Another week, another anime from Netflix. This time around, we have 13 episodes, 25 minutes apiece it’s called My Daemon. Going into it, I thought it would be another kid show’s concept made for the adult. But My Daemon’s Ending was something I did not expect. How can they make a little kind-hearted kid suffer like that…?
Sure, a lot of crazy things happened at the end of My Daemon, and we will be going through it all and trying to understand what it all really means. And even though the story looks like it has concluded, is there a possibility for My Daemon Season 2?
When it comes to the character creations of the Daemons, I think this is what people are going to find really interesting. Because they all have unique abilities, they come across as very exciting to see how they’re going to be used.
Here is My Daemon Ending Explained:
My Daemon Anime Meaning Explained
I think that there were some messages here regarding disfigurements as well since Kento has a large birthmark on his face. The deeper reason for that birthmark is a little bit, but I think that Kento loves Anna so much because she also has facial disfigurements.
Kento’s particle hatching (Credits: Netflix)I understood why Kento had a connection with the Daemons prior to the revelation about his birthmark. He feels like an outcast and a target by wider society because of simply being associated with the Daemons, which I thought was a message regarding the real world and how people can cruelly target or belittle certain kinds of people, based on their appearance and the concept of their existence more than any character traits specifically.
Combining this concept with the idea that it was nuclear power that caused the apocalypse to begin with, providing an almost anti-nuclear weapon message with their fantasy packaging, I absolutely expect this to be another Netflix show that gets hit with another walk label by a portion of the viewership. And if that’s the case, using fantasy to explore real-world concepts is something the fantasy genre has almost always done.
We take influence from reality and twist it in order for us to see a different perspective on it. As such, I appreciate the connection between Kento and the Daemons and the messages I interpreted from my watch via how those characters and erectors were treated in the series.
The Birth Mark
Now, onto the birthmark a little bit more. This was something I really enjoyed as a concept. So Kento actually has something in his head called the Demonian particle. Something that allows him to understand Daemons and Daemons to understand him. However, these particles eventually give birth to new Daemons.
So, in essence, Kento was walking around with an egg in his head, waiting to hatch. It’s a ticking time bomb, adding tension to the story, not just trying to find Daemon who can turn back time. Jere, Kenton’s gift, is also a curse waiting to happen. And you think, “Yeah, no need to worry. He’ll likely be all right in the end and get through it.” And naturally, he does ultimately survive.
But what I didn’t expect to see was the particle actually bloody hatching in the most brutal scene in the entire show. I grew an attachment to this sweet, kind boy. We get to see him cry in agony while being tortured before bleeding from his eyes and his head exploding. I sat up when I saw this happen.
Kento and Anna have birthmarks (Credits: Netflix)
The show has some really good gore, and I love that, but here, it’s the nature of the moment. It’s a horrendous death for anyone of any age, let alone this kind-hearted child just wanting to save his best friend. But in what he believes are his final moments, he tells Anna how much he loves her. It tugged at my heartstrings and then flat-out ripped my heart out and bit a chunk out of it.
I also didn’t mind how the show kept the common rule of messing around with death, which never ends desirably. When Kento’s mother is revived, she is demonic and not the mother he knows. Of course, we get an often-witnessed scene where Anna doesn’t like the mother and attacks her. But Kent thinks it’s just Anna being bitch and not a warning signal.
My Daemon Ending Explained
In the end, the mother has to be properly laid to rest rather than being fully saved and resurrected. This means Kento has to accept death and move on. Pairing that with losing contact with Anna, Kento goes through an emotional roller coaster here. He was the glue that kept this story together for me, and though I thought that the story was just OK, he was the reason I kept watching purely because I wanted to see a good outcome for him.
But refreshingly, the outcome wasn’t a good one; instead, it was a bittersweet one. It is a melancholic ending to his adventure, which I much prefer to everybody winning and all the results going in the protagonists forever as the real world is often not that forgiving.
My Daemon Anime Review
“Creatures in post-apocalyptic Japan,” we’ve seen this sort of story before. In fact, we’ve seen one so similar that I’m not going to mention the movie that’s attached to this title, but Pokémon, this is like adult Pokémon. If you take Pokémon, “gotta catch them all” sort of thing, we have a journey with a character that wants to save his mum. He journeys with his Daemon across the land, so we have that journeying adventure storyline, which is great.
Kento and Anna on Journey (Credits: Netflix)
It always has a tenseness to it and the characters that they meet along the way. There’s a sort of time limit on it; he’s being hunted down by Team Rocket, but actually, the guys who want to dissect the daemons and everybody on the planet almost feel like they are against the daemons. Then you also have the daemons that don’t like people because they’ve been abused by people.
Similarities To Pokemon
You know, depending on the Pokémon that they are, they will say their names, so we get that for Daemons as well. The demons will say whatever their name is.
When it comes to humans interacting with daemons, you get daemon hunters, and you get those who are using daemons to catch other daemons. When we follow the kid and what he’s going through, the trauma that he’s experienced, the trauma that he continues to experience on his journey because humans are just sucky, that is when it gets entertaining.
I felt myself being drawn emotionally a number of times. There are peak emotional moments along the 13 episodes that you’re going to find yourself going, “Wow, that’s way darker than I expected.” There’s a juxtaposition of this where, especially with the voice work, if you’re listening to it in English, you’ll hear the voice work that sounds very much like Ash. And the daemon that he has with him, Anna, sounds like Pikachu.
It’s very similar to the American-style voices that they have for the American voice actors. It feels very familiar, but it’s so kid-friendly in the demeanor or the voice work that they have for the characters it feels like it’s a very young anime.
Anime Targeted For The Teens
But then on the juxtaposition on that, you’ll have decapitated heads and people being spiked, people being torn up, a lot of blood, quite dark themes in places, and you’re like, “Well, this is such a weird amalgamation.” You do get anime like this, but normally it’s either for kids, or then you have the older version. This is definitely like Teens and Up. I think teens will love this, and it crescendos into an excellent 13th episode that is big.
Kento and Anna in a Train (Credits: Netflix)
But after I’ve said one particular Pokémon movie, you will know exactly what this story is. That’s not to say I found it disappointing in any way. I thought the voices were both in English, and the original was fantastic. I did watch a couple in both just to kind of balance it out.
I found myself when I was eating my lunch while watching. I found myself listening to the English so I didn’t have to read and, you know, miss stuff. But then I’ll go back to the original and found that I liked the voice inflections the original, particularly their original voice workers, that they wanted to get on this project, which lends itself to a more emotional depth that you get through than reading. But I think either way, you will be fine.
The animation style is different, I think There are these backgrounds that look like they’re hand drawn. Probably, you have a few, and then they are digitized. Then we have that 3D artwork, which is a combination of it. Lending itself to something that you can feel at home with that is also new, that is easier for them to animate compared to if they were doing frame by frame.
I missed the good old days when that’s what it was, but it takes much longer to get those out. Here, they’re churning them out because there’s this world that we live in where people just want more and more and more and more anime.
