Although I’ve heard a lot of things about the “Devil Survivor” series, I’ve never actually played any of the games. It’s probably a good thing in this case, as it means I didn’t have any bias when watching the anime based on Devil Survivor 2.

Set in modern day japan, Devil Survivor 2 features enemies called Septentriones” who are invading the country. For seven days, these gigantic beings will terrorise cities until the world is erased from existence. To try and stop this from happening, a government organisation signs a pact with demons to fight alongside humans.

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The main heroes of this story, Hibiki, Saichi and Io are saved from a fatal train crash by a leaked program called “Nicaea”. Minutes before your death, the app notifies your friends in the hope that your life will be spared. Through this app, the heroes are able to summon demons and are recruited to help save the world.

The story had so much promise! I liked the sound of fighting to save the world with a time limit, something more realistic than normal “save-the-world” scenarios where the heroes go at their own pace. I think that the story was a bit rushed though, with not much time given in the episodes to explore the personalities and relationships between the characters. The beginning of the series seemed to be setting up a possible romance between Saichi and Io, but this was quickly dropped and only mentioned again at the end.

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I really liked the characters for this anime. I thought the character designs were different and I especially liked the demons. Creatures from different myths were brought in for inspiration so you were able to relate more to the story. I do think that the characters could have been explored more and their emotions used more effectively to help deepen the story.

The art itself was also quite good; I liked the designs and the colours as I felt they went well together. The visual effects used were also a good way to enhance the action which made the scenes stand out. In some parts the animation could have been a lot smoother but on the whole the animation was good. The main criticism I would have against it was the animation could have been used in a more effective way during the more dramatic scenes.

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As for the audio, I’d highly recommend not watching this with the english dub but rather watch with the original Japanese vocals with subtitles. Usually, I attempt to watch dubbed anime since it’s distracting trying to read and watch at the same time. However, after one episode I switched to subbed. Personally, I felt the dubbed voices did not suit the characters at all. Weak or boyish characters had strong voices and strong characters had very forgettable voices; It just didn’t feel right at all. I’m glad to say that the subbed voices were the opposite. You could tell a lot of effort went into voices suiting characters and not just getting famous voice actors to play the roles.

For the extras there were textless versions of the opening and closing theme songs. There was also a choice of “Majestic Prince”, “Gatchaman Crowds”, “Amnesia” and “Watamote” trailers to watch.

Review Summary

On the whole I thought that the anime was very good. The story was a bit lacking and so was some character development, but the art and music were good. It’s something I’d watch if I had a bit of spare time on my hands and didn’t want to watch a lot of filler.