Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to The Demon Girl Next Door, where we last left off with Shamiko wishing for a donut pillow, so her horns won’t hurt so much when she sleeps. I feel like that wish basically sums up the Shamiko existence: even lying down to sleep is a painful and difficult task, replete with dangerous hurdles to traverse. But at the same time, that wish also illustrates her humility and indefatigable spirit. Life being tough is just how it goes for Shamiko, and though she could really use a donut pillow, she’ll surely muddle through regardless.

A girl like Shamiko could really use a friend to spoil her, and we may have found one in the reluctant Magical Girl Momo. While Momo seems to be well-off and competent in most things, she lives alone, and appears to have no friends beyond her incompetent nemesis. Her life as a magical girl has been one of austerity, loneliness, and obligation, and it seems like Shamiko might be the first good thing that’s happened to her in a long time. The two of them clearly need each other, so let’s not keep them apart any longer, as we dive back into The Demon Girl Next Door!

Episode 6

We cut in on Shamiko’s apartment at night. The apartment name partially falling from its post serves as a handy shorthand for the building’s overall disrepair

Shamiko’s ancestor is calling. “For some reason, you’ve been overflowing with magical energy since earlier today.” The power she’s supposed to use to defeat magical girls being largely fueled by her affectionate feelings towards a magical girl seems like it’ll become a problem

“Magical energy” also essentially standing in for “hope” here. Shamiko has been assigned a life and a destiny doomed to failure; her family is impoverished by design, and her ancestors have never once defeated a magical girl. It’d be understandable for such a situation to inspire fatalism, as your continued poverty and disenfranchisement is essentially assured by the system you exist within – something that’s also true of underclasses worldwide, whether they’re being pinned down by a lack of generational wealth, bigotry, or an official caste system. What Momo has offered to Shamiko is a potential escape from this inevitability – the potential for true class advancement, embodied both in Momo’s friendship and also direct symbols of support and advancement like the laptop from last episode. Because of Momo, Shamiko can for the first time genuinely believe that the future might be better than the past, and that her opportunities might extend beyond “fail as a demon girl until you die.” No wonder she’s been overflowing with magical energy

“This is going to be a special episode where you sneak into Momo’s dreams and control her!” Reasonable fourth wall breaking flourish here, though I assume this joke’s visual and aural accompaniment are playing off conventions of Japanese daytime television that I’m not familiar with, thus adding the secondary humor of reminding us that Shamiko’s ancestor spends most of her time flipping channels in Shamiko’s brain. An outright joke layered with an unspoken secondary joke that rewards our knowledge of characterization – that’s some handsomely crafted humor

Frankly, jokes like that are also kinda essential for comedies wishing to play for multiple audiences. Comedy is largely built out of the element of surprise (a “punchline” is generally crafted through the building of an expectation that is then subverted by the conclusion), and because different people have different levels of experience with various joke structures, a joke that lands perfectly for one person might soar over another person’s head, or seem too obvious to a third. Layered jokes can alleviate this issue, with different audience members laughing at the same joke on different levels

Only now do I read the actual OP lyrics and realize this is an unambiguous love song between our two leads

“Courage to Face the Future! The Heavy Roller Won’t Stop.” Oh god Shamiko no

Shamiko’s ancestor urges her to plant suggestions in Momo while she sleeps, further defining her as a succubus specifically

Shamiko has moral reservations about brainwashing, but abandons them when she realizes she’ll no longer have to go jogging if this works

“When you see Momo’s dreams, perform a skill stop and stop there perfectly!” These gags are reasonably well-executed, but “self-aware gags relating real life events to concepts from games and anime” is like ninety percent of anime comedy, and so this material can’t help but feel played out. It’s fortunate that the ancestor is a relatively secondary character, as Momo and Shamiko’s veins of comedy are much richer

Ancestor urges her to conjure up her “dark feelings towards Momo,” but she can only think of all the times Momo helped her

I really like the show using this conceit to give us some insight into Momo’s anxieties. Momo generally avoids talking about her past, but “succubi haunt the dreams of their target” is basic succubus lore, so this is a clever way to maintain Momo’s characterization while still giving us the context we need

In her dream, Momo is younger and in her costume, presumably from her days of active duty. The terrain is a featureless swamp of black energy

“In order to protect this city, my magic can’t become any weaker than it already is. But I’ve already done a poor job of that.” Unsurprisingly, she is haunted by the weight of the moral responsibilities that have been arbitrarily foisted upon her

And so Shamiko transforms… in order to help clean up Momo’s mindscape. Aside from her one accidental transformation, all of their transformations so far have been to help their nemesis

“It seems I can only create things I’ve seen recently, but I’m starting to get the hang of my powers.” Shamiko has little self-confidence, but through helping Momo, she’s learning to rely on and take pride in her abilities. Though she’s doing all these things for Momo’s sake, the ultimate result includes learning a sense of her own worth

The next day, Momo seems exhausted, and actually collapses into Shamiko on the way to school. This quick cut of Shamiko’s five yen coin serves as a reminder of how hard Shamiko fought for this money, thus emphasizing the significance of her spending it without a second thought in support of Momo

This plot development also allows us to compliment that look into Momo’s mind with a glance into her actual house, making for a cohesive Momo-focused outing

Momo lives in a massive house with a very modern design; it feels as impersonal as Momo’s own first impression

Shamiko decides that the tasteful minimalism of Momo’s décor is clearly a series of elaborate traps

“That’s my familiar. It used to talk quite a lot, but because of its age and my lack of motivation, it’s now a regular cat 97% of the time.” Gosh that’s tragic. Losing the magic of childhood is tough for everyone, but must be doubly so when you can see the magic aging out of your trusted companion. And once again, we lean into that “society celebrates women for a brief moment and in a specific way, then discards them” critique that maps so effectively to magical girl narratives

But of course, this is Demon Girl Next Door, so all that tragedy is accompanied by the hilarious concept of a cat that just intones “The Time Hath Come” to mailmen and delivery drivers

Momo has actually been practicing making hamburg steak, just like she promised Shamiko

And of course, they’re a match made in heaven, as Shamiko’s family conditions mean she’s used to eating barely-edible cuisine

“If you always live in fear of other people seeing your weaknesses, you’ll never make any progress in life.” Momo, who’s so afraid of being seen as imperfect by basically anyone, could really use the influence of someone like Shamiko, who is fucking up everything constantly and has just learned to live with it

Love seeing how happy Shamiko clearly is at being the responsible one for once, doling out advice about nutrition and health care

By cleaning up Momo’s cut and bringing the rag home, Shamiko accidentally “stole Momo’s blood,” and has broken one of her family’s seals. Figures she can only advance her actual mission by accident

Oh great, now the statue can talk

As payment for stealing her magic, Momo demands Shamiko help her in her city defending duties

“But no matter what, I want to keep this one city safe.” A leading statement so obvious that even Shamiko picks up on it

With Shamiko taking care of her, Momo at last offers her own first “don’t think this means you’ve won!” In the context of this show, that’s actually a healthy sign for their relationship, reflecting how it’s no longer just Momo helping Shamiko

And Done

At last, Momo’s secrets are revealed! Well, really only one or two of her secrets, and those were frankly the kind of secrets we probably could have guessed already. I suppose that’s just how it goes for a character who’s as private and insecure as Momo: with her every action on display as a paragon of love and justice, she’s basically stopped moving entirely, too afraid of disappointing people to claim what she really wants. A girl like Shamiko, who can’t help but disappoint even herself in everything she does, seems like just the friend Momo needs to cut loose and live a little. Congratulations on defeating your sickly and unconscious classmate, Shamiko!

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