History YMMV / Helltaker

** A considerable Japanese fanbase developed rather quickly, likely due to all the {{Cute Monster Girl}}s. Lucifer even gets [[https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2084743-helltaker her own]] Toys/{{Nendoroid}}!

* DracoInLeatherPants: ''The entire cast'' got hit with this when the game came out. Most of the harem are shown to be willing to horribly murder the Helltaker for being a slight annoyance at worst, and are either shown or implied to be regularly causing mischief, damage and other crazy (and illegal, considering the arrival of the Police in the Normal ending) antics during their stay with him. Meanwhile, the Helltaker's quest from start to finish was entirely for his own selfish desires. Despite this, they are often portrayed as NotEvilJustMisunderstood, a bad case of {{Tsundere}} at worst in fanart, or outright heroics.

* DracoInLeatherPants: ''The entire cast'' got hit with this when the game came out. Most of the harem are shown to be willing to horribly murder the Helltaker for being a slight annoyance at worst, and are either shown or implied to be regularly causing mischief, damage and other crazy (and illegal, considering the arrival of the Police in the Normal ending) antics during their stay with him. Meanwhile, the Helltaker's quest from start to finish was entirely for his own selfish desires. Despite this, they are often portrayed as NotEvilJustMisunderstood, a bad case of {{Tsundere}} at worst in fanart, or outright heroic.
* EvilIsSexy: The game's fundamental principle; why else would Helltaker suddenly decide that going to hell and grabbing himself a harem of murderous demon girls is a good idea? Most notably, ending up going to Heaven is considered a ''bad'' ending because Helltaker doesn't get his demon harem.

** ''WebAnimation/HazbinHotel'' and ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'', being series about loveable demons in Hell, have a not insignificant amount of fandom overlap with ''Helltaker''.

* FridgeBrilliance:
** The initials on Justice's gloves, "HPJ", stand for "High Prosecutor Justice". She held the title before passing the job on to Judgement, and the art book states that they were a gift from Lucifer, possibly to commemorate her being given the job.
** Per the Old Testament Satan is characterized as a celestial prosecutor, whose job is to accuse humans to see if they're morally worthy. Christians take the more cynical approach that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, hoping to see Christians corrupted, and that Satan being a prosecutor is more of a formality rather than something God appointed. Either way, Satan serves the role of the prosecutor -- this theme is most chiefly illustrated in the Book of Job. What makes this brilliant is that Lucifer in Helltaker has two prosecutors under her employment, which likely comes from her experience as a prosecutor in the Bible. The alternate take of loving to corrupt humans is certainly characteristic of Lucifer's demons, so the Bible backstory applies in both interpretations of Satan as a prosecutor.
** Why does Pandemonica, ''the Sadistic Demon'', work in customer service? Why does Hell even have customer service at all? Because it's a ploy to give sinner false hope and torture them even more. Anyone looking for help or to lodge a complaint would run into Pandemonica, who would take cruel delight in making them suffer even more.
** Loremaster lost her arms during her battle to take over Hell and replaced them with ArtificialLimbs, making her a "[[{{Franchise/Doom}} Cyberdemon]]".
** Loremaster's seeming fondness for apple pies, and how Lucifer's new position as her maid means she's often getting served the dish, is likely a nod to how an apple was what corrupted Adam and Eve. Also, said apple was offered by Lucifer in snake form. Now, Lucifer's spending her days offering apples [[spoiler:to another previously pure being [[GoneHorriblyRight whose corruption she was responsible for]]]].
** Loremaster says that Lucy tries to kill her twice a week. This is why Lucy ate all the apple pie in the last level of ''Examtaker''. She wasn't hungry, but rather taking away Loremaster's only means of controlling Subject 67 in hopes that he would try to kill her like he promised.
** In the Bible Beezelbub is [[IHaveManyNames one of the names of Satan]], and is specifically used by the pharisees on more than one occasion when debating morality with Jesus. In the Helltaker continuity Beezelbub is her own separate entity different from the mainstream Lucifer. The brilliant subtext here is that Beezelbub probably became one of the names for Satan in the classical tradition because she claimed herself to be the ruler of hell, and in the eyes of many demons they started calling her Satan in a co-equal fashion to Lucifer herself. Eventually this came down the grapevine until by the time of Jesus even humans were aware that Beezelbub was an accepted alternative name for Satan, not truly knowing they were different people. Lucifer not wanting a danger to her rule and reputation to exist banished Beezelbub to the void, but by then her name was recorded in the Bible and the damage was partially done already.
** The girls (and the order in which Helltaker meets them) do loosely correspond to the ''Literature/DivineComedy''.
*** The first circle is Limbo and houses those not bad enough to get into the other circles. Pandemonica, the first girl, is too tired to really do anything evil (until she gets her coffee).
*** The second circle is for the Lustful, matching Modeus's title of the Lustful Demon.
*** The third circle is for the Gluttonous, and Cerberus lives there.
*** I'm unsure how Malina and the 4th circle (greed) connect, but the fifth circle is for Wrath, and the fifth girl is Zdraza the Bitch Demon.
*** The Sixth Circle punishes Heresy. Your sixth girl is an angel, Azazel, who is committing heresy herself by living with and "researching" demons.
*** The Seventh Circle is the home of the Violent- and while Justice isn't that violent, she would have had to be in the past as the High prosecutor.
*** The Eighth Circle covers Fraud, which includes Lucifer's styling of herself as a CorruptCorporateExecutive and playing TheCorrupter to Azazel.
*** The 9th circle is for Traitors. The FinalBoss, Judgement, is a FallenAngel, and thus a "traitor" to Heaven, and because Lucifer can't control her despite being Queen of Hell, she's also a traitor to Hell.

** Loremaster lost her arms during her battle to take over Hell and replaced them with ArtificialLimbs, making her a "[[{{Franchise/Doom}} Cyberdemon]]."

** The initials on Justice's gloves, "HPJ," stand for "High Prosecutor Justice." She held the title before passing the job on to Judgement, and the art book states that they were a gift from Lucifer, possibly to commemorate her being given the job.

[[folder:The Web Comics]]

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Given how little Helltaker seems to care that his mission was [[AllForNothing functionally a failure,]] it's easy to get the idea his view of a "Harem" is a circle of close friends or roommates rather than a romantic circle devoted to one person, meaning he actually did get what he wanted in the end, and possibly made Azazel more accepting of her sexuality.

** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/vitality-2 "Vitality,"]] the main gameplay theme. Little wonder everyone dances to its beat.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/apropos-2 "Apropos,"]] the main menu theme. It provides a very dark, foreboding undercurrent (rather appropriate for Beelzebub), and to show the Helltaker's determination.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/epitomize-2 "Epitomize,"]] Judgement's theme. The dark beats and heavy bass really scream "ignite the sin machine!"
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/luminescent-2 "Luminescent,"]] the theme for the game's ending where the Helltaker talks to his harem. It provides a fitting backdrop to the equally silly ending.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/alchemy-2 "Alchemy,"]] the theme for the levels of ''Examtaker''. It really sets the stage of Loremaster's vision of Hell being remarkably different from before.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/titanium-2 "Titanium,"]] the song for the FinalBoss of ''Examtaker''. The dark thumping beats provide a brisk backdrop to the BrutalBonusLevel that is this boss fight.

** Helltaker's uncanny resemblance to Kazuma Kiryu from the ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' series led to several crossover jokes of how "This is what would happen to [[CelibateHero Kiryu]] if he learned what sex is." Though, [[AllForNothing considering the implications in the game,]] it's possible it's just plain old Kiryu.

** The Japanese side of the fandom quickly brought out Lucifer's moe-like points - according to the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wT7Ri3nD1s Party Parrot]] parody, Lucy's real moe is the combination of her long-suffering ("crybaby") CEO status with her cute newlywed housewife (plus ''apron'') appeal in the ending.

** This game also became massively popular in South Korea as well, and there are already several fan dubbings (including one done by [[https://youtu.be/oo72F7rM1nU professional Korean]] [[https://youtu.be/cb2AhuJuQqw voice actors]], featuring the Korean voice actress of [[Franchise/StarWars Rey]].) and even fan animations and fan parodies (including political cartoons) created by Korean artists.

*** The 9th circle is for Traitors. The FinalBoss, Judgement, is a FallenAngel, and thus a 'traitor' to Heaven, and because Lucifer can't control her despite being Queen of Hell, she's also a traitor to Hell.

** A considerable Japanese fanbase developed rather quickly, likely due to all the [[CuteMonsterGirl Cute Monster Girls]]. Lucifer even gets [[https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2084743-helltaker her own]] Toys/{{Nendoroid}}!

** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/vitality-2 "Vitality"]], the main gameplay theme. Little wonder everyone dances to its beat.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/apropos-2 "Apropos"]], the main menu theme. It provides a very dark, foreboding undercurrent (rather appropriate for Beelzebub), and to show the Helltaker's determination.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/epitomize-2 "Epitomize"]], Judgement's theme. The dark beats and heavy bass really scream "ignite the sin machine!"
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/luminescent-2 "Luminescent"]], the theme for the game's ending where the Helltaker talks to his harem. It provides a fitting backdrop to the equally silly ending.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/alchemy-2 "Alchemy"]], the theme for the levels of ''Examtaker''. It really sets the stage of Loremaster's vision of Hell being remarkably different from before.
** [[https://mittsies.bandcamp.com/track/titanium-2 "Titanium"]], the song for the FinalBoss of ''Examtaker''. The dark thumping beats provide a brisk backdrop to the BrutalBonusLevel that is this boss fight.

** The initials on Justice's gloves, "HPJ", stand for "High Prosecutor Justice". She held the title before passing the job on to Judgement, and the art book states that they were a gift from Lucifer, possibly to commemorate her being given the job.
** Per the Old Testament Satan is characterized as a celestial prosecutor, whose job is to accuse humans to see if they're morally worthy. Christians take the more cynical approach that Satan is the accuser of the brethren, hoping to see Christians corrupted, and that Satan being a prosecutor is more of a formality rather than something God appointed. Either way, Satan serves the role of the prosecutor -- this theme is most chiefly illustrated in the Book of Job. What makes this brilliant is that Lucifer in Helltaker has two prosecutors under her employment, which likely comes from her experience as a prosecutor in the Bible. The alternate take of loving to corrupt humans is certainly characteristic of Lucifer's demons, so the Bible backstory applies in both interpretations of Satan as a prosecutor.
** Why does Pandemonica, ''the Sadistic Demon'', work in customer service? Why does Hell even have customer service at all? Because it's a ploy to give sinner false hope and torture them even more. Anyone looking for help or to lodge a complaint would run into Pandemonica, who would take cruel delight in making them suffer even more.
** Loremaster lost her arms during her battle to take over Hell and replaced them with ArtificialLimbs, making her a "[[{{Franchise/Doom}} Cyberdemon]]".
** Loremaster's seeming fondness for apple pies, and how Lucifer's new position as her maid means she's often getting served the dish, is likely a nod to how an apple was what corrupted Adam and Eve. Also, said apple was offered by Lucifer in snake form. Now, Lucifer's spending her days offering apples [[spoiler: to another previously pure being [[GoneHorriblyRight whose corruption she was responsible for]].]]

** In the Examtaker dlc, the loading screen is branded with a certain sigil [[spoiler:associated with Azazel]], [[HiddenInPlainSight providing a hint as to the Loremaster's true identity.]]
* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff:

** [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EuRwcw1XEAAyoYl?format=jpg&name=large Modeus's shocked face]] at being told that porn isn't real became a popular reaction image pretty quickly.

** The Japanese side of the fandom quickly brought out Lucifer's moe-like points, on account of her CryCute moment - according to the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wT7Ri3nD1s Party Parrot]] parody, Lucy's real moe is the combination of her long-suffering ("crybaby") CEO status with her cute newlywed housewife (plus ''apron'') appeal in the ending.

* RetroactiveRecognition: After Mittsies got a massive ColbertBump from having their music used for this game, a plethora of gamers looked back on their music catalogue and found themselves experiencing memories of 2012-2014, which featured a decent number of... NSFW fan-games for ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' that Mittsies themself made to go with said music.

* RetroactiveRecognition: After Mittsies got a massive ColbertBump from having their music used for this game, a plethora of gamers looked back on their music catalogue and found themselves experiencing memories of 2012-2014, which featured a decent number of... NSFW fan-animations for ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' that Mittsies themself made to go with said music.

* RetroactiveRecognition: After Mittsies got a massive ColbertBump from having their music used for this game, a plethora of gamers looked back on their music catalogue and found themselves experiencing memories of 2012-2014, which featured a decent number of... NSFW fan-animations for ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' that utilized their music, helped by Mittsies themself being a fan when they started making music.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDXGQmCz3U "Vitality"]], the main gameplay theme. Little wonder everyone dances to its beat.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUs0iQZHDkM "Apropos"]], the main menu theme. It provides a very dark, foreboding undercurrent (rather appropriate for Beelzebub), and to show the Helltaker's determination.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_YbbAhRbIQ "Epitomize"]], Judgement's theme. The dark beats and heavy bass really scream "ignite the sin machine!"
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diScvS_ZOpM "Luminescent"]], the theme for the game's ending where the Helltaker talks to his harem. It provides a fitting backdrop to the equally silly ending.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VieIk9rjCos "Alchemy"]], the theme for the levels of ''Examtaker''. It really sets the stage of Loremaster's vision of Hell being remarkably different from before.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7K7v2KGYU "Titanium"]], the song for the FinalBoss of ''Examtaker''. The dark thumping beats provide a brisk backdrop to the BrutalBonusLevel that is this boss fight.

** Lucy didn't eat all the apple pie in the last level of ''Examtaker'' because she was hungry. She did so Loremaster would have nothing to keep Subject 67 in check, resulting in him trying to kill Loremaster like he promised.