What would you do if you were a demon - a fallen angel - who didn't want to be one anymore? Such is the problem facing Shirasagi, who is living as a priest in the human world and who has forsaken his demon powers in an attempt to gain god's forgiveness.

Enter Karasu, an angel sent to "deport" Shirasagi back to hell. He realizes fairly quickly that the demon is sincere in his wish to live a good life and unsurprisingly comes to sympathize with him...eventually to the point of going to hell itself to fetch the poor kid back.

Okay, Hirotaka Kisaragi-sensei's art is beautiful, no denying it. Her men are definitely men, and they still manage to be "pretty" boy; the panels are full of detail but not to the point that things feel cluttered. The occasional fight scenes - of which there are quite a few - are well-done without overpowering.

And yet...



...This manga does a fair bit of philosophizing: about God, about why we choose to do good, about being stuck in a "cage." And the plot is interesting too; by the time we meet up with Beelzebub, we know something serious is up (and then, of course, the volume ends).

Honestly, the plot has me so interested that the romance that we all know is coming feels extraneous. In fact, it makes the whole thing feel slightly...cheapened. Almost as though this artist wanted to do this big angel and demon story but had to make it a yaoi in order for it to be published. (I don't actually think this is the case, but it sorta feels like it could have.)

That said, we get almost none of the romance in volume 1 beyond a post-cooking-injury finger-sucking scene (and with a story this interesting, couldn't Kisaragi-sensei have come up with something more creative than that?). So it's entirely possible that I'll change my mind in future volumes.

Mangaka: Kisaragi Hirotaka
Publisher: Blu (Upcoming Releases | YaoiWiki Entry)
MSRP: $9.99
Censorship: N/A
Warnings: The R rating is for violence and BOOBIES. Yes, I know.
Disclosure: This was a free copy courtesy of Blu.