Probably Trying To Hard

I low-key love mafia iruma a lot, nishi does a great job twisting the archetypal shonen protag into a fucking psychopath without it ever feeling over the top or needlessly edgy. He's very believable both as captain save-a-ho, and as the sorta freak who would get off playing Russian roulette and making his subordinate burn his own face off. Only whine is that he comes off as being way more insecure than main series iruma with all the hand wringing he does over not being worthy of being "the boss." Grow a pair!

I like Alice MUCH better in this than in the main series, his arc justifies the spinoffs existence to me. His motivations are much more complex, and you get a lot more time with the conflicted, adversarial Alice, which makes the dumbass iruma-stan he becomes feel much funnier and more well earned. I don't hate main series Alice by any means, but he's a VERY one note character, and I've always been disappointed that he doesn't have more of his own shit going on independent of iruma.

I'm conflicted on Ameri in this, because on the one hand her having a pre-existing relationship with iruma and wanting to save him from the Mafia made for such a fun intro arc. But on the other hand, I don't like that she's yet another character who's motivations have been collapsed into "get closer to/serve Iruma." I love her having her own motivations and relationships and weird side quests in the main series, it's always a good time when she shows up for an arc because of it. In a funny way it makes mafia Ameri a much more compelling love interest, but a less interesting character overall to me.

Clara is kiiiiind of a downgrade to me, I will absolutely say "rescue the valac family" is an extremely interesting premise for the character, but idk she just doesn't make me laugh in this one, which is a shame b/c she's genuinely my favorite character in the main series. I also feel like the love trio dynamic itself isnt as compelling to me here as it is in the main series, there's no reason for Clara to get attached to azz over, say, opera or kalego, it feels like she just kinda glommed onto him because people wanted the love trio to be the same in both series. She may grow on me more once more of the misfits get folded in and she has more people to play off of though.

Speaking of, kalego is a strict downgrade for me, him being a miser is just not a fun gimmick at all, and he doesn't get aura farming scenes with Cerberus which is main series kalego's one saving grace.

Opera I'm withholding judgement on, they're positioned as WAY more prominent a character in this series, but they haven't had a good arc to focus on them yet, I want to see what happens first. But just based off what we have rn, I find main series opera's deadpan face and mischievous streak way more fun than mafia Opera's edginess.