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Demon Love Spell – Mayu Shinjo: Series Review

August 15, 2014

Demon Love Spell, translated from Ayakashi no Koi Emaki, is a shoujo manga by Mayu Shinjo that ran in Shueisha’s Margaret magazine from 2009 to 2014. The six volume series was published in North America under Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint.

The Gist: Miko is a shrine maiden who has never had much success at seeing or banishing spirits. Then she meets Kagura, a sexy demon who feeds off women’s feelings of passion and love. Kagura’s insatiable appetite has left many girls at school brokenhearted, so Miko casts a spell to seal his powers. Surprisingly, the spell works – sort of – but now Kagura is after her! How will Miko cast off Kagura, and does she really want to?

Demon Love Spell cover 1

The Review: This short series by Mayu Shinjo falls into my “fluff” reading category. The plot is not too deep, the characters are enjoyable, and the smutty innuendos are comedic. It’s a non-thinking, just read and enjoy kind of title. Miko is a cute girl who is one of the more stronger female protagonists I’ve seen Shinjo write. She’s not all gaga over Kagura, which is kind of impressive seeing as he’s an incubus, or a sex demon. She does a pretty good job of resisting all of it. Kagura is another rendition of my favorite male protagonist by Shinjo. If you were to take just the sexy side of Sakuya from Sensual Phrase, then you’ve got Kagura. So my favorite part of this series was fantasizing that Sakuya was striking all those sexy poses…just for me! ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ

Paneling – Miko Resists Kagura

The Art: I’ve always been impressed with Shinjo’s art and Demon Love Spell is no exception. I love the character designs, but as I mentioned it’s not that distinguished from her other series. Big Kagura looks like Sakuya from Sensual Phrase, while mini-Kagura looks like Akira from Ai Ore!. I will say that Shinjo’s gotten better at her anatomy as she’s developed. The body proportions are much better in this series than in some of her earlier series. The paneling and toning are really clean looking, and the character art is fairly detailed. Color pieces for this series are well balanced and really beautiful.

The Audience: This series is aimed at an older teen female audience. Sex scenes are insinuated but there isn’t anything really graphic. Plenty of innuendos to the act though, so an older audience would be more appropriate. If you are a fan of Shinjo’s other works then by all means be sure to pick up this series. If you want a comedic romance with some supernatural elements then this series will definitely satisfy that.

Mini-Kagura

The Media: Ayakashi no Koi Emaki (Demon Love Spell)was published in six tankoban volumes in Japan. As of July 2014, we have received all six volumes of Demon Love Spell in North America. You can read the first chapter of volume 1 here.