The Devil Does Exist is one of the older shojo titles milling around, so I guess it is almost a classic.
Kayano is in love with Yuichi, a popular basketball player at her school. One day she gathers up all her courage and decides to confess her love to him. Shutting her eyes tight and stepping out into his path, she accidentally gives her love letter to the wrong guy: high school rebel and resident bad boy Takeru, complete with wild hair and occasional glasses for the rare scholarly look. Not exactly willing to let it slide, he forces her to become his slave despite him being a year younger. Here would be the point where you’d think somebody would protest, but here in hierarchical Japan, nobody does, because Takeru is the principal’s son and thus wields the ultimate power etc.
Soon Kayano’s slave-girl façade snaps after somebody posts her love letter up on the wall for all to see, including Yuichi, and the obvious person to blame is Takeru. Now at even more odds than they were, she comes home to find her mother is getting remarried to -shock of all shocks-Takeru’s dad. And thus starts the story of The Devil Does Exist, the tale of the girl who may or may not fall in love with her younger brother, despite them not actually being related.
There’s a nice cast of side characters in this story, with a couple of solid female friends on Kayano’s side, which happens all too rarely in shojo, and a gang of rebellious types on Takeru’s (including the requisite boy with goggles, in school…). Kayano isn’t an overwhelmingly interesting heroine; she shows a bit of spark, but as of yet theirs no outstanding personality traits that set her apart from the myriad other school girls. Takeru however is a brilliantly formed character. Not only has he got the rebel obnoxious bastard persona down to a tee, but he shows rare moments of a sweet side too, and as such he becomes one of those fascinating characters who you like because they are unusual.
Drawings are chunky, with a lot of scratch lines to mark blushing, and the girls almost as thickset in the shoulders as the boys are at times. Hairstyles are unusual, with less bishounen wavy glossiness and a bit more realism, even if there is a little gravity-defying hairstyling going on with Takeru, and the eyes are particularly well done in certain shots. Takeru isn’t a bishounen all of the times, in fact quite often he isn’t anything special at all, but there are a couple of panels where he really sparkles, and exudes some sort of weird hypnotic magnetism (for one, the kiss scene, which is coupled with good, if unrealistic dialogue as well). I mean, what girl would say ‘it doesn’t matter’ to something like that!?
Overall it’s a pretty solid start. I could do with some prettier drawings and a storyline that isn’t quite so cliché, but at the same time Takeru more than makes up for the moments of ‘well that’s not surprising’ and the characters of the parents, especially Takeru’s dad, make the adult life a little more interesting too. I can’t say it’s screamingly good, but at the same time, if you like shojo, it’s worth giving it a shot.
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"If Takeru looked as good all the time as he does in some of his ‘cool shots’ I would be hooked. Unfortunately he doesn’t, so it’s going to take something else to drag The Devil Does Exist into the limelight for me."
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