The official website of The Classification Board of Australia, who are responsible for classification of films, computer games and publications in the country, revealed on Jan 4, 2023 that they have banned How Not To Summon A Demon Lord Season 2 in the country.

The anime received a rating of ‘RC’ (Refused Classification) rating from the board, meaning that the second season of the series cannot be sold, hired, advertised or legally imported in Australia, as the content in question is very high in impact and falls outside generally-accepted community standards.

The classification board, however, did not explicitly specify as to why How Not To Summon A Demon Lord Season 2 was banned in Australia, and instead asks people to contact them for further information.

The previous season of the anime had received a M15+ rating (Strong sexual themes and sexualized imagery), meaning the content of the anime is “legally restricted to people over the age of 15” as it contains “elements such as sex scenes and drug use that could have a strong impact on the viewer”.

The Classification Board of Australia is notorious for giving the RC ratings to Japanese anime and manga.

The board had previously banned volumes 2, 4, 13 & 15 of To Love Ru Darkness manga in July 2022. Later in December, the authorities decided to ban 15 of the total 18 volumes from the manga, with only 5 volumes escaping the ban with a category 1 and 2 rating.

In 2020, Australia had banned 3 volumes of No Game No Life. Even before that in 2012, a batch of 15 manga were seized by the Australian authorities as they had “stylized images of sexual fetishes containing non-consent or physical harm”.

Films, computer games and publications have to be legally classified in Australia before they are made available to the audiences.

How Not to Summon A Demon Lord Season 2, which released on April 2021, was animated by Tezuka Productions and directed by Okuruto Noboru. It is based on the Japanese light novel series of the same name written by Yukiya Murasaki and illustrated by Takahiro Tsurusaki. The light novels are published in English by J-Novel Club.

A manga adaptation by Naoto Fukuda has been running since 2015, and is licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment. The first season of the anime adaptation aired in 2018.

MAL describes the second season of the anime as follows:

The Demon King Diablo is back as… God? A fateful encounter with the High Priest Lumachina Weselia finds Diablo and his party accompanying this mysterious stranger on a journey to cleanse the Church of its corruption. Believed to be God by Lumachina, Diablo eventually decides to protect her on her initial quest to find the head paladin, the virtuous Batutta.

Diablo, Rem, Shera and Lumachina are joined by the grasswalker, Horn and the Magmatic Maid, Rose. Will Diablo fulfil Lumachina’s wish? And can the Demon Lord from Another World truly play the role of God?

Source: Refused Classification website, Au Classification Board Website.