The Spring 2025 Manga Guide

Seduced by the Demon King: A Sensual Rebirth (18+)

What's It About? 

Haruka's life has hit a dead end—her career is stalled, and her love life is nonexistent. But everything changes when a shooting star crashes at her feet, revealing a sinfully handsome man who claims to be the Demon King. Even more shocking, he insists Haruka was once his sworn enemy, a saint, in a past life. Though she has no memory of their shared history, he seems to know everything about her.

Bent on revenge, the Demon King vows to take Haruka on a journey of exquisite ecstasy, only to plunge her into the depths of despair. His motives may be dark, but the offer of passion and adventure is far more enticing than her mundane reality. Is she ready to embrace the pleasure—and the peril—that comes with surrendering to a demon's touch?

Seduced by the Demon King: A Sensual Rebirth has a story and art by Foxies. English translation by Christine Dashiell. This volume is lettered by Carl Vanstiphout. Published by Seven Seas (April 8, 2025). Rated M.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

With all of those poor isekai'd women ending up as Saints in otherworlds, it's about time one of them got to make the jump in the other direction. Not that it's great for Haruka; in the five hundred years since her death at the hands of the demon king, she's become a corporate wage slave to a terrible boss and is about ready to throw in the towel. So naturally that's when Mao, the demon king from her past life, pops up, ready to claim his revenge…or is he? This is a Steamship title, so you know that the chances of Mao actually wanting to hurt Haruka are – well, actually, it's about 50/50, really, but if that's not your thing, rest assured that Mao is carrying a torch for the woman he was forced to fight to the mutual death with all those centuries ago. He'd just like to hide it in the baffling manner of male romance leads everywhere: by focusing solely on her pleasure in a way that he makes sound menacing but is anything but.

The reverse isekai element is the strongest story beat in this volume. While pesky details such as the question of how Mao survived after being (in his words) killed by Haruka's past self aren't discussed, the idea of Haruka being karmically punished for her life of self-sacrifice makes up for it. Mao was and continues to be floored by the way she ignores her own needs and wants to help others, and when he realizes that she's doing the same thing in modern Japan, he's aghast. Haruka has learned nothing from her ignominious end in the last life, and he's concerned that she's just going to make the same mistakes again. While he says that he wants to bring her down, what he'd rather do is watch over her and save her from herself, going so far as to take on a human appearance and buy an expensive apartment from her in order to raise her status at work.

A piece of Haruka realizes that he's right. After all, he appears to her after she makes a wish on what she thinks is a shooting star, the literal answer to her prayers. And how can she say no to a guy who, when the lion at the zoo is resting, whisks her off to the savannah to see real lions, which he uses his demon powers to tame for her? He may have horns, claws, and wings, but he's also obviously devoted to her, even if he won't say as much out loud. Mao feels more like Haruka's reward for her life as the Saint of Hope than a punishment, although of course this is only volume one.

This is one of Steamship's raunchier titles, with explicit sex scenes (but no p-in-v yet), featuring Mao in both forms. Foxies, a two-person team consisting of a writer and an artist, doesn't shy away from graphic depictions of Haruka's vulva, with both inner and outer labia shown. The rest of the art is pretty good, too, and Mao's recognizable in both of his forms, as is Haruka from the glimpses we get of her past self. It's setting up to be a strangely sweet story, and I'm interested to see where the emotional plot goes.

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MrAJCosplay
Rating:

I wasn't expecting Seduced By The Demon King to lean so heavily into the dramatic, but color me impressed that I think it managed to pull that tone off in a rather believable way. The story is set up with our female adult lead being down on her luck, only for a beautiful demon man to enter her life. His goal is to plunge her life into despair, but he can't do that if she's already feeling shitty about everything. So his brilliant idea is to make her life better, so he can eventually ruin it later. You can see where the story goes from there, but I was genuinely surprised at how much I felt for everybody involved.

I do think the despair of our lead could've been played up a bit better at the beginning since you could argue some of the stuff she was going through wasn't that bad compared to what you saw in a lot of other stories. But I liked the emotional turmoil and moral dilemma that both of the characters go through as they get closer. Our lead's life does get better with this new demon king in her life, but is he there for her or because of what he can get out of her later? And then the demon king is going through a moral dilemma of not truly understanding why he is doing what he is doing. It's arguably very basic, but it's also executed strongly. I feel for all of the characters by the end, and the intimacy feels earned. I would love to see where this dynamic goes, and if you're into the dominant pretty boy sweeping you off your feet to take care of you, then I think this is a great story that utilizes those tropes to their fullest.