Kyo Kara MAOH! Volume 1 by Temari Matsumoto (amazon)

I was intrigued when I saw that Tokyopop was publishing this manga, because I’d previously watched and enjoyed the anime a couple years ago. I still have the last couple discs of the first season lingering somewhere in my netflix queue and I keep meaning to finish watching the anime.

Kyo Kara MAOH! is the story of Yuri, a normal Japanese boy who loves baseball and has an unfortunate habit of sticking up for the downtrodden. When he attempts to defend a classmate from bullies he becomes their target. They carry him over to the bathroom and start to flush his head in the toilet. The toilet becomes an interdimensional gateway and Yuri is flushed away to the Demon Kingdom!

Yuri ends up in a village with a distinct European look. The villagers react to his appearance with fear and start stoning him. Yuri thinks that he’s surrounded by a pack of angry cosplayers at a strange theme park. Yuri is rescued from his predicament by a handsome man Lord Conrart Weller. He calls Yuri “Your Majesty.” It turns out that Yuri is the long-lost Demon King. Conrart introduces Yuri to the court magician Gunther, a man with a tendency to kvell over Yuri’s dark good looks by saying things like “Your black hair is so pure and majestic! Your eyes are as dark and crystal clear as night! I cannot consider any other!”

Conrart takes Yuri to the demon castle and introduces him to Gwendal and Wolfram, his disapproving half-brothers. They don’t like Conrart because he’s half-human and they refuse to accept Yuri for the same reason. Unfortunately Yuri’s lack of knowledge about demon king etiquette causes him to accidentally propose marriage to Wolfram after he slaps him in the face for insulting Yuri’s mother. The demon kingdom proposal procedure favors blows to the face instead of getting down on one knee with a ring.

Yuri functions very much like the typical shoujo heroine in Kyo Kara MAOH!. He’s swept away to another world, surrounded by beautiful men who seem to find him fascinating, and he may be harboring some magical demon powers of his own. Fans of the anime wanting to experience the story of Kyo Kara MAOH! again won’t be disappointed with this manga. And if you’re looking for a light and fluffy fantasy manga that features a horde of cute boys, I don’t think you need to have watched the anime to appreciate the manga.

Review copy provided by Tokyopop.