A Story of Magic in a Cyberpunk World (A Mid-Season Review)

Key Takeaways

• Demon Lord 2099 is a unique blend of fantasy and sci-fi with entertaining elements like a Demon Lord who gains power from subscribers.
• The anime features electrifying fights, like a clash of past vs. present, magic vs technology, making it exciting and visually appealing.
• Concerns about the show’s direction exist, urging the need for more focus on character development and coherent storytelling for a captivating narrative.

There are more than 50 anime for the Fall 2024 season. Some are sequels of well-known titles (Blue Lock Season 2,Re:Zero Season 3, the 3rd part of Bleach Season 3, etc.), while others are brand-new IP that are predicted to take the world by storm (Dandadan, Raise wa Tanin ga Ii, Uzumaki, etc).

With such a huge selection of anime, it’s practically impossible to watch everything this season has to offer. Some of the good ones will inevitably slip through our fingers. This article is about one such anime. This one is called Demon Lord 2099. Since it’s already midway through the season, we figured this was a good time to conduct a mid-season review while introducing this fun hidden gem at the same time.

Some Great Things About Demon Lord 2099

Let’s start with the positive. From the interesting premise to the unique and funny idea implemented in the story, here are some of the great things about Demon Lord 2099.

A Demon Lord in a Cyberpunk World

When Demon Lord Veltol Velvet Velsvalt is awakened by one of his subordinates, a loyal female demon named Machina, he fully intends to resume his reign of terror. What he doesn’t realize, however, is the fact that 500 years have passed since his death at the hand of Hero Gram. And now, the medieval country that was known as Alneath has evolved into a futuristic metropolis with flying cars and massive skyscrapers.

To make things worse for Veltol, his magic is pretty much useless in this Cyberpunk world. But Veltol is not one to give up so easily. The world may change, but his ambition remains the same. He will conquer this new world as the one and only Demon Lord.

I Gain Power from My Subscriber

The source of Veltol’s magic power is the fear and admiration of his subjects. The more people fear and admire him, the more powerful he becomes. Unfortunately, now that his name has been long forgotten, Veltol is no different than a regular person. So, for the sake of conquering the world, he needs to gather followers once again.

Question. How does a Demon Lord gain followers in a Cyberpunk world? The answer is quite obvious actually. He needs to be a content creator. And that’s what Veltol does. He started to play video games on stream every day. Needless to say, he is horrible at games. But he is surprisingly entertaining to watch. As his subscriber counts grow, so does his magical power. At this point in the story, Veltol already has a million subscribers. With that number of followers, he can now easily send someone flying with his punch and take down multiple enemies in seconds. His subscribers are literally his source of power.

“Fret not. This is the perfect chance to test how much power I’ve regained from my million subscribers.”

Warframe vs Dark Souls

Demon Lord 2099 has its fair share of great fights, but there is one particular fight that stands out from the rest. This fight happens in episode 6, between the Hero Gram and one of the antagonists, a woman named Kinohara. In this fight, Kinohara uses an armor created using bleeding-edge technology that is not even available to the public yet. As for Gram, he uses the same gear that he always uses. The one that allows him to demolish Demon Lord Veltol 500 years ago.

This fight is amazing for numerous reasons. First of all, the animation and the action sequence are electrifying to see. Second of all, this fight represents the best of the past vs the best of the present day. It also represents magic vs technology and experience vs talent. Interestingly enough, the sight of a Kinohara in her full high-tech armor fighting against Gram in his medieval armor is like seeing a character from Warframe going against a character from Dark Souls. It’s bizarre and exciting at the same time.

A Little Bit of Everything

Demon Lord 2099 is an anime that has a little bit of everything. It is a perfect marriage between fantasy and science fiction. It has a mind-blowing action sequence that can keep you on the edge of your seat, but it also has nonsensical comedy that will make you smile and scratch your head in disbelief.

This anime can also be classified as reverse Isekai. After all, Veltol is a fantasy character who is summoned, or rather revived, into an ultra-modern world. At the same time, wholesome moments between Veltol and Machina, like that time when they go shopping and eat together, are a reminiscence of a slice-of-life anime. So, as you can see, Demon Lord 2099 combines so many great elements from different genres into a cocktail of fun and engaging stories.

What’s Next?

Like other anime in the Fall 2024 season,Demon Lord 2099 is already at the midway point of its story. At this stage, we can already decide whether or not to follow this anime—we highly suggest you do, by the way. So the question is what’s next? What are some of the things that we want to see in this series going forward?

Where Are You Going with This?

While creating a story using the elements of numerous genres is certainly amazing—and difficult to pull off, if I may add—it also carries an inherent risk that needs to be addressed sooner or later. That risk is a lack of direction. Sure, it’s interesting to see a demon lord who conquers the world during the day and stream Dark Souls during the night, but where are you going with this?

If the story really wants to make Veltol a true Demon Lord, then he needs to focus on his campaign of terror. Surely committing acts of violence or spreading destruction all over the place is a better way to induce fear in the common folks, right? Or maybe he wants to live a normal life as a live streamer? In that case, focusing more on the slice-of-life aspect is the best option, isn’t it? This means presenting proper character development and crafting more wholesome character interaction.

“Hah, such low-level insults are nothing compared to the comments from my obsessive haters.”

Excited about the Future

There are two likely paths that Demon Lord 2099 can take for the future. Stay on its course and try to deliver the current cocktail of genres to the best of its ability, or pivot into one of the genres and focus on delivering a robust story. None of those are easy and risk-free choices, but one thing’s for sure, no matter which paths the showrunners choose, we will still follow Demon Lord 2099 till the end. This is one of the most fun anime that this season has to offer and we are certainly excited to watch the new episode every week.

Demon Lord 2099 is available to stream on Crunchyroll.