This Post contains spoilers for the first episode of Demi-Chan wa Kataritai. I highly recommend you watch the show before you read any further~

Minorities being a thematic point within an Anime in itself is already rare and even more so from the perspective of someone that knows little about them. Shows like Wandering Son, Doukyuusei, Aoi Hana and others are incredibly important, but I believe that Demi-chan brings an equally important and often overlooked part of all of this to the table. Where discrimination and the likes are already gone, there’s still a certain disconnect between people of minorities and the ones not having much experience with them.

In recent times, the need for respect for people differing from the ‘norm’ has grown immensely and that is obviously a very very good thing, but in a way, it also serves to distance people further from minorities.

“I don’t know how to refer to this person…”

“I don’t want to hurt them so I won’t say anything for now.”

I don’t think these kind of occurrences are rare, not knowing how to deal with things you have no experience with is a difficult thing. Being a minority is hard, I’m starting to experience it, but I’ve also been on the other side of things. I lived with a disabled person for a long time of my life. I know what it’s like to meet a transgender person for the first time and to not know how to deal with it. These things are difficult and normal, but they’re 100% necessary and that’s where Demi-chan’s specific approach comes into play.

From the very start of the series Demi-chan is about education, after all, our main character is a teacher and about to start writing his thesis. He’s curious, wants to know more about Half-humans, or as I’ll call them for their sake, Demis, but he doesn’t know how to properly approach them. Thus when he tries to reach out to his fellow teacher and Demi in a way not befitting she, of course, acts flustered and tries to get out of the situation, likely having gone through this before.

So, during the second half of this episode, the Vampire Takanashi (aka this season’s best girl) comes to help out and I think this is where Demi-chan’s heart lies. Takanashi isn’t just incredibly charming, she’s also incredibly discrete. She’s very open about her differences and at all points ready to help out in understanding the world of Demis. She isn’t bothered by the fact that her teacher is calling Demi Half-humans, but corrects him, either way, knowing he didn’t mean any harm and that’s the exact kind of thing Demi-chan encourages.

Hikari is a treasure

The first episode’s strongest scene is an incredibly empathetic part of one of the Demi’s conversations with classmates being interrupted by the disconnect I mentioned earlier. When Kyouko brings up her own differences, her classmates suddenly become unsure of how to react and are scared of accidentally hurting Kyouko so they quickly change the topic to something else, hurting their Demi friend all the more in the process. Later on, Takanashi approaches the Dullahan out of nowhere bringing up these exact things and while everyone else is shocked at it Kyouko is obviously happy about it, leading to other people joining the talk after all.

Demi-Chan at its core is a show about communication and education. It’s about how to treat people different from you and about how to help out people in getting used to new situations. Demi-chan isn’t beautiful just because it’s empathetic towards Minorities, but because it’s empathetic towards all sides. It’s a show about bridging the distance that differences create, not through, ignoring them, but through accepting and helping.