I disliked it. I'd sooner rewatch the 1989 series. It's a darker, more serious story that's aimed at adults, so that's a step up... but its protagonist is an apathetic dick. He's cold, rude and doesn't understand talking to people or thanking them. He usually can't be bothered to do anything. He orders people around. He prepends a swear word to his father's name, even though his father's lovely and has never stopped trying to help this new Akuma-kun.

I appreciate the fact this is directed by Junichi Sato, though, i.e. the veteran director of the 1989 Akuma-kun. It's not a reboot and it often uses the original voice actors in their old roles. 1989-Akuma-kun is the adopted father of his 2023 successor, after rescuing him as a child from an angel who'd been about to make him hammer a nail through a woman's forehead. (This is one of many things that 2023-Akuma-kun takes for granted and never shows any gratitude for.) There's also a Mephisto III (played by Nezumi-Otoko's latest voice actor) who's the son of Mephisto II and 1989-Akuma-kun's sister. Even Hakyume and Koumori-neko appear, albeit usually just chatting over the closing credits.

Mizuki Shigeru's character designs are fun. Gremory is memorable, as is that guitar-playing vampire whose design gets reused here for an unrelated character.

The story content gets pretty dark... in theory. The show never embraces the horror of Christianity's Satan and his lore, i.e. selling your soul to the devil and spending eternity in hell. Someone from a Christian culture would write this material completely differently, e.g. that boy in ep.8 who wants to become a demon. It's like the ill-understood shadow of something that could have been insanely disturbing. (Conversely, see Hell Girl, which I simply couldn't watch.) That said, though, the show features suicide, cannibalism and domestic abuse. People die and get knives in their eye sockets. Someone in ep.5 got murdered and nailed to the floor, crucifixion-style. Akuma-kun takes to shooting people in the head. (His gun has magic bullets, though, so it's less extreme than it looks.)

So, at least it's not kiddified. There's meat in these episodes.. but unfortunately the protagonist is a knob who doesn't care. (I loved the 2018 GeGeGe no Kitarou even though it did exactly the same thing, but my reaction to a cold, dispassionate Kitarou was "yeah, that makes sense for the character".) This Akuma-kun is clever, but unpleasant. He does a deal to let Gremory eat his heart and then, disappointingly, wriggles out of it. This show's strongest episodes are those that de-emphasise Akuma-kun himself, whereas those that focus on him are the most skippable and boring. At best, for me, this show sometimes elevates itself to "that episode was theoretically quite interesting". More often, though, I tended to see the series as an unsympathetic waste of time.