By Harunohi Biyori and Geso Umiu. Released in Japan as “Akuma Koujo” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Emlyn Dornemann.

I had some worries when I began this 5th book that it would be difficult. After all, we’ve basically abandoned the world of the first four books to go back to Japan (albeit a Japan with a lot more magical-powered shamen and spiritualists than I suspect are really around). And this does start a bit slowly as we get used to the new background. That said, not THAT much has changed. Yulucia may be Yuzu now, but she’s a spoiled rich kid here just like she was back home, she’s beloved by all despite being pretty creepy just like she was back home, and the entire climax of the book is her snapping and just going full horror movie, just as in previous volumes. Rest assured, this is still the Devil Princess you know. We even get her servants popping in and being hilarious and disturbing again. Honestly, “hilarious and disturbing” is a good summary of the series as a whole.

This series began with a young teenager with health problems dying and being reincarnated as a demon, then being reborn as Yulucia, the Devil Princess we all know and love. Now, after the events of the 4th book, she’s back in Japan, and back to her old life – a decade before she died. She’s still sickly, but for some reason that only the readers really know, has become terrifyingly beautiful for a little girl. There’s also other oddities. People keep trying to kidnap her, and it’s not *just* because she’s from a rich family (though some of it is that). People keep going crazy around her and trying to murder her. And for some reason when she comes across obviously bad people, with hearts as black as coal, she cannot help but think how incredibly TASTY they look.

As with previous books, Yuzu manages to be thoroughly evil without actually doing many bad things… except to those who deserve it. The climax, not to spoil too much, is basically a yakuza massacre, and there are several pieces of excellent art in this showing her as basically Your Worst Nightmare(tm). But she also makes friends with other children, loves her family, and helps her best friend and potential marriage partner lose weight so he becomes a bit more bishonen. It’s just that because the narrative is presented through her “I don’t really care that much” narration, it can be hard to pick up on. There’s also plenty of humor here – special points to the otome game heroine who shows up a decade early as well, tries to warp the narrative, and immediately gets arrested for her troubles. I wonder if we’ll see her again.

This “arc” finishes in Book 6, so don’t go thinking that we’re back for good. The author says all our questions will be answered, but I don’t have too many. As long as I can see a little girl gleefully murdering bad guys and eating their souls like jelly donuts, I am content.

By Harunohi Biyori and Geso Umiu. Released in Japan as “Akuma Koujo” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Emlyn Dornemann.

I’ve talked before about the sort of series that has a clear ending but keeps going as the publisher wants it to. I’m not sure that’s what’s going on here – the author seems to indicate they had this in mind at the start – but it’s pretty blatant, complete with an “End of Part One” at the finale. Yulucia spends most of this book marching towards the demon lands, where the demons are getting ready to invade humanity, and where her not-quite-ex-boyfriend is currently being held after being summoned. Once she gets there, she’s quickly so insanely powerful that everyone else just immediately agrees to do what she says – well, almost everyone. But she still has to go after a really tasty soul, and ends up dimension hopping, which does not have an easy fix. So while I have no doubt we’ll end up back in this world eventually, for now Yulucia looks to be playing around in one far more familiar to readers.

This series remains mostly half-horror half-comedy, and the funny bits still work well. Yulucia’s description of her entourage that goes with her to the demon lands is hysterical, and Nia’s accidental slaughter of 1/3 of the demon forces is darkly funny. That said, there are a few bits here that are even emotionally heartwarming. One of the bad guys is (like several people in this series) isekai’d from Japan, in this case via truck, and he’s made a deal with a demon so that he can get a chance to return to his newly wedded wife before she moves on and marries someone else. The resolution to this, which I was sure was going to be about as cynical as this series can get most of the time, proved touching. Even Yulicia’s “taking care of” her sister, which is kind of appalling, is at least appalling in a kind of sweet way?

If that sounds ambiguous it’s because this is still, at heart, a series that wants to be horror. Yulucia is after tasty souls. Some of her friends are also. Her relationship with the Demon Beast could be defined as “toxic” even in the most romantic sense. And the reason the series works well at showing this off is that she really is also the Saint who heals thousands at a time, or the goddess who can stop a major war just by talking to the other side, and be so gorgeous that some men just faint when they see her, and both her main love interests feel incredibly inadequate when they try to stand by her. (Oddly, the other sweet romance in this book ends up being between two of its most pathetic people, who decide to simply abandon the plot of this series and go be pathetic but happy together.) As for Yulucia? She’s a nightmare, but she does love her family… in her own way.

So next time we start… a new life? Transfer students? Not sure, but I’ll be here to see what’s next. A dark fantastic comedy.

By Harunohi Biyori and Geso Umiu. Released in Japan as “Akuma Koujo” by K Lanove Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Julie Goniwich. Adapted by Emlyn Dornemann.

One reason that this series works so well is that, no matter how dark or serious the climax of each volume gets, or how many corpses pile up, the start of each new book is mostly fun and often funny. Yulucia spends some time in this volume at the standard noble academy, and her quest to make friends, or at least interact normally with people, suffers from everything about her presence. There’s a great side story about a young girl who also has memories of a past life, and knows that this is a “dating sim”, and is there to game the system… and runs into Yulucia, after which she reforms and we never hear from her again. You can almost hear the sad trombone. Alas for people like the second prince, they are too important to vanish from the narrative, and the second half of this book gets substantially darker, as we learn why it’s a bad idea to poison the saint and use her body to summon God.

This volume, like the others, takes in a 2-3 year period in the life of Yulucia, who is dealing with normal light novel things like “I can’t understand why this tsundere guy keeps hanging around me it can’t be love it must be something else” while also doing things unique to this book, such as eating souls in order to gain power and trying to cultivate evil people, who have the most delicious souls to eat. She also runs into the “so-called hero’s party”, which not only contains her two sisters, but also an elf, whose name is unfortunately a Japanese pun and so she can’t stop laughing. In the back half, though, she’s invited by the evil rival to her mother to come visit, and please bring the prince along as well to visit her sickly daughter. And it turns out the mother’s soul is just what Yulucia likes.

Yulucia literally eating souls is pretty evil, of course, but I will admit to loving my favorite part of the book. Cordelia is the daughter of Isabella, the evil rival woman, and she’s been trained by her mother to be a standard jealous catty bitch… till she meets Yulucia and witnesses her doing super powerful healing magic, at which point she undergoes a conversion and decides to be the best “big sis” ever to Yulucia. The funny part is Yulucia’s reaction to this, as Cordelia’s yummy evil soul has now turned all good and yucky. This author really loves playing in the “rooting for the bad guy” sandbox, and while Yulucia is not quite on the level of Karla from Otome Heroine’s Guide to Survival, she’s still pretty bad. That said, it is notable that even when she’s become a mindless monster lashing out and killing all around her, she tries to avoid killing people close to her. She’s not completely evil.

Which, as it turns out, may be the plot leading into the fourth book, where she’s likely to reunite with the demon who made her what she is today. If you like dark comedy, with the emphasis on dark, this is a good one.