First Impressions are somewhat
important,especially with books if you want anyone
to give your book the time of day. The first impression I had with
The Demon Prince of Momochi House was Kamisama Kiss rip off. I
know you aren't supposed to judge a book by it's cover, literally or
metaphorically, but I mean look at the image to your left. It's
clearly Tomoe,same smug look and fox ears but a kimono lifted from
Miketsukami. However once I started reading I was wrong to judge it as such. I mean I was not really blown
away by anything however it did prove the cover was a liar.
The Demon Prince of Momochi House is unsurprisingly a supernatural romance. It's ground well trodden in this column and
this one looks to be no different. I'll give it this it is trying to
be different from books like Demon Love Spell, and Black Bird with a
jerk with a heart of gold male lead. The titular demon prince is
Aoi,a human who transforms into the Nue. The guy is bordering on male
moe and his kindness knows no bounds. His love interest and our lead
is Himari,the 16 year old rightful owner of Momochi House,whose
attempt to claim the house kick starts the plot. She's a generic
shojo protagonist,i.e thick headed with a sweet side and a weak
constitution. She's saved from being the weakest character by Aoi's
demon companions who may as well not really be here for all they do.
Shoujou is the hot headed one and Amazuchi is the guy destined to be
an uke for the inevitable yoai doujins.
The only person I really care about at
this point is Aoi and that's just because he seems to have the most
going on. How he got here and his status as the Nue are the only
things I want to know about about. It helps that he is fairly likable
and his child like antics are amusing. The rest of the cast could
probably be interesting if they had any character but while we get
little for Himari and her loneliness issues the remaining cast is
left lacking.
We have three chapters that serve to paint us
a picture of the world and it does this competently . There is a house on the border of our world and the spirit world that's protected by a supernatural being and shenanigans between the two realms ensue. It's enjoyable fun that serves to showoff Aoi's
powers and a bit of back story on Himori's connection to the house.
Nothing wrong with it and it adds an air of mystery with the
question of who sent the will that brought Himori to the house and
that person's intentions. An interesting twist that is brought up
near the end is that Aoi can't leave the house.
This has the possibility to open up two
paths. Either this becomes the major focus for now pushing the
mystery of will to the back ground or it's an easily solved problem
and this opens us up to a school setting like every other
supernatural romance. The latter can open us up to probably more
bland characters and the school tropes related to that. However the
former has the potential to a hopefully more intimate manga that
allows the characters to grow as they search for answers.Not that they wouldn't grow regardless
of the path but it'd be more of a focus as we're limited to that small cast and the house itself.
There is a interesting undercurrent
lurking here that indicate this manga may go places. Aoi's genuine sweetness
is nice in a genre clogged with misunderstood jerks even if the
everyone else is just sort of there. The plot is not offering much
right now but what is here is written well enough that I'd probably
continue for at least a few more volumes to see where it goes.
Till Next time: Stay Positive.
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