My Dearest Devil Princess Vol. #01

By John Zakrzewski     January 08, 2008



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Makoto Matsumoto / Maika Netsu
Translated by:Satsuki Yamashita
Adapted by:Elizabeth Hanel

What They Say
A box that grants three wishes is a dream come true. At least that’s what Keita thinks, until he opens the box and finds a girl inside. But this is no genie—Maki’s a devil princess and she’s come to take Keita’s soul! But she can only take his soul after he makes his third and final wish. As a sheltered demon with little knowledge of how to be evil, Maki must rely on her trusty guidebook to learn the nefarious arts and trick Keita into using up his wishes. Until the, Maki’s going to live with Keita until he can’t stand living anymore!

The Review
Packaging:
“Come on, you can do better, you know you can,” softly hisses a wicked little impulse that entwines the body and occasionally lures us into disregarding such basic acumen as knowing when best to leave well enough alone. Case in point: My Dearest Devil Princess Volume 1 needlessly exchanges the perfectly fitting Japanese cover with art originally appearing as a splash page in the series’ third volume. Viewed independently, the piece is fairly charming (unless you’re adverse to bubbly vixens wearing cheeky lingerie), where as it fairs less favorably when converted into a cover design thanks to a few discernible deficiencies: 1) this is quite the busy piece of artwork and looks messy once a logo and other graphical elements are applied, while 2) its whimsical portrayal of the main female character bares a somewhat shaky resemblance to the girl found on the inside pages, which could confuse potential buyers as 3) this daintier visage doesn’t particularly convey a clear sense of the book’s male-oriented subject matter.

Taken as a whole, this volume exemplifies a specific design principle I dearly wish US manga companies would abandon, by this I refer to applying large imprint graphics (a top and bottom border in this instance) onto original artwork. I understand the desire to implement consistent branding across a company’s various titles; however, once a logo, creator credits, and volume number are added, the general result is a cover more reminiscent of a magazine advertisement or promotional flyer. Too all companies, please keep your front cover clutter free and let the art itself sell your product, save marketing for the spine and back of the book.

Artwork:
But the quality of art inside the covers should hold greater importance (to readers at least) than whatever fanciful muck is splayed across the façade. Unfortunately here, artist Maika Netsu’s work is unremarkable overall and notably lackluster in its presentation of the copious fan-service demanded by the story’s overt emphasis on naughty happenstances.

You know there’s a problem when a buxom devil babe is less arousing than the casual female nudity oft seen in a Rumiko Takahashi manga; now, Netsu certainly has ample opportunity to visually realize various carnal interludes, yet the art is cold and almost mechanical in the way it renders the female form or glimpses of a girl’s undergarments. This illustrator obviously has a poor intuition for those fetishistic nuances that drive the male libido, resulting in some rather prudish raunch. Being utterly bereft of even the slightest nipple slip, the fruits of Netsu’s labor do nothing more than tease without knowing when to quit, pushing these lascivious efforts far past their breaking point, until they end up falling flat.

Not to suggest full frontal nudity would somehow garner legitimate adulation for the book’s visuals. Classifying Netsu’s style, I’d stay it’s straight-up, basic manga: the overly generalized mélange of big eyes, rounded bodies, and skimpy shading—a physical embodiment of what many non enthusiasts envision when “anime” or “manga” is mentioned. My Dearest Devil Princess falls into the ever expanding abyss between the acclaimed and jeered; sure, its characters are cute and the art is easy to follow, but this just the same translates to plain designs and boring composition. Japanese pop culture simply isn’t lacking in titillating devil maidens and run-of-the-mill high school boys; any whack taken at such established norms absolutely must boast touches of distinct visual flair, something the artist, as of this first volume, does not provide.

Text/Translation:
Illustrative inadequacies aside, how does the book’s linguistic aspects standup? Well, let’s start with the good: My Dearest Devil Princess Volume 1 reads fine and has no glaring grammatical issues; Japanese SFX are left unmolested with small, unobtrusive translations placed near their general vicinity, and honorifics are kept in tact, which—for people like myself who prefer their inclusion—is something to smile about.

Where Broccoli Books stumbles is on their liberal re-titling of the series’ name, Hakoiri Devil Princess; a strict translation might read, “Boxed Devil Princess,” a play on the phrase hakoiri musume (or “boxed daughter”), used to describe a naïve girl sheltered her whole life by overprotective parents. In tune with this concept, Maki (the titular devil princess) is literally a hakoiri musume, emerging from a magical box and forced to reside in the human world, of which she has no real knowledge or experience.

Understandably, “Boxed Devil Princess” would not have made for the snazziest of titles, but I question the decision to veer so far from the original meaning, choosing instead a name that—once one has availed themselves of the book’s contents—could almost be taken as an allusion to one of the best known magical girlfriend franchises, Oh My Goddess!. Tenuous as this may sound based on wording alone, after completing the volume, I couldn’t shake an inkling any commonality with the goddessly series’ title was likely intentional.

Content:
Speaking of magical girlfriends, have you heard the one about the supernatural beauty who forms a compact with some average Japanese boy and ends up living with him? Depending on how long you’ve followed anime or manga, chances are you’re no stranger to this scenario; for those unfamiliar, an ordinary boy (essentially a surrogate symbolizing the male readers themselves) suddenly finds himself in a complicated relationship with a mysterious girl endowed with special powers—awkward situations and comedy usually ensue.

This time around, Keita Kusakabe is the vanilla lad: a relatively small sprout whose claim to fame is being the slowest runner on his high school track team. Keita’s the kind of guy that doesn’t mind blowing thirty dollars on a worthless tchotchke he considers “junk,” so one day, when his money grubbing classmate and childhood friend Natsuki offers to sell a magical box rumored to grant three wishes to anyone capable of opening it, he gladly forks over the cash. Unbeknownst to the two, this little wooden knickknack houses Maki, a ditzy demonic temptress, who once freed gladly agrees to bestow Keita with said three wishes…at the cost of his soul. See, our boxed devil daughter was tasked by her mother with collecting the spiritual essence of humans; not that Keita’s so daft or full of pent-up desires to willing sell himself to the fledgling Mephistopheles, but upon trying to comfort the upset succubus, he unintentionally makes a wish, thus activating the contract. Keita’s only shot left at salvation means avoiding the use of his last two wishes, but is he up for the challenge now that Maki’s living with him and his inexplicably permissive father?

That’s basically the book’s first two chapters. From there on, My Dearest Devil Princess Volume 1 prefers focusing on the wacky hijinks caused by Maki’s inclusion in Keita’s everyday life. This mostly amounts to following him around, making sure he doesn’t die before she can collect his soul, all the while a thin veneer of romantic implications gets slathered across these various proceedings. Along the way we meet a bunch of Keita’s school chums, including Hayami, the track team’s captain (who might be in love with Keita), and his female admirer Ryoko, the student body vice president hell bent on exposing Maki for the demon she is. Sheeta, an angel sent to destroy the curvaceous satan, also makes an appearance, eventually spellbinding her way into becoming a teacher at Keita’s school.

There’s nothing wrong with My Dearest Devil Princess selecting such well established ingredients from the romantic comedy and supernatural genres, what’s important—and ultimately the difference between a massively popular series and one relegated to the anonymity bin—is how its creators alchemically combined these tried and true concepts. Sadly, the book’s clichéd setups fail to merge into an interesting form nor do they foreshadow any intention of offering a structured story somewhere down the line, as the components used in this funky brew exist only to force stiff laughs and justify excessive instances of obscured skin baring.

Comments
Bottom line: there’s no dearth of salacious manga on the market and in the absence of a decent plot, My Dearest Devil Princess needed to either fill some kinky niche left untapped on US book shelves or at the very least do a superior job pushing its own brand of saucy material.

With a story that’s simply another ho-hum take on magical girlfriend based romantic comedies, it becomes especially difficult to overlook how certain ideas and characters almost demonically mirror Oh My Goddess!, to the book’s further detriment as it’s derivative to the point where the possible unchecked inspiration only highlights the title’s weaknesses. Of course, people will quickly forgive a lame plot in any manga cloaking its shortcomings in gratuitous T&A, but only if the tawdry art packs enough visceral punch to get blooding rushing into the body’s nether regions—My Dearest Devil Princess’ illustrative prowess in this regard leans too heavily towards innocently cute where the look should have been suggestively naughty.

Uncontrollable obsession for demonic girls or insane love of sub par romantic comedies notwithstanding, readers would be better off searching elsewhere for a dearest devil princess to call their own.