Anime Review: If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord Episode 1

If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord

Studio: Maho Film

Genre: Fantasy, Slice of Life

Streaming: Crunchyroll

The title of this series is quite a mouthful, but it gets the whole premise of the show across pretty well. Based off a light novel, the anime follows young adventurer Dale who finds a young girl left alone in the forest. Except that this little girl has horns and is a demon, a creature which as an adventurer would be Dale’s natural enemy. However, he takes pity on the young girl and takes her with him. The girl whose name is Latina takes to him quickly and by the end of the episode, Dale has made an announcement to adopt her, despite his own inexperience.

Anime set in fantasy worlds are pretty commonplace these days, and of late adaptations from light novels have been something of a trend.  Often these take the form of isekai such as RE:Zero and tend to feature harems of girls. This one seems to be something of an exception, focusing instead on a parental relationship between a ‘father’ and child. It’s a refreshing change and will hopefully offer some much-needed diversity in the subgenre. The first episode is relatively light on action and fantasy, instead focusing on the interactions of Latina and those around her. This lends the series a lighter more relaxed tone, although there are some hints at a darker storyline regarding the origins of Latina.

Latina is definitely the focal part of the series and she easily carries the episode – the animation shines for her compared to the rest of the cast and she is admittedly, extremely cute. Dale, on the other hand, seems rather boring, with little so far to mark him out other than that he’s ‘nice’. A few other characters make an appearance but no one is particularly memorable other than Latina. The world building so far seems fairly light, and rather more a typical fantasy land, but a few little traits such as Latina speaking a demon language which also happens to be what humans use to practice magic with show a little more depth. Still, the world isn’t particularly memorable either, from what little has been seen of it so far.

Still, the episode made me smile and is a perfect watch for something to relax to – the odd couple pairing of a demon child and her inexperienced new guardian is surprisingly adorable. Whilst not likely to be the most popular series of the season, there’s a lot of emotion captured in the first episode which makes it one to keep an eye on.

Click here for more anime reviews