Mediocre series with very satisfactory ending

The Devil Punisher starts off very rocky with a horrendous first episode along with the first few episodes being filled with very obvious and obnoxious filler. Not all of the first few episodes are bad in my opinion but many of them are just not good at all. The show starts picking up though and it's an enjoyable enough all the way to the end. Is the show a low budget cheesy mess? Yes but that's exactly what I was looking for. If you're watching this show, expect everything to be flawed because it's really not the greatest show in the world.

Despite how mediocre the show can be, I'd really recommend this show for anybody who is also into low budget cheesy supernatural shows especially if you're looking for one with a very satisfactory ending. It's not exactly a mind blowing ending but it did make me feel like this mediocre show was worth watching. It even tied some loose ends that I never even thought they'd address again.

So just how satisfying was the ending for me? Warning, this will get in depth with spoilers.

First of all, one of the main themes of the show especially early on is Zhong Kui's strictness as the Ghost King and how Xin Yu softens him which allows him to better a Ghost King in the end. This surprisingly paid off big time in the end despite how bleak things looked. Many of the characters are characters that Zhong Kui interacts with early on in the series are people who needed help but he was too strict with rules to find better solutions which is why it was great to see Xin Yu help change him change his ways. The main villain was killing people and using their tragic deaths to corrupt their spirits for his own cause. Zhong Kui could've dealt with these spirits heartlessly without understand their plight just like always but Xin Yu allowed him to see past that. Together, they helped these spirits heal and have closure after being manipulated after their murders. There are lot of tears and emotional involved in finding closure so if there was no real pay off. Well, by the finale, both the main villain and audience is led to believe that it was all for nothing and he managed to corrupt good people anyways in order to further his goals, but that wasn't the case. The main villain was too delusional to see that despite his best efforts, he failed to fully corrupt the spirits that he needed, and he was using good spirits to try to corrupt someone else which obviously doesn't work. The good spirits come through in the end and Zhong Kui's softer side comes to save their asses in the end. Ultimately, the end of the final battle wasn't decided by a fancy swordfight where the best fighter won, it was decided by the good deeds of Zhong Kui and Xin Yu throughout the series who saved souls from corruption and made humans believe in them.

Xin Yu softening Zhong Kui helped him realize that the rules do not always determine what's morally right or wrong. The characters start breaking certain rules based on their morals which is great because the rules just aren't always right. Breaking the rules and following their morality definitely pays off in the end but I won't elaborate on that.

Reincarnation is also one of the main themes of the show and again, I think the finale did a really good job with that theme. Sadly, when bad things happen in a show and people need to risk their lives to save the day, not everyone makes it out alive. Luckily, everyone is allowed to reincarnate in hopes that their next lifetime is better. The tragedy of the show is felt by the loss of some of these character's lives but there's always a light at the end of the tunnel when we consider reincarnation. A ghost show where everyone survives doesn't make sense so I thought it was fitting that some characters that we knew and loved just had to move onto the next life.

Another high point of the finale is that there's an actual epilogue rather than having everything quickly resolve right at the end of the episode. You got to see emotional moments between characters, you got to see their chapters practically close out, and it just felt right. If you want to watch a flawed show with a good enough conclusion, The Devil Punisher is a good enough watch. They did what they had to do with the finale and not every show needs to be mindblowingly good. So don't totally dismiss this show just because it's not the best.

The main villain's acting is still atrocious though, nothing can really fix that.

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From the first episode, I could already tell this show would fail to justify its length of 16 episodes which were all over 1 hour long. A show starts dragging from the first episode when there are still 15 hours left in the series is not exactly a good sign and I regret not dropping the show when I first saw the red flags.

I came into the show expecting it to be a ghost show but despite there being multiple psychic characters, the ghosts mainly feel like they're there because someone wrote a dull show and needed to desperately add supernatural elements in to spice it up. The characters see ghosts and they barely interact with them either despite the fact they're supposed to see them. It's honestly pitiful how they handled the ghosts in this show.

This show has elements to it like romance, humor, and decent side character to entertain you while you get dragged around in circles for the entire series wondering when there will be actual progress made but that only happens until the very end the excruciating 16 episode. If you want a show that completely ruins itself in the last few episodes, this is your show, but that's not even the worst part. The problem with this show is that it'll completely bore you to death before you even get to the parts where it ruins everything. I reached a point where I just no longer had patience for this show so I skipped through the last episodes and I'm sure glad I did because I'd be pissed if I actually was still interested.

Don't bother with this show. Even if the last episodes were written better, it still would not be worth it because it's so boring and the episodes are so long with nothing going on most of the time. I can't believe Netflix would put their logo on such a dreadful show without having any shame.

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