to see the power dynamic flipped, with Shamiko now angrily directing Momo

The sisters are so good! Ryoko doesn’t actually want a present, because she says Shamiko’s battle is more important

All Ryoko can think of are things to help Shamiko’s battle or economically priced seaweed packets. Bless this girl

Momo proves her worth as the careful observer, noticing the camera that Ryoko was quietly eyeing all through the trip

Momo has already plotted out an entire vocabulary of emotions represented by Shamiko’s various tail movements. The girl has got it bad

The next scene actually leads in with her tail to make sure we’re paying attention to it, before Shamiko unconsciously uses it to “hug” Momo while thanking her for her advice

Shamiko remarkably doesn’t know what a “USB port” is. I suppose her family couldn’t afford a home computer

It’s a little thing, but it does play into this show’s overall themes regarding class determinism. Wealth and poverty are each self-perpetuating in a million ways that we don’t necessarily actively think about, including things like access and fluency with modern computers. Because Shamiko grew up poor, she’s naturally intimidated by computers in a way that can easily limit future economic opportunities. In contrast, growing up wealthy affords you far more early opportunities for self-improvement, while also accustoming you to the behavior and practices expected of the wealthy. As a result, you are far more likely to reap economic benefits or network effectively with the upper class later in life

And so of course, Momo ends up handing off her old laptop for Ryoko to borrow. She even frames it in terms of these sorts of opportunities: “It would be best for her future if she learned how to operate a computer like this.” With the wealth of a magical girl, Momo is able to help lift a cursed family out of cyclical poverty

I swear to god I’m not doing this intentionally, “The Demon Girl Next Door” just genuinely has some ingrained critiques of capitalist determinism

Momo urges her not to drop it, spill water on it, or “throw balls at it.” I love Momo’s low opinion of Shamiko

And of course, the path home is now an unrelenting hellscape of banana peels, turtle crossings, and balls careening in every direction. This show is so good

Her final battle is against the fluffy little dog who first sent her stumbling into Momo. A fitting nemesis for our brave demon girl!

“Should I wait until the dog falls asleep? No… my arms will get sore and the laptop will fall before then.” Shamiko is just so inherently funny. All these battle plans built around the undeniable fact that her body is a useless machine that was built to fail

Shamiko’s power is so great today that she’s actually able to transform into Battle Form, unfortunately her Battle Form is the same embarrassing costume that Lilith wears. So Shamiko can only find the power to transform in order to protect the gift Momo gave her? Interesting, interesting

Of course, the moment she gets home, the laptop endures every type of punishment imaginable. Fortunately, Momo predicted this, and packaged it in an impact- and water-proof bag

“My biggest goal right now is to make enough money to buy a donut-shaped pillow. Because my horns really start to hurt when I sleep!” Oh my god Shamiko, you are such a charming disaster

And Done

Ahaha, this show is so wonderful. Shamiko is just an inexhaustible motherlode of comedic tragedy, bringing a can-do attitude to the simplest of trials, and somehow failing spectacularly every time. I also quite enjoyed how this episode quietly expressed Momo’s own fears and insecurities; though Shamiko meant it as a lie, it seems like she is genuinely Momo’s closest friend. If not for the show’s excellent comedy, it’d be pretty close to a tragedy, but the very poignancy of their individual lives also makes their shared joy that much more rewarding. Keep it up, demon and magical girl!

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