Yuko awakens to her dark history as a demon and learns of her destiny to break the curse on her family by defeating Momo, the local magical girl. Yuko’s got a fresh set of horns and a tail and... not much else. Surely that’s enough to stand up to any old magical girl?
I never thought anything would beat Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun for me in terms of 4-koma, but this is, at the very least, every bit the equal of that series’ first book. Interestingly, both are so funny because they take a well-established genre and lampoon it mercilessly.
This series basically posits a scenario where the roadrunner and Wile E Coyote hang out during their downtime (or Sam & Ralph if you want to be super obscure) and it’s a delight. It doesn’t deliver endless belly laughs, but it is consistently doing hilarious work with what is on the page to an extent I’ve yet to see in other series.
Everything is utterly ridiculous - Yuko’s family labours under a curse that VERY specifically has her mom trying to feed a family of four on 40,000 yen a month. The evil statue of the family’s dark ancestor sees duty as a doorstop, a paperweight, and worse. Said ancestor is absolutely useless and clearly knows about as much as Yuko herself does.
Yuko quickly gets in way, way over her head, just assuming that she can do a lot more than she actually can because she should have powers beyond a couple croissants stuck to her head, but doesn’t. The way the book brings her back down to earth is often funny but a lot less mean than it could be. It’s terribly amusing how absolutely hopeless she is at being bad - though we clearly see she has hidden skills in sausage cooking.
Momo is equally interesting - a magical girl who’s really not up for her job any more (there’s a lot of implied backstory here that I’m dying to see at some point, but more comedy first) and only transforms at the most bizarre times. Her budding friendship with Yuko (and how conflicted it leaves Yuko) is a real hoot.
The way the two establish an oddly affectionate bond, probably because Momo could stomp Yuko flat, is incredibly sweet and it makes this whole endeavour feel a lot more than just a collection of jokes.
Speaking of transformations, Yuko’s full dark lord get-up is woefully inappropriate and the book has an absolute field day deriding some of the genres more dubious tropes. It calls out a lot of problematic stuff in very clever fashion (or lack of fashion).
I don’t often read a book that achieves everything it is trying to do, but this is certainly one of them. When I look back over it and envision what I’d change, the answer is very simple - nothing. The art is great, the jokes all land, the characters are wonderful, plus there’s so much left to cover with them.
5 stars. Within the genre of 4-koma manga this one is a belter. It’s word dense, but in this case that just means you got your money’s worth with fewer pages. It’s a brilliant take on the genre and there’s not a single page where I wasn’t grinning at something. Just that good.