I’m not sure if this genre was spurred on by the success of Overlord, but it seems as if the last few years, we have seen an abundance of “isekai” anime. Basically, we see an average person transported into a fantasy world, mostly a video game one as in Overlord. Which is what we have here in Demon Lord, Retry. Coincidentally (probably not). We reviewed another similar anime series called How Not to Summer a Demon Lord in recent months on Blu-ray.

The series follows a young man Akira Oono, who gets sucked into an MMORPG he has created and becomes Demon Lord Hakuto Kunai. His personality from reality is transplanted into his online one, so he is sarcastic and arrogant, but he has more charisma. He builds up followers, of course, but is having issues with women. Except for a 13 year old girl, Aku, he rescues that now looks up to him like a father figure. There is also Luna, who befriends the pair, and acts like a sister to Aku.

This series was interesting, not great, but a bit of fun. It start serious, but becomes more episodic, than plot driven, and more comedic. Rather, than becoming Overlord mach 2, it kind of makes fun of the power fantasy elements of these anime. And it ends with the main character building up a hot sprint for fun and profit. Not at all what I expected (sorry for the spoiler).

Funimation presents Demon Lord Retry in a solid 1:78:1 1080p transfer. The animation here isn’t outstanding, and the transfer reflects that. Audio is HD 5.1 in English, and Japanese 2.0. Both sound fine and get the job done. Extras include a commentary on Episode. RECOMMENDED for streaming.