Pretty demon boys and the teen girls that love them. Yes, this is one of those stories.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Aya Shouoto
Translation/Adaptation: JN Productions
What They Say
On her sixteenth birthday, orphan Himari Momochi inherits her ancestral estate that she’s never seen. Momochi House exists on the barrier between the human and spiritual realms, and Himari is meant to act as guardian between the two worlds. But on the day she moves in, she finds three handsome squatters already living in the house, and one seems to have already taken over her role!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
An orphan girl finds out that upon her sixteenth birthday she’s inherited the old family estate she didn’t know existed. Upon arrival she discovers three young men seemingly squatting in her property. Rather than calling the police she decides she’ll force them to leave on her own. The problem is they aren’t budging, and the house isn’t exactly on an ancient burial ground but is definitely haunted. Did I mention one of the boys transforms into a demon exorcist himself and the other two are his shikigami?
Sounds eerily familiar. I know I’ve seen all these elements before, from the orphan lead that seems to plague many manga to the trio of pretty boys to the secret transformations. The Demon Prince of Momochi House isn’t going to win any points for originality. At least not this early in the story, maybe it will have more surprises awaiting in the future. At least I hope so, because while the book isn’t bad I can’t help but compare it to a million other series I’ve read before.
Himari is our heroine, average in looks (by shoujo standards), endearingly independent, and optimistic despite the fact that she keeps putting herself in harm’s way because she won’t listen to the tenants of her estate. She is almost immediately attracted to the boy she finds living in her house, 17 year old Aoi, but maybe that’s because she walked in on him naked. He is kind and considerate to a fault, and lacking just enough social skills to not find anything wrong with innocently snuggling up to Himari when she least expects it. Oh, yeah, it’s contrived as heck. Aoi has two friends and assistants, equally generic attractive young men, who are spirits themselves.
How attractive are these young men? The artist Aya Shouoto has the wispy bishounen style down pat. Large lipid eyes, pouty lips, improbably styled dangly hair. Aoi reminds me of several manga boys I’ve seen before, he fits that design mold quite well. Himari is cute but not too cute, stylish and yet not too stylish.
Aoi has a secret though, of course. He turns into a spirit creature called Nue that appears to be part fox and part even more attractive young man. Every time he transforms to seal away the ayakashi and yokai spirits he gets naked tells Himari to avert her gaze, which she never does.
The simple story follows a simple pattern already of Himari wandering somewhere in the house where she shouldn’t, meeting a yokai which tries to trick her, and Aoi wandering in to save her. He exhausts himself doing so and Himari worries as he worries and it’s all just too damn precious… of course. By the end of the volume we find out that when Aoi became the house’s guardian spirit he did so at the cost of his freedom and can’t leave the house anymore, setting up volume two.
At a mere three chapters the book feels thin and anemic. Maybe because the page count is lacking Viz tried to make up for it by including color opening pages, something they rarely do with their standard manga releases. I have to admit that was a nice surprise because the color artwork is quite nice. There are no translation notes at all, which amuses me because they don’t bother translating yokai or shikigami anywhere. I guess Viz knows it’s audience is already well familiar with the terms.
In Summary
A generic but pretty entry into the ‘unexpected pretty-boy house guest’ genre. The Demon Prince of Momochi House isn’t doing anything I haven’t seen before, with it’s naive yet upbeat lead and her dashingly handsome new roommates. It has yokai, it has a mysterious old house, it’s swimming in long, half-lidded looks and shirtless scenes. There’s not a mean spirited bone in it, which is nice considering that the higher the shirtless content the more vicious these things can get. The leads are pleasant enough and the artwork lovely enough to peak interest, but I’d be lying if this didn’t feel well worn from the first pages. It’s like someone took Fruits Basket and a dozen other shoujo series, tossed them in a blender, and out popped a supernatural smoothy.
Content Grade: B –
Art Grade: B +
Packaging Grade: B +
Text/Translation Grade: B +
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: July 7th, 2015
MSRP: $9.99
Thanks for the review! Looks pretty good, and like something my library manga readers would really enjoy.