Trust me, chopping up Jashin-chan’s tail because she ate all the meat in the hotpot is the least cruel of Yurine’s punishments for her summoned devil’s many misdeeds.
This is also the tamest screenshot I could use to show the sheer glee with which the show indulges in those punishments. This is all slapstick violence, but it’s slapstick violence that hurts. No pies in faces here: Jashin-chan gets her tail chopped off to provide meat repeatedly, tasered, spine broken and on one occasion is beaten so badly the other characters wonder if the commercial break will be enough time for her to heal. If you’re overly empathic or squeamish, you might want to avoid this one. To be honest, all this comedic violence had me wincing just as much as I was giggling. It all starts slow, with Yurine, Jashin-chan and their friends (Medusa & Minos, both devils, as well as Pekora, an angel who lost her halo) having a hot pot party. The violence only starts because Jashin-chan gets jealous of Pekora. The rest of the episode goes similar, with Jashin-chan plotting against Yurine only to get her comeuppance. I like that the origin story of how Yurine and Jashin-chan found each other was dealt with in the opening.
Even when it’s being cute, it’s still quietly horrifying, as here, with the adorable Pekora eating the snake meat Yurine has just cut off Jashin-chan. I’m not sure how to feel about this show. On the one hand, this is Tom & Jerry violence: it hurts, but the characters survive everything and are as good as new a couple of seconds later. On the other hand, the violence is much more “real” and gorier than in classic slapstick, leaning heavily on a horror aesthetic, even going so far as to mosaic censor when things get too gory. The various characters meanwhile are classic slice of moe archetypes with little depth to them: Jashin-chan is stupid and petty, Yurine is cold but does seem to care on some level, the rest hasn’t been fleshed out much. It needs more than just the routine of Jashin-chan doing something she gets punished for to keep my interest. Looking forward to seeing how it’ll develop or not in the next few episodes.
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