Akuma-kun – Season 1 Episode 12 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Episode 12

Everyone is shocked to see Akuma-kun shooting his father, but he says they should look closer. Shingo’s body turns into a headless replica of Strophaia and disappears. The bullets have holy water, so they only work on demons.

Akuma-kun, Mephisto III, and Gremory enter Shingo’s house. Akuma-kun quickly goes after Strophaia, leaving the other two behind. He tries shooting Strophia, thinking the bullets might work on a fallen angel. Unfortunately, the creature laughs it away as if nothing happened. However, when Akuma-kun uses Satan’s parchment, Strophaia gets weaker and runs away.

Hyakume tells Akuma-kun he knows a shortcut to where Shingo is. Meanwhile, Gremory and Mephisto III fight Strophaia, but the fallen angel is too strong for them. It pushes Mephisto so hard into the wall it breaks. Gremory grabs Strophaia and tries using a fire spell on him, but it hardly works.

What happens in the fight against Strophaia?

Mephisto uses the commotion to escape with Komorineko. They meet Akuma-kun and Hyakume in Solomon’s Flute room. However, they see Shingo is there but incapable of doing anything. The feathers’ effect hit his body and paralyzed him. Akuma-kun knows the only way to solve everything is to play the flute, but he was only able to do that once in his life.

Strophaia turns Gremory into stone and destroys the house. Mephisto says he’ll use all his power, but that might make him go berserk. If that happens, he wants Akuma-kun to kill him.

He uses a powerful flame power, but Strophaia just picks it up and throws it back at him. While they fight, Akuma-kun tries using healing spells to save his father, but it doesn’t work either. Both protagonists can’t see a way out of their situation.

Mephisto charges at Strophaia and uses a lightning attack using his horn, which is so strong it hurts the one who uses it too. Strophaia turns into black feathers, so Hyakume and Komorineko get happy thinking they have won. However, the fallen angel teleports behind Mephisto and pierces him with an attack. 

What was the fallen angel’s plan?

Mephisto bleeds blue and goes berserk, turning into an enormous and violent demon. He uses an ice breath and freezes Hyakume and Komorineko, who are trying to help him. Akuma-kun remembers his promise and uses a spell to imprison the demonic Mephisto. Before shooting him, he cries and asks what emotion he’s feeling. He doesn’t know what the right answer is, but it’s too late now.

Solomon’s Flute breaks and Strophaia laughs, saying he’s free now. He explains that every time Akuma-kun lost someone, the flute would crack. So the fallen angel’s whole plan was to make the boy sad and lonely enough that the object would break, and no one would be able to use it anymore.

Strophaia says now Akuma-kun can be with him forever, the boy just needs to kill Shingo. However, that’s when Akuma-kun finally realizes what his happiness is and why he couldn’t play the flute. Solomon’s Flute listens to your heart, so now that Akuma-kun understands himself he can play it even if it’s broken. He destroys Strophaia and brings everything back to normal. 

How does Akuma-kun end?

Gremory turns back into her demon self, Shingo is cured, Hyakume and Komorineko are unfrozen, and Mephisto comes back to life thanks to his human half.

Akuma-kun enjoys a good meal with everyone in the research institute and everything seems fine. When he is alone with Mephisto, they start talking but the boy suddenly goes quiet. When Mephisto looks behind, Gremory is ripping Akuma-kun’s chest. She violently takes out his heart and he laughs. It’s an unexpected way to end the season, that’s for sure.

The Episode Review

Overall, it is a good ending. The highlights of the episode are surely the last scene and when Akuma-kun kills Mephisto. The ending is a bit surprising and it probably indicates Akuma-kun has demon blood or something like that. But the best thing is how it’s animated. The way Gremory removes the boy’s heart in a gory fashion not seen before in the anime is a great touch.

Also, when Akuma-kun kills Mephisto and cries, we have a good melodramatic scene. It’s also the culmination of what many episodes try to do, get Akuma-kun to understand himself and other people. However, it isn’t completely successful. As we almost don’t see Akuma-kun and Mephisto as good friends throughout the anime, we don’t get very emotional seeing the scene, even though it’s good.

And when Akuma-kun simply turns everything back to normal easily, the scene feels even weaker. The end of the fight is rushed; we hit the darkest point of the series, and everything is fixed almost instantly. Also, we don’t even get a chance to fully understand what Satan’s parchment does, so it doesn’t feel important. That’s a common problem in Akuma-kun season 1, many elements aren’t well-utilized, so they end up having no relevance.

Again, all in all, it’s a good ending. It doesn’t redeem the series completely, but at least it finishes on a good note.