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YMMV / How Not to Summon a Demon Lord

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  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: A scene from Season 2 had the animators including a rabbit girl lookalike to VTuber idol Usada Pekora from hololive. However this ended up getting removed due to fears of breaching copyright laws.
  • Can't Un-Hear It: Diablo being voiced in the dub by the same guy as the anime dub version of Phoenix Wright; Eric Vale, which makes him figuring out how the world works quite a bit more funny.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Keera L. Greenwood is the older brother of Shera and the prince of the Kingdom of Greenwood. He is known to be physically abusive towards Shera, while seeing her as nothing but a Sex Slave that he rightfully owns and can use to continue their bloodline. Eventually, Shera had enough of his mistreatment and ran away, leading to him obsessively trying to recapture her and bring her back. He has a complete disregard for life, not caring how many people he endangers to achieve his goals and believes the entire world exists to please him. This is shown when he callously declares war over the pettiest of reasons, or when he summons the Force Hydra (a dangerous and destructive beast) even though he had no means of controlling it. He's also shown to be incredibly racist to all races other than the Elves. When he finally recaptures Shera, he has her chained up and attempts to rape her while also putting her under mind control magic to make her desire to come back with him.
    • Paladin Saddler of the Church of Celestials is a twisted sadist behind a mask of pleasantry, Saddler butchers villages he suspects are "evil", killing them to the last man, woman and child. A torture enthusiast, Saddler is fond of attacking demihumans or anyone he so much as suspects of worshipping demons regardless of logic or justification, taking them and torturing them to death as a form of "purification" and justifying his beliefs under the notion that he is a god. When he captures Diablo's friend Rem, Saddler tries to torture her to death as well, his supposed righteousness nothing more than a mask for the twisted monster he truly is.
    • Paladin Captain Batutta is a ruthless knight behind the Death Knell curse. Appearing an ally for Diablo's party in solving the illness at Zircon Tower, Batutta is later revealed to be the one responsible. Learning about a curse made from prime evil, the collective embodiment of sin, Batutta entrances people into committing evil deeds to extract the substance and then spread it in the town's water supply where he would then impose high taxes to the people for the cure and swear fealty to the Church, letting the paladins abuse and leaving those who can't afford to die. Learning Lumachina could cure the curse, Batutta plotted to corrupt her, kidnapping her and Rem before handing them to his servant to sexually assault them while luring Diablo to a trap. When Diablo and Sherri manage to best him ruining his plans Batutta as a last act tried to take them with him by burying them in a cave-in.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Klem the Demon Lord, who is a supporting character introduced late in Season 1. She immediately endeared fans for being an adorable Token Mini-Moe, despite her fearsome reputation.
  • Escapist Character: Diablo. Even more so than the usual Isekai protagonists, playing straight into the fantasies of players becoming their video game character and an extremely overpowered one at that. The one exception is Harem Genre wish fulfillment as Diablo limits himself to little more than hanging out with cute girls, often running away before things go too far and actually resistant to having sex with Rem and Shera, even after he marries both of them.
  • Memetic Molester: Diablo. Little surprise he became one given the Audience-Alienating Premise of a 30 something otaku who accidentally acquired two teenage girls as his slaves, and who he has groped on several occasions. He also shared a kiss with a technically newborn girl, even if for a purpose other than just to do so.
    • Of course, they tried to enslave him first only for Diablo's ring to automatically turn the spell back on to them. There's also the fact that Diablo himself is so incredibly awkward around women that he's a borderline gynophobe who can't even bring himself to have sex with Rem and Shera even after marrying them.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "That girl is awesome!"note 
    • Shera isn't fat, she's thiccnote 
    • Breed the bunnynote 
    • "T is for biscuiT"note 
  • Moe:
    • Klem elicits this reaction from the fandom, being an innocent Token Mini-Moe who the rest of the cast are incredibly protective over.
    • Shera, both for being a woobies as well as a pure hearted Nice Girl who still acts innocent and playful.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • If kidnapping Shera and trying to molest her wasn't enough for Keera to cross it, summoning the Force Hydra to incite a rampage (without any remorse for those he endangers) surely put him in irredeemable territory.
    • Galford crosses it when he decapitates Keera. No one will be mourning his loss, but it doesn't change the fact that it was unprovoked murder of someone who was retreating and no longer had any intention of fighting.
  • Spoiled by the Format: In the English dub, unless you chalk it up to the standard practice of women voicing young men, Horn's high pitched voice (combined with her anime character design not being as androgynous as described in the light novels) effectively spoils her eventual Unsettling Gender-Reveal.
  • Tear Jerker: The funeral for the adventurers that died protecting Celes and Rem.
  • The Woobie: Some of the cast have tragic backgrounds.
    • Rem being born with a curse with Krebskulm sealed inside her, she keeps it a secret to avoid being alienated and the Fallen are after her to release the demon lord within her.
    • Shera runs away from her kingdom, due to being abused by her older brother.
    • Diablo, when he was Takuma Sakamoto, is used and manipulated by others who pretend to be his friends in his childhood.
    • When you realize her Dark and Troubled Past (particularly her Abusive Parents) and reason why she sides with the fallen at first, Alicia is this too, though she verges into Jerkass Woobie territory due to her real personality.

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