A mysterious transfer student is coming to class, and everyone is excited. Will he be cute? Will he be interesting? The poor devil, though, seems to be trembling with nervousness as he waits behind the door while the teacher introduces him. And no wonder: our protagonist is… balding at 16! Something or other about this formula his dad had… No, wait, he’s not bald after all! Instead, he is an actual devil. He was trying to make himself sympathetic to the class, and he’s in luck: they put up with his lunacy and welcome him into the fold. But that won’t be enough. As you may have heard, Heaven and Hell are at war, and angels have the upper hand against demons. As a result, our protagonist, your run-of-the-mill Dark Lord-esque teenager, is coming to Earth to recruit an inspiring leader for his cause. You’d think that would be a rough sell, but this blond, extremely childish-looking girl in his class looks interested, especially after he saves her life with his devilish superpowers. But wait: she might turn out to be a sadistic angel. As in, she carries around a pink dog collar and forces it on him! Well, that sure escalated quickly.

This show is the stuff of nightmares. The animation looks somewhat stiff, with characters’ proportions often looking weird when they turn, or too static as the others move. The music is too videogamey, and changes too quickly. The opening includes a lot of scenes from the episode, and I will never understand why a twenty-minute premier feels the need to include a flashback from another part of the same episode. I was not thrilled with the show’s take on Heaven and Hell: this is nowhere near The Eccentric Family or Haibane Renmei. And the jokes tend to overstay their welcome. Our protagonist’s reaction to meeting the main heroine combines insanely detailed fantasies about their non-existent relationship (including dates, playing videogames together and walking in the rain) with what can only be described as seizures on the floor. When we meet another two characters, one of whom has confessed his love to a classmate five times in a row, I felt a slight ray of hope. But that was before the show took a weird turn and became a BDSM fantasy with seven full minutes of, ahem, stuff that would be a crime if it happened in real life. Skip this one and you’ll sleep better.

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The Foolish Angel Dances with the Devil is streaming on Crunchyroll.