Title: You’re Being Summoned, Azazel DVD Complete Collection

Director: Tsutomu Mizushima

Studio: Production I. G.

U. S. Distributor: Lucky Penny, Nozomi

U. S. Release date: Feb. 3rd, 2015

Format: DVD / 26 Episodes / 338 Minutes

Genre: Comedy

Age Rating: TV 17

Overall Personal Rating: B

Synopsis:

Have a stalker you just can’t shake? Fear your spouse is being unfaithful? You might consider hiring Akutabe, a detective who summons demons to do his dirty work. While his methods might seem unorthodox, he always gets results. However, as powerful as Akutabe is, manipulating demons is a delicate art. His new part-time employee Sakuma, a young college girl, doesn’t get to spend too much time exploring the finer points of controlling demons before Akutabe forces her into a demonic contract with Azazel. Azazel is lazy, lustful, and depraved… Everything you’d expect a demon to be. Sakuma needs to keep Azazel on a tight leash, but to do that, she may have to dabble in a little depravity herself.

Commentary:

There are plenty of shows out there that aim to push the boundaries of absurd and questionable. As for Azazel, You’re Being Summoned will be treated some of the best and worst of this style of comedy. After the first episode I thought it might stay somewhat straight forward, but with the introduction of  Beelzebub any chance for redemption goes straight down the toilet. Or rather it should go down the toilet. Any time you have a major character that feeds on feces you can be sure that things will only get stranger from there, and they do.

This comedy is fine and sometimes funny, but I began to find it rather tedious and unnerving. I did appreciate the way that Rinko developed and ended up becoming a little more edgy, but in the end she still retained some of her original humanity. Akutabe on the other hand is the kind of person that I typically detest and in this case he still ends up being nothing more than a jerk, but the fact that he doesn’t have any eyebrows is cool.

Now when it comes to the demons I almost would have preferred that they didn’t revert to their chibi form when they come to the human world, I could have gotten a better sense of what they really were. The story line was simple and stayed on tract which I think help make it easy to watch and maybe even saved it for some of the over the top things that happen.

Overall Grade: B

Azazel, You’re Being Summoned is not for the under 16/17 age group and at time was hard for this middle aged man to watch. There were plenty of other moments where I laughed out loud and found the humor to be spot on. It reminded me very much of an Austin Powers movie that was mashed up with something like She Devil or even a stranger Elfin Lied or even Archer. Much of the story made fun of the weakness in our own human nature and in a few rare occasions made a valid point about the dichotomy of humanity.

If you are looking for a comedy that pushes the boundaries of what humor is and will make you uncomfortable at the same time then you should pick this up. The base humor is in line with American sensibilities and may make you laugh and at the same time be a little sad that you are even watching it.