Cosmology (Dropkick on My Devil!)

The "universe" of Dropkick on My Devil is divided between three planes or dimensions: The human realm, Heaven, and Hell. The human realm is a stand-in for Real World, while Heaven is roughly analogous to the Christian imagery of Heaven, and Hell is something of a syncretistic amalgamation of Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman, and Japanese conceptions of the underworld. Each realm has its own inhabitants and rules, but at least for Heaven and Hell, it is possible to cross over or even become trapped in the human realm, where the series is primarily set.

The series does not always take its worldbuilding seriously and may break from it for humor, and all the while there are strong elements of metafiction permeating both the manga and the anime.

## The Human Realm

The **Human Realm** (人間界を, *ningen-kai*?), or for all intents and purposes Earth, is a mirror for our own world and the main setting for most of the series events. Technically this plane includes not just our planet but also outer space as well, but since those only make background appearances as needed (such as when, in the anime, a child's lost balloon that Yurine cajoles Jashin-chan to retrieve from a tree somehow rockets Jashin-chan into deep space and past the Voyager One interstellar probe), the relevance of anything beyond Earth is tangential. Besides Yurine, the only regular recurring human character is Mei Tachibana.

As its name suggests, the Human Realm is characterized by its eponymous dominant inhabitants, humans. Although the only mortal sapient race depicted in *Dropkick on My Devil*, they are also the most dynamic, capable of collectively changing themselves and their environment drastically over their finite lifespan. Whereas Heaven and Hell barely change over thousands of years, Minos observed in her debut chapter that humans progressed from killing each other with swords to their current level of technology in just several hundred years.

By and large, humans are relatively uninformed of the true nature of the Heaven or Hell. A large fraction of Earth's population worships the ruler of Heaven in some form or another, and cultural depictions of the underworld abound, but direct familiarity is a rarity. The series' cast of devils found the supposed Yokai (monster) Museum in Japan absolutely hilarious, and even Yurine had some doubts about the underworld until she successfully summoned Jashin-chan. Yet even aside from Yurine, some humans do have financial contact with the underworld at least, namely the Yakuza.

For the most part, almost everything we see of the human realm is in Japan specifically, although China and France do make periodic cameos.

## Hell

**Hell** (魔界, *makai*?), or the underworld, is a murky place that is home to the Devils, not a single race but an umbrella family for a wide variety of beings and monsters. It is the homeland of Jashin-chan, Medusa, Minos, all the other demons who appear in the show.

Hell's overall nature borrows elements from Christianity, Greco-Roman Mythology, Shintoism, and Buddhism. Both Satan and Hades are referenced in some for another as ruling Hell. Regardless, it is less a destination for damned souls than it is a world unto itself, with inhabitants, locations, and even government that levies taxes on Hell's inhabitants. Even though they are immortal, the demons there even have children which they then send to school. Jashin-chan and Minos both come from wealthy families (although Jashin-chan is at one point implied to be disowned for reasons not particularly hard to guess).

Hell's demonic inhabitants have a two-variable internal hierarchy, with status based on class and level. Demons can be categorized as high class or low class, with further distinctions stratifying the high class demons, and they also have a "level", a system based more on merit. This can lead to some odd situations. Jashin-chan, a Lamia, claims to be of higher class than Medusa, a Gorgon, but Medusa has a higher level than her. Additionally, at least one type of Demon, Ice Spirits (like Yusa and Kōji), transition from low class to high class once they mature. Of the show's demonic cast, only Jashin-chan appears to care about this ranking system.

Some of the demons have a relationship to the others that is unclear, like Ran-Ran and Kyon-Kyon who appear to be from a Chinese area in Hell, but don't seem to know much about Jashin-chan and her friends.

## Heaven

The last and least depicted of the three realms, Heaven (天国, *tengoku*?) is the land of paradise, Angels, and God. Countless humans worship these inhabitants, but while it is in many ways a paradise, they would be somewhat mistaken about the benevolent nature of its inhabitants. Of the three angelic members of the cast, Pekora was first sent down by Heaven to kill Yurine for summoning a demon, only to lose her halo and by extension her powers and ability to return to Heaven, Poporon, her former subordinate, clandestinely went down to try and assassinate Pekora for personal gain but lost her halo too, and Pino was sent down to kill both of them for transgressions against Heaven's strict laws... only to have the same fate.