Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I figured we’d check back in on The Demon Girl Next Door, which at long last is demonstrating some genuine honesty in titling. With both Momo and Mikan taking up residence in Banda Terrace, Shamiko is now literally next-door neighbors with her local magical girls, a development that is sure to accelerate her and Momo’s blooming relationship. With a full summer break ahead of them, our leads are certain to at least enjoy a bounty of shared home meals, if not necessarily make any progress on their larger quest.

And to be honest, I’d be totally fine with that. Between the first season’s last episode and this season’s premiere, Demon Girl has stuffed in more plot development in two episodes than the rest of the first season combined. With both their larger goals (the hunt for Sakura Chiyoda) and personal shifts in circumstance having been sorted out, I’d be happy to see an episode or two spent exploring this new normal, now that Shamiko and Momo are only separated by a thin apartment wall. With a bright summer stretching before our heroes, let’s see what awaits in The Demon Girl Next Door!

Episode 2

We open on the introduction of the first of this new OP’s many supernatural critters, as we are presented with Mikan’s “cute little navigator” Mikael. I appreciate their invention of an appropriately fantasy-sounding name that’s still just a variation on Mikan

It actually works as a pun in Japanese, since it’s just “mikan” plus “kaeru” (frog). Very much in the Demon Girl spirit to come up with such a well-considered stupid pun

“Mikael is a golden poison frog, so one touch can kill.” Also a solid joke in Mikan requiring an orange-colored frog to maintain her magical girl theming, and thus being granted an extraordinarily toxic familiar

Ryo once again doing some terrifying research for her sister’s sake, this time brushing up on purges and betrayals in ancient china. I could see an episodic conflict where Lilith gets fed up with Shamiko’s total harmlessness, and instead attempts to make Shamiko’s more promisingly sinister little sister her new student

Ooh, I like this beat of Lilith getting mad at Shamiko for submitting to the school’s dress code. Lilith is precisely right that such codes “deny individualism and enforce conformity” – and in the reverse case, audacious, salacious, or otherwise unique outfits naturally challenge conservative ideals of propriety. These standards of dress and behavior have been used to champion cultural conformity, and present people (women in particular) who reject their society’s conservative norms as inherently distrustworthy or evil. A woman whose outfits connote personal agency or proud sexual liberation is a woman who is refusing to be controlled, and will thus be labeled as “evil” – and you can see this dynamic in media across the ages, with “sexual agency = evil” bubbling up in circumstances ranging from horny sentai villain outfits to the dangerous dames of noir cinema

Demon Girl takes this dynamic to a humorous extreme with its Crisis Management Form (as well as Lilith’s admonishment here, which resolves in her demanding that Shamiko go to school naked), but the point Lilith is raising is a genuinely well-aimed critique of how codes of dress and behavior are aimed to control us, and that rebellion against these codes is naturally baked into the philosophy of rebellion exemplified by “demon girls,” whether a given story actually supports the conservative paradigm or not

“My uniform is great because I never have to worry about what to wear! Plus, it uses good quality fabric that feels comfy!” In contrast, Shamiko possesses none of the passion for rebellion that allegedly characterizes her race, and mostly just wants to be comfy and taken care of. Her disruption of the social order comes in a very different form: she’s not rebelling against the magical girls, she’s embracing all the things they have in common

“Urban Exploration! The Troubled Mikan And The Excited Demon”

Mikan notes that the Daddy Box is the precise brand of packing box her family’s factory uses

“Let’s make things interesting by mixing Dad in there and guessing which one he is!” It’s remarkable Shamiko turned out as normal as she has with this woman for a mother

And so the girls set out on a journey to the abandoned factory, hoping to find a clue as to Sakura or Shamiko’s dad’s fate

Love this detail of Mikan holding Shamiko’s tail for emotional support as she relates the story of the factory’s closing

Apparently her father performed a devil summoning ritual to prop up the factory’s fortunes

“My daddy made a wish to keep his factory and his family safe.” This backstory is so close to Kyouko’s backstory from Madoka Magica that I’m guessing it’s intentional

And this is what resulted in Mikan’s curse

As Mikan spills her heart out, Shamiko is dutifully taking notes on all of her oppressor demon’s neat tricks

We jump back to ten years ago, for Momo and Mikan’s first meeting. Mikan was apparently in even more dire straits than expected, essentially living out of the disused factory, while Momo was still just as deadpan in her affectation

“Anybody who gets too close to me is sent to the hospital sooner or later.” Prior to Sakura Chiyoda’s intervention, Mikan was a genuinely isolated figure of tragedy, and her curse was actually frightening, rather than just inconvenient. This frankly feels like a scene from a much heavier sort of drama, which in turn emphasizes how much Chiyoda has changed this place, and how unique it is as a sanctuary for both demons and magical girls

“You can cry all you want. Just don’t do it alone.” Ten years ago, Momo was a proud champion of solidarity between supernatural beings. Presumably Sakura’s disappearance led to her current point of isolation and despair

And given Sakura has been framed as such an unusual figure, it stands to reason that stories like this are quite common, with plenty of other magical girls suffering from isolation like Mikan or Momo

They finally open the gate and enter the factory grounds, only to discover Mikan’s treasured warehouse has been entirely blown off the map

With the team in full mystery-solving mode, Momo and Shamiko instinctively slip into the roles of Holmes and Watson, with Shamiko handing over her notebook without even thinking about it

“Sakurament Cannon creates a bunch of cherry blossom-shaped prisms that fly around and then turn everything pink before unleashing a huge laser that goes ‘Kablamo!’” Demon Girl continues to mine solid comedy out of the absurd disparity between the form and function of magical girl abilities, introducing more adorable weapons of mass destruction. I love the visual comedy beat that accompanies this one, where we can see cherry blossom-shaped blasts marking the ruins of the factory

“You two need to shut your little traps.” Momo getting genuinely mad is always good

“Every magical girl has a core. Even if their magic power gets dispersed, the core should remain behind.” Alright, now that’s just literally Madoka Magica’s system

Mikan tells Shamiko something we’ve already guessed: that Momo was much more cheerful in the past. Mikan also mentions that Momo has “bulked up her muscles much more than necessary,” implying there might have been some time when Momo’s abilities were insufficient to save someone, prompting her to embrace this new regimen

Shamiko recalls one of the few times Momo seemed happy, back when Shamiko declared her desire to help everyone get along peacefully. Presumably that was a line that reminded her of something Sakura Chiyoda said – and indeed, simply uttering those words conjures some fragment of Sakura, who guides Shamiko to her magical relic

Or at least, so she thinks, but then the wand she discovers transforms into a fork

We then jump to an impromptu Anri and Ogura segment, which immediately confirms that the person wearing a plague doctor mask in the intro is indeed Ogura

Ogura is apparently hard at work cooking up a fresh batch of homunculus clay. I assume we’re adapting an end-of-chapter 4koma bit here? Seems unlikely the manga would include such an isolated interlude like this

Shamiko’s mother believes the fork-wand belonged to her father, and is actually an object of tremendous power

She further states that’s she cool with Shamiko keeping it, so long as she occasionally gets to use it as a drying rack. Bless this family

Of course, as usual, Shamiko’s fundamental inability to act or think nefariously significantly limits the danger of this device, as her only ideas for transforming it are “a bigger fork” and “a pen with more ink in it”

And Done

Cower, magical girls, for Shadow Mistress Yuko’s powers continue to grow! Shamiko has at last acquired her own demonic pitchfork, though she admittedly can’t think of any mischief to cause with it beyond “maybe I can make Momo smile.” Between her earlier conversations and that final resolution, I feel like we’re drawing closer to the reveal of whatever catastrophe previously befell Momo. She’s clearly accustomed to keeping her pain to herself, but after a season-plus of Shamiko encouraging her to embrace her imperfections, I imagine she’s almost ready to lean on Shamiko’s diminutive shoulder for once. Your demon girlfriend wants to help you Momo, you just gotta let her in!

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