Daemons of the Shadow Realm 01

黄泉のツガイ [Yomi no Tsugai] #1

by Hiromu Arakawa

Hiromu Arakawa, award-winning manga creator of the best-selling smash hit Fullmetal Alchemist, draws readers into an intricate new web of magic, intrigue, and life-or-death stakes!

In a world where certain humans command mighty supernatural duos called Daemons, it is the birthright of the children who sunder day and night--twins Yuru and Asa--to rule over these powerful entities.

Separated from a young age and unaware of the truth of their birth, brother and sister must fight to make their way back to each other, claim their birthright, and save the world...

Deep in the mountains, under the watchful eyes of two stone guardians, lies isolated Higashi Village. Unlike some of its residents, young Yuru is content to live out his days foraging and hunting in the nearby woods.

But Yuru's idyllic life changes forever when Higashi Village comes under attack. Amid the chaos, the young man is whisked away and forbidden to return to the only home and family he's ever known. And to ensure his safety, the two statues who once stood guard over the village have joined the fight--the Divine Left and Right!

As Yuru soon discovers, commanding these Daemons is his birthright... But after losing everything dear to him, will he be up to the task of unraveling a conspiracy tying him and his twin, Asa, to a prophecy that threatens the entire world?

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Comics, Graphic Novels, Supernatural, Action, Shonen

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2022

About the author

Hiromu Arakawa (author: 荒川弘) is a Japanese manga artist, best known for Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師 Hagane no renkinjutsushi).
Her real name is Hiromi Arakawa (荒川弘美).

Arakawa was born and raised on a dairy farm in Hokkaidō.
She thought of being a manga artist since she was little. After graduating high school, she took oil painting classes while working on her family's farm. During that time, she also created dōjinshi manga with her friends and drew yonkoma for a magazine. After eight years she moved to Tōkyō and started out as assistant writer for Hiroyuki Etō.
Her debut as manga artist is in 1999 with STRAY DOG. In 2001 she started working on her famous and award winning series Fullmetal Alchemist, that soon gets a successful anime adaptation.
Other works include Silver Spoon (銀の匙 Silver Spoon, Gin no saji Silver Spoon).

Reviews

[André · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this. DO NOT look up anything about it. It's Hiromu Arakawa, just trust me.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was really suprised how much I liked it. I always loved Fullmetal Alchemist, but not really the other mangas the author has made.
But this was funny, action packed and at times very dark, just as Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm looking forward to keep reading the series.

[Roman Zarichnyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Коли берешся знайомитися з авторкою, яку всі знають за одним легендарним твором, є спокуса почати саме з нього. Але я вирішив зробити навпаки — відкласти «Сталевого алхіміка» й подивитися, що Хірому Аракава може запропонувати в чомусь іншому. Вибір упав на манґу «Цуґаї потойбіччя». І, мабуть, це був мій маленький читацький експеримент… який зіграв зі мною злий жарт. Бо десь у глибині очікував, що це буде ще одне епічне фентезі у стилі «Алхіміка» — із середньовічним сетинґом, магією, довгою подорожжю та поступовим розкриттям світу. А отримав щось геть інше — й навіть не одразу зрозумів, чи це мене розчарувало, чи, навпаки, заінтригувало.

Юру та Аса — близнюки, народжені в ізольованому гірському селищі, де панують свої дивні закони. Він — вільний мисливець, що живе в гармонії з природою. Вона — виконує таємну й тяжку місію, замкнена у клітці в місцевій твердині. Життя тече розмірено, аж поки селище не атакують солдати та невідомі істоти, а події не перевертаються з ніг на голову. Перші сторінки створюють відчуття стародавнього фентезійного світу… аж доки над головами не з’являються бойові гелікоптери. Юру дізнається, що його сестра, яку він бачив щодня, — брехня, а справжня Аса керує нападниками. У вирі хаосу хлопець пробуджує двох потужних духів-охоронців Цуґаїв і вирушає з ними в незнайомий сучасний світ, щоб з’ясувати правду.

Найсильніший момент для мене — сюжетний «підрив» у першому розділі. Ти готуєшся до подорожі у світі стародавніх звичаїв, а потрапляєш у сучасність із технікою, кафе й висотними будинками. Це миттєво виводить із рівноваги, але водночас підживлює цікавість, як ці два світи співіснують. Додаємо до цього армію духів-цуґаїв із різними здібностями — і отримуємо коктейль, у якому старе й нове змішуються з легкою авторською іронією.

Юру — хлопець із селянською простотою, щирий, наївний, але з упертістю, яка змушує його йти до кінця. Він мисливець не лише за ремеслом, а й за характером — не випустить здобич, навіть якщо це правда про його власну сестру. Аса — складніша. У першому томі ми бачимо її радше крізь чужі слова й уривчасті сцени, але відчувається, що її історія — ключ до всього. Вона водночас жертва і гравець, і хочеться зрозуміти, на чиєму вона боці.

Хірому Аракава має гарний художній стиль, чіткі й виразні обличчя, жвава міміка, детальне тло. Сільські пейзажі теплі та затишні, сцени бою — динамічні, а духи-цуґаї вражають вигадливістю форм. Особливо сподобалося, як вона балансує між серйозними й комічними кадрами, не розриваючи загальної атмосфери.

Перший том «Цуґаї: Потойбіччя» — це як відкрити старовинну скриню, а знайти там смартфон і стародавній амулет водночас. Він може здатися надто строкатим: тут і сільська ідилія, і військовий екшн, і гумор. Та попри деяку хаотичність, це саме та манґа, яка може здивувати, змусити поставити питання й чекати відповідей. Надіюся, що найцікавіше ще попереду.

[marina܀balata ✿.ᐟ · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Maravilhoso! AMEI! ❤️

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hiromu Arakawa, creator of the excellent Silver Spoon series, the pretty good Full Metal Alchemist series, and the very dumb Hero Tales series, is back with a new fantasy tale with lots of action and demons.

Yuru is a teenager living a fairly decent life in his ancient mountain village, hunting to feed everyone and looking for things to amuse his confined twin sister. But then the village is attacked by outsiders and Yuru learns how little he truly knows of the place where he lives and the world beyond it.

This aims for that same balance of drama, humor, and action as Full Metal Alchemist and does a good job of hitting the target. I feel pretty good about continuing with this for a while, but I do hope the cast size stays about where it is right now so the main characters stay in focus instead of getting lost in the crowd as Edward and Alphonse did in the ever-expanding epic sprawl of Full Metal Alchemist.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Chapter 1. Asa and Yuru -- Chapter 2. Right and Left -- Chapter 3. Dera and Hana -- Chapter 4. Ai and Makoto -- A Great Pair -- Cowshed Diaries 1. The Tale of Makoto -- Cowshed Diaries 2. The Tale of Ai -- Right and Left (with Base) -- Dera's Pendant -- Translation Notes -- Author Commentary -- Next Volume -- [Epilogue]

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first chapter? The first chapter is amazing. Things sort of go downhill from there, but if you don't mind that Hiromu Arakawa has roughly six character designs, it's still a fun read.

[alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

[chapters 1-35, ~volumes 1-9] Fullmetal Alchemist is infamous for dropping you into the story/conflict pretty quick, but after the explosive opening sequence, this often felt as though Daemons of the Shadow Realm starts on the second arc, after the initial antagonist has already joined the friend group. I get why a seasoned author would hesitate to commit another ten years to a sweeping fantasy epic, but a lot of character charm is lost in the pacing, and most of the story takes place in what feels like a 10 square mile radius of 2-3 locations. Everything’s really modern, but in a tumblr OC “artist who’s super eager to reveal that their character who LOOKS cute? they’re actually Fucked Up” kind of way, also your entire webcomic cast is 19 and they all have guns.

The fantasy premise of magic users with a Cosmo/Wanda pair is fun, though, and Hiromu Arakawa’s designed a lot of GREAT Cosmo and Wandas. Right Hand and Left Hand are obviously super likable, and the two aliens with a dog are immediate contenders for all time greats. At the best of times I was reminded how good she was at writing married couple dynamics in FMA, but also at nine volumes in, I would’ve hoped for a liiiiittle bit…more.

Who knows - it’s clearly been ramping up towards the second wave of characters, and Ling Yao wasn’t introduced until chapter 32 of FMA, and the eternal anime boyfriend Greedling, chapter 55. Maybe the dad’s gonna turn out to be CRAZY hot.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andre, what the hell?

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This thing has such a fun first chapter, but with each successive chapter, it turns more and more into a rote game of shonen mad libs.

That said, it's still got Arakawa's incredibly solid artwork behind it and she can still write fun characters/comedy, but it mostly just made me want to reread FMA/Silver Spoon.

[Lauraconte l'histoire · Rating 5 out of 5]

J’ai beaucoup aimé ! Belle découverte. Je n’avais pas lu le résumé et je suis partie à l’aveugle, très sympa.

[David Moralishvili · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one a lot! The characters are interesting and I'm excited to learn more about the world!

[Genny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love!!! So excited to read this series and the first volume was really strong. There's a lot of world building exposition but it's still an action packed series of events.

I'm really enjoying the fun characters and the silly elements that give the story a similar tone to that of Fullmetal Alchemist. Excited to see where the story goes and what it looks like when/if there are darker storylines!!!

[Elijah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Note: This is my rating and review for the entire series.

I’d give this a 2.5/5 stars.

Coming from the mangaka of Fullmetal Alchemist, I was already eager to pick this manga up. The first chapter it probably the craziest first chapter I’ve ever read and got my excited to continue. Yet, it hasn’t really done anything interesting with what it set up.

I do still hold some interest, so I hope it gets better.

[Raymond Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

It sets up some mysteries and questions. The biggest one is can Yuru trust Dera? Also who is the bad guy? Gab seems bad but she likes Asa. And what's the deal with Jin? Is he good, bad or just tired?

[Daniel Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal!! Para ser un primer tomo es una pasada!!

[Jeremy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid solid solid start. Really hoping they keep with the originality and lean more into it.

[Noelle Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars

A promising start to a new series. I really enjoy Hiromu Arakawa's other manga, so I was really opptimistic about this one, then quickly became sad when helicopters came in.

I'm not fond of the modern day setting.

This reminds me strongly of Shaman King and The Golden Compass, with the daemons/soul bounded sidekicks. Sadly not my favorite trope so this will likely be my least favorite series.

I do wish the character designs were a little different than Arakawa's other characters, but I guess that's her style.

That being said it was action packed and setup the plot and mysteries neatly in this first volume. There's also all the expected humor there, which is fun.

For me, I'll probably wait for the anime adaptation to continue.

[Fiorella · Rating 3 out of 5]

lu pour le prix manga VSGP, avec quand même de grandes attentes vu l’autrice… mais pour un premier tome j’ai eu du mal à accrocher. peut-être parce que ça manquait de structure, je ne savais pas trop à quoi prêter attention et m’accrocher entre toutes les informations balancées (normal pour un pilot, mais bon…) et en même temps, j’en garde une impression générale de plat dans le sens où rien du monde présenté ne m’a vraiment marqué. bref, je lirais la suite car je me dis que quand même, ça ne peut pas être que ça

[Arthur Marchetto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Achei um primeiro volume interessante, principalmente na quebra de algumas expectativas no primeiro capítulo em relação aos ecos com Fullmetal Alchemist e também na construção geográfica e histórica da vila onde os protagonistas se encontram.
No mais, me remete ao que costumamos a ver no gênero... mas acompanharei.

[Jesus Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al inicio si es como de "¿qué pasa aquí?" y ni idea de que va, y aunque para al final del volumen solo hay mínimas explicaciones, es suficiente para que suene a que se puede poner interesante. Que siendo de la misma autora de FMA, pues la posibilidad aumenta mucho.

3 stars de inicio

Popsugar 2025 - 42 A book with a title that starts with the letter Y

[Ness ┏ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ┛ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so-so on this one. I'm not fully engaged with the story and the characters yet but Arakawa's story telling is as strong as ever. Reading her work is as easy as drinking water.

[Zehra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very nice start

[Julianne Streeter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hiromu Arakawa returns with another intriguing series. So much lore that is just begging to be explored. Likable lead characters and consistently great artwork!

[Conejo Literario · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hooked me instantly.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

An explosive start with an unexpected twist for me. The characters and hook are interesting so far, but I've got to read another volume or 2 to see if I'll be sticking with it.

[Надія Чайка · Rating 4 out of 5]

Не фанатка жанру, однак харизматичні персонажі та сюжет досить цікавий (хоч і клішейований). Манга варта уваги. Напевно найцікавіша з останніх прочитаних.

[Jack Syron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixing traditional and modern. Will take my time with this series

[Gracia Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! So excited to read another Arakawa series.