Beelzebub-jou no Okinimesu mama presents the biggest mood of 2018:
Fluffy is a good description of Beelzebub, both the series and the titular character, who is an adorable, laid back girl who likes nothing better than to stay in her room to sleep nude in bed surrounded by fluffy animals. She’s also the ruler of Hell in absence of Satan and this gap is causing her assistant Mullin (or Murrin as the audio seems to have it) some problems. To be honest, they’re partially of his own making. If he’s that quick to take offence at seeing Beelzebub naked, he shouldn’t have barged into her bedroom, no matter how late she was for that important meeting.
So that sort of sums up Beelzebub-jou no Okinimesu mama: a fluffy, low energy, relaxing series with a bit of innocent fan service and some sort of romantic plot in the offering between the laid back Beelzebub and her overbearing assistant, all set in a very comfy version of Hell, resembling some 18th century Ruritarian kingdom and feels more like well, Heck at this point. Presumably future episodes will introduce some of the people seen in the opening theme and we get more romances to fill out the story a bit. I rather they do, as I’m not a big fan of the dynamics between Beelzebub and Mullins on display here. The child like ruler who has to be coaxed into doing their duties by their long suffering secretary or assistant is an anime cliche, but it’s a bit dodgy, especially when mixed with romance. Mullins comes over more as a concerned father than a possible lover, while Beelzebub is a complete airhead, who gets her way by pouting and being cute, rather than as a competent ruler of, well, Hell. Having the male underling teach the female ruler her job is never a good look. It’s sort of a mirror to the competent woman make it her life’s work to look after and clean up for the genius bloke who can’t be trusted to look out for himself. It’s infantilising.
So this seems squarely aimed at blokes who like to watch cute anime girls frolic, as long as they’re not too threatening, and who’d also like a little bit of romance mixed in. If I’m honest, I enjoyed the episode but if they do want to push the romance angle, I hope the relationship between Beelzebub and Mullins can be a bit more like that between two adults.