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Title: The Devil Does Exist
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents may want to keep in mind that there is some mild language and violent situations in this series, but not much else. Most kids should be able to read this without any problem. Women will like this series depending on how much they love shoujo in general. |
Shoujo can be a pretty amazing genre when in capable hands. How else can you explain why there are so many quality shoujo series that exist, yet most of which feature storylines that are similar to other shoujo series. In many (and I do mean MANY) ways, "The Devil Does Exist" is almost exactly like Viz's hit manga series "Boys Over Flowers," yet it's original in the way it tells its little copy cat story. "The Devil Does Exist" revolves around a shy girl named Kayano Saito. Kayano is a normal shy girl in every way, where she doesn't cause much trouble, she has a crush on the local (nice) pretty boy, and that the only thing it will take for her to be known around the school is for life to throw her one big monkey wrench (most noticeably in the form of a popular person). Well, unfortunately for Kayano, she needs to be introduced to this person pretty quickly so that we can be entertained by the story. The person who is supposed to be the monkey wrench is Takeru Edogawa.
One day Kayano writes a love letter to Yuichi Kamijo, but is too shy to give it to him, and ends up losing the letter. Takeru finds this letter and threatens to make copies of the letter and show it to the whole school if she doesn't do exactly what he says. Yeah, the situation sounds pretty familiar, but sometimes you've just got to go with the flow. Now this is a monkey wrench, but it's not enough to make the series interesting enough to stick through to the end. Luckily for us though, "The Devil Does Exist" decides to throw us a SECOND monkey wrench early on in the story! This second wrench comes in the form of Kayanos mom, who has gotten engaged to her school principle. This situation is already enough to mess with a kids head for life, but it's made even worse by the fact that the principles son is none other than Takeru Edogawa, who ends up proving that he's a pro manipulator as well as bully. Add in a THIRD monkey wrench in the fact that Yuichi might not end up being the nice guy Kayano thought he would be (he even borders a bit on the creepy side by the end of the first volume), and you've got a shoujo that manages to do enough interesting things to keep the readers interested in what happens next! Granted, don't go buying this thing expecting anything special, because if you walk into this book expecting to be blown away then you are going to be pretty disappointed.
I brought up "Boys Over Flowers" earlier in this review for a reason, and that reason is this: "The Devil Does Exist" is almost exactly like "Boys Over Flowers," with the exception that "Boys Over Flowers" is a better series. That's not to say "The Devil Does Exist" isn't a good series in its own right, but since I've read a good portion of "Boys Over Flowers" already, "The Devil Does Exist" comes off as a little pale in comparison. The one area where both series are equally matched in is artwork. "Boys Over Flowers" didn't have the best artwork in the world, and the same can easily be said for "The Devil Does Exist." The artwork in "The Devil Does Exist" is not squiggly now is it bad per se, but it's nothing original. Character designs are typical high school shoujo designs, backgrounds change depending on the mood of the main character, and the characters stand in sexy poses regardless what the situation is. I guess I'm thankful that there aren't an overwhelming amount of flowers scattered in the artwork though, as those truly drive me nuts (can anyone please explain to me why a romantic scene is that much more romantic when there are poorly drawn flowers flying everywhere?). With that said though, the artwork for "The Devil Does Exist" ends up generating a "it's good, but nothing memorable" response from me. As with all my other CMX title reviews, I will not comment on the translation of the book until there is more information about it.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but it's just too hard to take anything CMX throws at us as "the real deal" with them still failing to acknowledge the screwing up of the "Tenjho Tenge" release so much. One thing I can comment on (as usual) is the quality of the book itself, and if there's one thing I'm pleased to report it's that CMX is finally getting their act together when it comes to paper quality. I'm not sure what it was with the first batch of books CMX released was, but the paper was stiff, the binding was questionable, and the books were a major pain to read. Looks like all that has been fixed now, as the paper in this book isn't stiff, the binding is perfect, and the whole thing feels much more professional this time around. Kudos to CMX for fixing SOMETHING with their manga lineup! When it all comes down to it, "The Devil Does Exist" is a familiar series that isn't very original, yet it has a couple of nifty twists and likable characters in it to make it recommendable. Would I rush to the store to buy this? Not really. I'm not going to stay on top of this series like a dog, but I will buy a new book whenever I can. But counting down the days till the next book comes out will be spent on another series altogether.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -