So, a fluffy-filled, slice of life, workplace, comedy-romance about a demanding boss and her dutiful assistant…in Hell.
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: matoba
Translation: Lisa Coffman
Lettering: Lorina Mapa
What They Say:
Beelzebub—the formidable right hand of Satan—commands fear and respect throughout Pandemonium. What her underlings don’t realize, though, is that she’s an airhead with a love of all that is fluffy and adorable! The only thing she might enjoy more is teasing her new attendant, Mullin, who is learning that serving Beelzebub is both heaven and hell…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Originally published in Square Enix’s Monthly Shounen Gangan starting in 2015, matoba’s manga is now licensed and being published in translation by Yen Press. Last month, Gangan announced that an anime adaptation is in the works.
Technical:
Nothing to complain about from the physical production standpoint for As Miss Beelzebub Likes. While fairly slim (coming it at about 145 pages), the book is printed on good quality paper, cleanly and clearly inked and set. The images are properly centered (you would think this is always the case, but I recently had another Yen Press book (not one I am reviewing) which I shall leave unnamed where the images were not vertically centered correctly, with the manga frames almost hitting the tops of the pages and at the very, very bottom of the page you could see what are probably the tops of some of the printer’s marks denoting the bottom of the page—which normally one never sees outside of page proofs and on rare occasions in advanced, uncorrected copies that are used only for promotional purposes, never for commercial distribution). There are no worries here.
The manga’s composition is itself somewhat unusual as it alternates between page-width 4-koma and regular full-page layout sectioned with individual frames. The only real distinction I can see between the two groups is that the 4-koma sections, which have individual titles to them placed at the lower left of the bottom frame, tend to concentrate more on comedy while the full-page layouts can be comedic, dramatic, or more romantic (or all three).
The front and back covers are mainly in pastels (you would think an odd choice for a story set in Hell–but here it makes sense), the front featuring Miss Beelzebub and Mullin, the back an assortment of secondary characters who appear in this volume. Inside, there is a full color title page with the table of contents on back, on glossy paper. Everything else is black and white. The binding is firm and stands up to some stretching.
Story:
In Pandemonium, part of the Underworld (the geography here is largely inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost, a popular pick among Japanese creators who like to use Christian mythology as the base for a fantasy story), we meet Mullin, who has recently become the personal attendant of Beelzebub, the powerful, gruesome, demonic Lord of the Flies whose very presence instills fear and dread…
…umm, not here.
No, here Beelzebub is a petite young woman with a very large bust and long, flowing blonde hair who loves all things fluffy and fuzzy. The fallen angel and now archdemon Beelzubub, who is ruling over Pandemonium in Satan’s absence, is a competent administrator and a total airhead. The entire first chapter is devoted to establishing the personalities of the two main characters, Miss Beelzebub and Mullin, in broad strokes: Miss B the ditz who loves all things cute and Mullin the easily exasperated attendant who had idolized his boss before he had come face to face with the real her. matoba clearly tries to win over the audience early with some nudity (though Beelzebub’s more sensitive places are all covered by blobs of fluff called “angel hair balls,” a creation of Miss Beelzebub that look like some mad scientist’s creation made by crossbreeding cats and tribbles (yes, I know tribbles aren’t real creatures, but this is fiction, after all) which are strategically placed to adhere to the usual censorship rules).
From there, the following chapters in this opening volume begin to flesh out the cast, which includes other famous personages among the fallen including Belphegor (a cute little girl who has problems with incontinence when nervous); Azazel (a silent manly man…who’s actually into cute and frilly things as much as Beelzebub); and Astaroth, a good-looking playboy who appears to have feelings for Beelzebub which are not reciprocated. He also apparently has some kind of high-ranking position in Hell and has his own attendant, the domineering Sargatanas (a warrior woman type).
On the visual level, matoba’s artwork is good, staying consistent and clearly defined. The designs are attractive in general, though they also all feel a little too familiar; not exactly generic, but I feel like I’ve seen similar designs before. Oddly, the characters have a kind of <i>shoujo</i> feel to them, even though this is clearly a <i>shounen</i> title.
As a comedy, what we have so far is rather uneven. There were a few too many breast jokes that fell rather flat (especially the one related to one character’s flatness) and not enough laugh out loud moments that impressed me. There were some decent quick gags (Azazel’s “usual” lunch) that played well against initial impressions and maybe it’s just going to take some time (there are seven volumes out in Japan, so something must be going right) to establish itself. It’s not particularly original or inventive in any way so far, but there’s also nothing outright offensive or off-putting.
In Summary:
Mullin, the new attendant to Beelzebub, the ruler of Pandemonium in Satan’s absence, did not get at all what he had bargained for: Miss Beelzebub is a cute young woman who loves all things cute and fluffy, despite being a powerful fallen angel who was a major player in the war against Heaven. Instead of basking in admiration, he’s more like an exasperated caretaker for a spoiled child. Is this really what the underworld is like?
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: T (Teen) L N
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: April 24th, 2018
MSRP: $13.00
