The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Daemons of the Shadow Realm

What's It About? 

In a remote mountain village under the watchful eyes of two stone guardians, the young Yuru contentedly lives off the land while staying close to the only family he has left—Asa, his precious twin sister. Asa, meanwhile, carries out a mysterious “duty” on behalf of the village while locked in a cage. Why is Asa A prisoner? And what other secrets does Yuru's otherwise idyllic home hide?

Daemons of the Shadow Realm has story and art by Hiromu Arakawa, with English translation by Amanda Haley, lettered and touched up by Bianca Pistillo. Square Enix Comics & Books will release the first volume on April 25.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Hiromu Arakawa may only have about five character designs in her arsenal, but when you tell a story as she does, that's hardly an issue. Daemons of the Shadow Realm is a folklore-steeped fantasy that deals in paired gods, day/night twins, and hidden villages, and its first volume is generally a good time. Or at least, it starts out as a great time and sort of dwindles a bit from there, but it remains an engaging read throughout. It's just hard to top the major twist in the first chapter – Arakawa does a remarkable job of not allowing us to see through to the truth until she's ready for it, and that's not something that every creator can pull off.

Once the twist is revealed, the story continues to charge ahead, just not with quite the same force. Yuru, one of the twin protagonists, finds himself facing a world in which everything he knew has been upended, and he handles that with surprising grace. In large part that's because his family has also been changed in ways he never anticipated, and holding onto the anger he feels from that revelation is what ends up driving him. If he's thinking about his twin sister Asa, there's no room for him to worry about anything else; he can just take things at face value because he's got something else to focus on. So what if he's suddenly in charge of paired daemons and his home village wasn't what he believed? He's got a sister to track down; he'll worry about the rest of it later.

The book is at its best when it's moving the plot ahead at a fast pace. While there are some fun lighthearted moments, they pale in comparison to the fantasy plot, and the relationship between two of the characters who help Yuru is frankly a bit grating. Monster designs are pretty good, with the prize going to the “chompers,” who also get a good gag page at the end, but Arakawa's humorous moments largely feel out of place here. The translation, however, keeps things moving smoothly, and the translation notes at the end are helpful, especially if you're not up on your mythology. All in all, this works more than it doesn't, and even if it never reaches FMA heights, it still stands to be a solid fantasy series.