The cover of the book is a simple image of the two main characters that would do its job fine… if it weren’t for all the excess mess surrounding it.  Random pink speed lines, streamers, and cheap looking hexagrams abound, making for a rather unappealing cover.  The back, on the other hand, is downright barren, consisting of nothing but a small chibi portrait of each of the two main characters and a quick summary of the plot.  Luckily, on the other hand Del Rey puts in their usual effort and gives a smooth translation with honorifics retained, sound effects subtitled, and a nice “translation notes” section provided in the back of the book.  Paper quality is nice, notes from the author are included, and there are number of character profiles.  

 

The artwork in this book, like the plot, is serviceable but incredibly generic.  Everyone has big bright eyes and very little of interest going on in their character designs.  Backgrounds are fairly common and look decent.

 

Content:

Mitsuki Kamishiro, a young girl who has recently been granted mastery of the secrets of her family shrine, and Kakeru Kuon, a young man who is the only son of a family who runs a church, are childhood “friends” who seem to be constantly fighting.  As the story opens, we are introduced to these characters, as well as Mitsuki’s father, a waaaacky balding guardian of the shrine, the craaazy president of the occult club who runs around claiming demons exist and vaguely mentioning the actual plot, and Maju Daitokuji, a girl who’s obsessed with Kakeru and wants to use her fortune telling to get close to him.  Before too long, Mitsuki and Kakeru come across a demon dog and discover that they can defeat it using a mysterious power that they can use when they come together.  But then, a magic seal breaks and all kinds of demons are released into the town. 

 

From there we get two main storylines to finish up the book.  In the first, a cat/tiny girl demon first possesses Mitsuki with a cookie that makes her act all lovey dovey towards Kakeru until she digests it.  Then she uses her powers to team up with Maju to make her fortunes come true and hurt Mitsuki.  Oh, but it turns out that she was really just mistaking Kakeru for his ancestor and wanted to be his lover, but since he’s dead she’s decided on Kakeru instead, so everything is okay and she gets to be part of our craaazy regular cast.  

 

Then, a new student, Ogami, shows up at school and Mitsuki can’t shake the feeling that she’s met him before.  It soon turns out that, shockingly, he was really the monster dog from before.  However, for whatever reason, in spite of the fact that he tried to repay Mitsuki’s kindness from the beginning of the book by attempting to eat her, that he is fine and can stay as one of their schoolmates.

 

In an extra bonus story, we see a young girl attempt to learn how boys think by dressing up as her twin brother, and before the end realizes her feelings for one of them.

 

This series is just… really tough to get into.  All the characters feel so flat and uninteresting, and you’ve likely seen them before, done much better, a huge number of times before.  The plot is also virtually nonexistent, as the main characters, who are supposed to be “holy warriors” seem to just love befriending the demons they’re supposed to be catching/slaying.  At least the bonus story managed to get a chuckle out of me, which is more than I can say for the main story.  There’s already a multitude of titles on the market that do the same thing better, so it’s really hard to give this one a recommendation.