The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy Season 1: The Definition of Mid (But I'm Still Waiting for Season 2)

Why I even pressed play

Real talk: this is the definition of average for me. Mid. I've seen so many anime that run on the exact same weird, typical magic pattern that I could probably sleepwalk through the first three episodes.

So why'd I start it? An Youtube clip. It was the scene where Leonis gets betrayed and killed, and the goddess Roselia has that conversation with him about hating the humans who did that to him — and then she makes him a demon lord. That part? That part was genuinely convincing. That's the bait that got me to hit play.

And then I actually watched the rest.

...and then it settled right back into mid

Yeah. Mid.

The world is your standard setup — magic got lost, humanity fights these monsters called Voids with weapon-shaped powers called Demon Swords, and our 1000-year-old Dark Lord Leonis wakes up stuck in the body of a ten-year-old kid. Cool premise on paper. In practice it's a magic-school power fantasy doing all the magic-school power fantasy things you've already seen a dozen times.

Nothing offensive. Nothing that made me drop it. Just... average, on a loop.

Riselia is pretty, kinda annoying, and very thirsty

Riselia Ray Crystalia is pretty, I'll give her that. But she's also kinda annoying.

And most of the fan service in the show funnels straight through her — the bath scenes, and her constantly trying to drink our MC's blood. That last part actually has a reason: she's the Vampire Queen now because Leonis turned her that way, made her immortal to save her, and she carries his mark. So the blood-thirst isn't random, it's baked into what he did to her. Doesn't make it less of a fan service excuse, but at least there's lore behind it.

Shary was low-key the best part

Shary is kinda my favorite, not gonna lie. She's got that low-key side-quest energy — she shows up along the way and just quietly steals the scenes she's in. A lot of this stretch of the show hangs around that floating city, the Seventh Assault Garden, and Shary was the part I was actually looking forward to.

Give me more Shary, that's all I'm saying.

The CGI skeletons killed the vibe

Okay here's my real gripe: that skeleton army. They look like cheap CGI. Every time they showed up it pulled me right out of it.

I'm sitting here criticizing and I don't even know if the studio behind this (that's Passione, by the way) had the budget for better — so I'll keep the complaint honest and not pretend I know their situation. But budget or not, the result is the result: the skeletons look cheap, and the boss-level monsters have that same CGI look too. It cheapens fights that should've been the hype moments.

But the love story? That one actually got me

Here's the thing I can't fully hate on. The Leonis and Roselia love story is genuinely good.

Goddess and hero. The hero gets betrayed, dies, and comes back as a demon lord. And the goddess ends up punished — reincarnated as a human, or something along those lines. That's a real emotional core, and it's the same thing that hooked me from that first Instagram clip. When the show leans into this, it stops being mid for a minute.

And here's the part that makes it interesting: the present-day heroine is Riselia Ray Crystalia, and the ancient goddess is Roselia Ishtaris. Almost the same name. The anime hasn't confirmed it yet — but everything points to Riselia being Roselia reborn. Which reframes the whole thing.

So will Leonis find his goddess?

Season one is pretty much mid. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But — big but — what if season 2 turns into a top season? Because that's exactly the setup here. Will Leonis find his goddess? And what happens to his dear Vampire Queen — especially if she IS the goddess he's been searching a thousand years for? Those two questions might be the same question. That's the hook that has me waiting.

Let's see. Season 1 is a 6.5/10 from me. Mid, but I'm not walking away yet.

The Scorecard

• Story: 6.5/10 — good bones, mid execution

• Characters: 7/10 — Shary and the Leonis/Roselia backstory carry it

• Animation: 6/10 — fine when it's not leaning on CGI

• CGI: 4.5/10 — those skeletons, man

• Enjoyment: 6.5/10 — never dropped it, never hyped either

• Overall: 6.5/10 — mid, but I'm waiting for Season 2