Tokyo Demon Bride Story: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes

Manga Details

• Author:  Nakama, Tadaichi
  • Notable people they were an assistant for:
    • Yuhiro Tsujiji (Snowball Earth)
• Author’s other works:
  • Three one-shots. First is a Golden Future Cup entry in 2017 called Magical Boy X, then Tokyo Grind Horror Channel in 2019, and then the one-shot for this series from 2021
• Run dates: Sep 5, 2022 to Apr 3, 2023
  • Series it replaced:
    • Doron Dororon by Gen Osuka
  • Series that replaced it:
    • Kill Blue by Tadatoshi Fujimaki (Kuroko’s Basketball, Robot x Laserbeam)
  • Series in same serialisation round:
    • Ginka & Glüna by Shinpei Watanabe
• Chapters/Volumes: 4/29

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Jinta Hanafuda is just a high school guy working a billion part time jobs to support his older and younger step sisters and pay off their grandpa’s debt. Suddenly tho, a demon girl with a katana appears named Manaka. Ten years ago when Jinta was a little kid he said he’d marry her after saving her from drowning, and now Manaka is back to make good on the proposal. Jinta has no clue who she is until a frog girl named Keroru attacks and Jinta once again saves her from drowning, which triggers the memory. Manaka defeats frog girl and kicks her in the butt, and Manaka tells him he’s a sacred blood which is like a chosen bloodline or something, and demons are gonna come find him to eat him. Then he accidentally signs a blood contract saying she can stay with him for a year. Soon while working at an odd job Jinta recognizes Keroru who is really struggling to survive in the human world, and after saving her from unsafe workplace violations, they decide to let her be. Manaka and Jinta have also started their new job of hunting spirits which pays pretty good. Manaka takes out a spirit that likes sumo and it doesn’t really matter. Keroru gives him an amulet to hide his special blood from demons but they never use it. After fishing up Keroru from a nearby lake she informs Manaka that Jinta is being hunted by a cat girl named Myaako, a failed idol demon who went to school with Manaka. She is absolutely pitiful so Jinta’s sister of course lets her and Keroru stay at their place.
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  • They’re soon attacked by Tanukiyo, a strong muscular tanuki demon who also went to school with Manaka. She challenges Manaka to a duel for Jinta’s sperm. First with an eating contest and then with an actual duel which she loses when she almost shits herself from eating so much at the contest. All this time there’s been a spooky locked door in the basement of the Hanafuda household. Jinta and the demon girls burst through it to find a mummy, a charm, and a weird Frankenstein girl named Kabane who gives her a cassette tape from his grandpa. She has a bunch of artifacts that make people grow and shrink and de age. Kanabe then never does anything again and stops showing up after the next chapter. Then Jinta is abducted by Mukuro, a demon who went to school with Manaka and is in love with her. She’s actually a little kid who used bone magic to make herself appear older and never shows up again or matters after this chapter. Grandpa Hanafuda’s cassette tells Jinta that he was a member of a group of demon-fighters called the Saishi, and the charm he gave him is meant to protect them. When they’re attacked by four evil bunny demons that Manaka also went to school with, the charm turns into a mystical baseball bat that lets Jinta fight back, and with the help of Manaka defeat them. Then they go to a spooky ramen shop owned by an evil demon and they’re saved by Kaido, a girl who is actually a bunch of ghosts and also went to school with Manaka. She leads them to a sewer level where they fight fishmen (hahaha one piece) and Kaido reveals that the bunny sisters were sent by someone Manaka knows. She also has one of the bunny girls’ living severed heads in her briefcase which is fucked up.
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  • After exorcizing a spirit at Jinta’s school he falls asleep on her shoulder while riding the train home. This means he misses a procession of demons who show up to tell Manaka that her auntie in the demon world wants her home now. Soon Manaka disappears and everyone travels to the demon world to save her from her racist aunt who wants to kill her for trying to be in an interracial marriage. She demands that Jinta either gouge out his eye or cut off three of his fingers to prove he cares about her, but when he tries to do it the sword breaks on his hand. Manaka’s aunt says it was just a prank bro and she wanted to make sure Jinta could protect her niece/daughter because Manaka is an orphan like him blah blah blah. Then Jinta goes to school and discovers that Manaka, Tanukiyo, and Kaido are also there. Keroru reveals that she heard from her mom that a big scary demon is coming to fight Jinta and only he can save the world blah blah blah. They fight an unrelated scary demon and the manga ends with Keroru bringing her little cousins over to eat with them.
• Characters
  • Jinta Hanafuda (Hah-nah-fɯ-dah, Jeen-tah)
    • Hard working boy
    • Needs money
    • sacredblood
    • Is nice guy
    • Bat man
  • Manaka Doji (Dough-jee, Mah-nah-kah)
    • Fiesty lady
    • Has demon powers
    • Demon power OP
    • Naieve
    • Talks in third person
  • Keroru Midorikawa (Mee-doe-ree-kah-wah, Kay-roe-rɯ)
    • Fish demon thing
    • glurp
  • Myaako (Myah-ah-ko)
    • Cat lady
    • Dumbass
    • Kinda knows she’s a little shit

Why it failed

• This has some weird paneling
• Proportions are also kinda weird
• I feel the chapter really spends too much time on the whole this can’t be real element - series that fight their premise never work out
• This does not pass the vibe check
• Art feels weird like he drew over 3d models? I think the issue is the series has no squash and stretch
• This plot is so forced
• Why did this manga introduce characters and not use them like the sisters
• When does the wedding come up?
• Why is this a harem why can’t women be characters
• This series had no idea what it wanted to be, is it a harem? Is it a fantasy comedy? It is an action shonen?
• Monster designs just feel lame
• I feel the series isn’t able to have any cooldown because it has nothing really going on, like maybe the ramen shop could have just been having ramen and feeling bad about a dude?
• Why does it introduce harm characters and do nothing with them?
• This just completely ignored the marriage plot

What it did well

• This some nice art, well stylized
• Some humor is decent
• I like that the characters change outfits
• The superhero thing was cute
• Cool demon designs
• I like the message that stepsiblings are real siblings
• Lol at the cats telling myaako they aren’t getting paid to fight people
• I think fomse of the actioning and paneling can be cool, especially when fighting monsters
• Finally winning over family members jfc why did that take so long

Where it could have gone

• Been cool ifi t was like WW where everyone’s just cool with the supernatural elements
• Manaka could Actively have an issue with how she accidentally forced him into marriage
• Make it supernatural wedding planners that ngl sounds p fun lmao

Misc Thoughts

• Is this a better version of bone collection?
• Why did they go with Kaido to the sewers?
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • Keroru’s Keroru Blaster in chapter 12 seems to be a reference to Kero Blaster, the game by Daisuke ‘Pixel’ Amaya, almost definitely about how video game publisher Nicalis took advantage of him and his game Cave Story, expressed through the story of a frog being sent out on dangerous missions by an incoherent, increasing bloated cat. Might be a stretch.
  • In the same chapter you get a reference to Jack chopping the door down in Stanley Kubrick’s classic Stephen King adaptation The Shining
  • The first three chapters got a VOMIC on Jump’s youtube channel. Like a comic, but voiced. In Japanese, natch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V4HqXa-I3eI
  • Oh, the one-shot, too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q33Owm3hugg

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: Sakura Tetsu smeared with catgirl feces | Several manga in a harem trench-coat
    • Maxybee:  A harem manga for aromantic people
    • dackerson More like: Tanukiyo Down Bad Story
    • digizi Lucille Ball: chocolate scene but waifus
    • duderocks the earthchild stan: Just ok loved the ending tho
    • Portal man: just ignore the girl with the horns | it's like unsleeping city, but worse
    • The Wolf The Wood The Trafalgar: Beginning felt uninspired so I dropped
    • Bigg: Totally fine until that fucking tanuki | Keroru's Part Time Journey spinoff, please
    • Lord Anubis: Would've survived if it was hornier
    • Riel: Was this supposed to be Harem?
    • Kermit The Grog: Those four words in any order
    • Luffy0321: Demon girl arrives, gets beat, repeat | Found Family with harem subtext? …uhhhh
    • Thores (aka Daniel) Battle! …Wait…. Mystery! …Wait…. Harem! …Wait…..
    • KirbymonDoscolas Tokyo, demons, bride, not much story
    • ChemyChems: Tokyo? Demon? Brides? Suppose all true.
    • Chickenwarlord: My blood can't be this desirable
    • Meru (Charly): Good MC backstory? no, battle manga!
    • Lord Anubis: Story? I sure hope it does...
    • Tree: Nah ‘tis just black bird rebranded
    • BumpBob Looly: One is Lethal, One is Merciful
    • Xylon: You're better off reading Monster Musume.
    • Resident Warhammer Nerd: local brother keeps adopting new sisters
    • Diego_MT: Demons and Bride! Not much story
    • orange: i always wanted a demon wife!
    • Isekai Sensei-Sama:Happy Demon Wife, Happy Demon Life!
    • Meru (Charly): Slice of l-battle sho- myste- harem???
    • blahmoomoo: Standard setup, standard story, standard letdown
    • The Yeti: Yearning yokai yojimbo yields yawnful yarn.
    • BumpBop Looly: Manaka is gonna kick your ass.
  • David: Demon bride needs plot marriage counceling
  • Jordan: demon world’s shittiest high school reunion
  • Guest:
• Flop or not
  • If flop, what they could read instead  you fucking know what I’m going to recommend
  • If not, how it compares to Chainsaw Man
• Is this the best/worst series we’ve talked about