Board 8 > Tom reads through the Bolo Family Manga Collection (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

today did not quite go as planned
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today was busy
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oy vey
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Have internet again Whoop.
Because I'm back at work, Boooo.
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welcome back woo

how about I throw a curve and update this for once

Demon Diary, Vol. 1 (of 7)
Art: Kara
Story: Lee Chi Hyong
Genre: Fantasy?
Whose fault: Wifebolo

Unrelated BGM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwLTw8F8yN8" data-time="

Going into this completely blind. First impressions:
-It's flopped whoa
-The author's note (actually from the artist) is particularly rambly and credits the Hebrew Bible for her name.
-Everybody is very pretty and androgynous and manwha-lookin'. Not my preferred style, but it's right up Wifebolo's alley.

After a Cryptic Prologue, some girl(?) has been recruited to be the next Demon Lord. She seems too naive and bubbly for it, but tall sexy open shirt exposition man assures her that she will inherit great powers and implores her to act the part properly. We're using male pronouns for the woobie, so I guess that's just a Rank EX Shota, not a girl. I have a hunch that will not be the last time I mistake somebody's gender. Eclipse is the dude who knows what's going on, as the #4 Demon In Existence (TM). He's already getting a headache out of dealing with His Lordly Non-Girlness Raenef, but he is assigned to instruct him. Also he can read his mind, probably.

"How dare you admonish ME, vermin" is Raenef's new catchphrase already- he's supposed to say that instead of apologizing when he's not demon lord-y enough, which is all the time, but he's not very convincing. Upon his inquiry, we learn that Odin and Freya hired this kid, and they are the ones who assigned Eclipse to him. Raenef's not buying into this whole hierarchy thing where Eclipse is a minion. That probably won't be a plot point for the next seven volumes or anything.

Lord Aureleid is here for a big demon meeting or something! I measured him at around 11 heads tall and three and a half heads wide. He's the supreme demon lord! Raenef takes about three panels to commit a major faux pas by bowing to him, and the followup of his catchphrase has the assembly in stitches. Eclipse looks about ready to either die or start killing people. We're probably not paying him enough.

A month later and Eclipse is still not really over it as he tutors Raenef. Raenef is starting to learn some of the rules, but he's still waaaaaay too wholesome and nice for this job. However, he's collected 40 aiowefhuafuas of magical energy! That's impressive, but weird because at his level he only needs 8 awiefuhawoauwhefius. Time to learn about the magic system! Everybody has an attribute based on the essence they first encounter: Fire, Wind, Water, Light, and Dark. Rarely, the second one takes over instead. Dark magic is only (practically) usable by somebody with a dark attribute- dunno if that extends to the other attributes, but I doubt we care because demonz. Raenef is Dark, naturally. We're going to work on Dark Arrow, an attack spell with impact 50 for 8 aspdfihawefuawioefuhs. It was created by Eclipse and the previous Demon Lord Raenef, who had more wits than talent. They passed it on to the humans, who naturally turned it on each other, and now Dark Magic is banned in the human realms. Some dokis happen in case anybody wasn't expecting this to be shonen-ai.
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Eclipse has to go out of town to demon practice or something for a few days. Raenef starts getting bored and lonely when the mountain EXPLODES in a flurry of Korean onomatopoeia. Raenef hopes a knight comes by to investigate, then freaks out when one cuts through the crusader on guard to get to him. The knight looks like a girl but I ain't fallin' for THAT again. The knight is annoyed because they expected to find a demon lord but Raenef is just some cinammon roll kid. The knight decides to leave (after triggering Raenef somehow by calling him a "tramp") and Raenef realizes he has to kill them because, y'know, demon lord. Time for Dark Arrow! But it's no good because Knight has the Energy Sword. Mercs 1 jokes in unrelated 2018 topics are surefire winners! Raenef succeeds in annoying the knight with more Dark Arrows, until the knight tricks him with the ol' "look over there!" bit. Things are looking grim for our hero(?) as the sword descends....

At the Big Important Get The Tough Guy Out Of Town Meeting, Eclipse is having trouble focusing because he's worried about Raenef. There's some stuff that may or may not be important about dead fake demon lords and wars with elves. Meanwhile, the Energy Sword breaks on Raenef's head, so that kinda sucks for the knight. The knight (I am going to avoid gendered pronouns AS LONG AS IT TAKES) talks Raenef into enslavement instead of death as a punishment. The knight then tries to escape while Raenef takes a nap...and bumps into Eclipse. Eclipse captures them with elemental psionics and leaves them floating in a bubble while he checks on Raenef. Raenef is having a nap, and grabs Eclipse's hair in his sleep so he can't leave and has to sleep on top of him. Yep.

Bonus story #1! A kid named Monika has to bring the Crystal Heart to some gangster types to save a girl named Lilith. Bad Guy and Lilith might be in cahoots actually.
Monika's buddy Mano states that Mano's dad gave it to Mano's mom, then Mano's mom absconded with it. Monika isn't going to leave Mano- Mano is the only family Monika has. Flashback! Three years ago, Monika saved orphan!Mano from a rapist and decided they needed to stick together. Mano decides to give Monika the Crystal Heart. He(?) kisses Monika and then RIPS HIS OWN DANG HEART OUT to give to Monika. It's the embodiment of your love and you only get one and Mano's dad said this would happen as he lay dying. Lilith has meanwhile killed Bad Guy And Friends, and added his Crystal Heart to her collection. The end! :D

Bonus story #2! Once upon the Earth was dying, so we stuck the goddess Terra inside it, and everything was groovy until the magician in charge of keeping her there decided to release her. A tall dude and a Rikku who is probably a dude are in the wasteland. One of the two is named Bossman, one is named Jen, and one is named Vice. Good time for ambiguous speech bubbles! Tall has hired Short as a guide through the desert. Tall is a magician, who is probably looking to re-cage Terra. She can't survive for long out and about, anyway. Tall is determined to cage Terra even if he falls in love with her. Short remembers his(?) sister getting burned by a guy like that, who ditched her for work. Oh just kidding Short IS Terra. She(?) had sealed away her own memories, which include eating her lover to survive. But she's not doing so hot and needs to go back, and that's why Tall is here. He does the deed and promises to take care of Terra/Jen'Short's sister. He loves her.

My rating: 8/10
Good to see the Disgaea 3 cast still finding work!

....So yeah demons aren't my thing and neither is shonen-ai, but this works for me somehow. It's cute and I can actually get behind a ship of the main characters. Hope you like it too because there's plenty more to be had! @_@
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Demon Diary, Vol. 2

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tnF_QGXLmo&list=PL59C953A3816D165E

Random note: This has a $4 price tag on it. Good job, Wifebolo.
Random note #2: We changed writers because the old one had to study for high school entrance exams.

After a few pages of Eclipse chastising Raenef for showing mercy to "that thing" and "it," we finally get a name for the knight from last issue: Erutis! A few pages later, Erutis is even referred to by a female pronoun! One fewer mystery in the world. Anyway, Erutis is Raenef's new page, much to her delight and Eclipse's chagrin. Eclipse teleports her away (we've seen him and Raenef teleport within the castle before, but only themselves) so we can work on the Death Drill. Eclipse demonstrates on a random Crusader (they're dragons?) and we can't show the details in a Christian manga. Raenef passes out and has nightmares about exploding tomatoes.

Raenef starts to realize he's not super cut out for this whole Demon Lord bit, and decides to sneak off on a journey of self-discovery and training. This is a dumb idea, but that has yet to stop Raenef at any point. On that note, Eclipse and Erutis head off in the exact opposite direction to look for him, because going the way he went would've been dumb.

Raenef finds himself in a town, where his clothes mark him as somebody important and thus he gets free food and stuff. Meanwhile, Chris is the next in line to be Chief Cleric, and decides to summon a Demon Lord. That's such an obvious trap that nobody would fall for i- just kidding here's Raenef. Eclipse is conducting a search, but local authorities misunderstand his request and just bring him a bunch of attractive shotas to...yeah. Anyway, the current Chief Cleric is pretty sure Chris just summoned a random kid to the High Temple of Rased, but Chris is convinced it worked. Chris attacks with Holy Bolt, one of the few things that makes clerics a threat! We finally wisen up when Raenef counters with Dark Bolt. Chris is going to kill him and become the protagonist! ...I'm becoming less and less convinced that this isn't just somebody's ascended Disgaea fanfic.

Eclipse shows up. He is breaking the treaty by showing up in this realm, but then they broke the treaty by summoning Raenef. It looks like we're going to have a badass fight between Eclipse and Chief Cleric, but instead they bond over how dumb their pupils are. We get a second censorship gag when Cleric Guy reprimands Chris, and then we're going our separate ways. We don't want another Hangma War, so we're going to avoid escalating this little incident. Also, the Cleric noticed that Eclipse smiled, which isn't in character for him. Also the Cleric successfully pawns Chris off on Raenef.

Flashback? Raenef IV is dead, and it's Eclipse's job to find his heir. After checking in with a voluptuous Seer lady, Eclipse heads south, where he finds a whole Oliver Twist kinda thing going with Raenef. Raenef finds Eclipse's hair interesting, so he tracks him down and pulls it before scampering off to a Thieves' Guild meeting. They're gonna try to take over the whole town, but the guards raid them.

Eclipse has sensed dark power in Raenef, and finds out that's his name. Raenef IV died suddenly without training an heir, so finding the mortal named Raenef is the means of raising a new Demon Lord. The rest of the Guild has been captured! Raenef wants to help, but nearly gets caught himself before Eclipse bails him out with some sort of paralysis spell. And...that's it!

My rating: 8/10
It feels kinda amateurish and it's not shaking the "Disgaea fanfic" stigma at all....but I don't really mind, because it's fun and kinda RPG-ish.
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Raenef seems super annoying.
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I like him but I can see where he would come across that way

he is too pure and wholesome~ for all of this but that's where the comedy (and probably the shippiness) comes from
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Demon Diary, Vol. 3

Today's BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8k69zZL6JY&list=PL1M8MWromo9PGi5DgB3Rd8kiFAY8Bux8s

We're still on the "how they met" flashback. Raenef tries to stick up for the captured leader of the Thieves' Guild, which of course leads him to getting in a fight with the guards despite his leader's best efforts to get him off the hook. Raenef is about to be cut down when the guard's arms are blown off. Eclipse takes it from there, freezing most of the guards and demanding the release of the guild. Eclipse explains that Raenef is his master and a Demon Lord, and Raenef rolls with it because he can eat food without having to steal it. Back to the present, Eclipse ponders Raenef's unsuitable temperament, and how sentimental he has gotten.

So hey this human town is having a bad drought, so they need to offer a bride to the Demon Lord, as is custom. Leeche the loli throws a temper tantrum because she can't go with her (noble?) dad. He's protective of her, since demons got her mom. Also the girl we're gonna offer as a bride is here. Leeche overhears these last two bits and goes off on an adventure. She finds a magic portal in the basement, knocks out the bride with some kinda chemical, and goes in her place.

Leeche arrives, mistakes Eclipse as the Demon Lord, (...fair, even just looking at the character designs) and declares her intent to destroy him! Unfortunately, she kinda sucks at anything physical, and is easily sidetracked into a feud with Chris. Everybody just kinda ignores her, and she later bonds a bit with Raenef after he apologizes for her mother. Eclipse says we have to send her back because there was some sort of mistake if a noble girl got sent instead of a commoner. That and he's probably jealous.
Daddy shows up about then and gives her a spankin'. We accept an apology of jewels but decline the replacement bride he brought. Leeche smooches Raenef before she leaves. She'll come back for him in ten years!

Eclipse confronts Nameless Important Cleric Man over just why he sent them Chris. Backstory time! Chris' town was wiped out by demons five years ago, and against the odds he survived to be found by the Clerics of Rased. Head Cleric (his name is Hejem, I guess?) senses power within the boy, and decides to raise him as his disciple and successor. Chris saw his mother die, and is dealing with all that trauma about as well as one would expect. Hejem comforts him and Rased him(?)self shows up- he chose Chris because he was the only one to call out to him. Rased wipes Chris' memory because we'll need him soon to lead Rased's people when the Demon World changes. The memory wipe didn't wipe out his hatred of demons, though. So anyway we sent him along to learn for a bit.

Some super fancy powerful demon guy(?) shows up!

Bonus chibi section 1: The gang is pretty sure Eclipse is going to cook them all for dinner

Bonus chibi section 2: Erutis dresses as a dom and gets mad that the readers all mistook her for a guy. Hey, I thought she was a girl, I just wasn't willing to commit after the Raenef whiff >_>

My rating: 8/10
Now we've got some character development, nice! I think it's time to start doing some serious plot stuff though, and maybe this dude at the end will provide that. We can only do the "I'm here to kill you whoops I'm a derp and now I'm your minion" shtick so many times, methinks.

it's still disgaea fanfic tho
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Buncha work piling up as well as a bunch of free time commitments so it's gonna slow down for a week or so
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I think there's maybe only me and thee here and I was AWOL for weeks so don't stress. Just make sure bumpbot doesn't let it purge if it's a long delay
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Indeed!

Miiiight get one today actually but don't hold your breath
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I am glad nobody held their breath
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Should be able to get in a non-live update in today :D
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Read yesterday, should have a writeup before too long and maybe even a live one after that
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Demon Diary, Vol. 4


The flamboyant guy (he uses Sylphs to make his cape flutter!!) from the end of last volume is the unfortunately named Demon Lord Krayon, one of the baddest demons around. He's here to test Raenef, and also Eclipse, because he doesn't get why Eclipse would lower himself to this level. He zots Raenef and the Keystone Kops into a dream dimension, because that's his thing I guess. Eclipse is left to try to figure out what's happening, and has to resort to the Seer (Mehuresae...nah I'mma just call her Seer) from a few volumes ago. He sits through her teasing and flirting to get a vague idea of what's up. Erutis has already figured this out- we're stuck in a demon's dream, and thus Raenef's powers won't work. (We will later learn that they COULD if he'd memorized the incantations, but not everybody is cool. But Raenef IV specialized in it.) Raenef & the Happy Funtime Jamboree Band find the Seer, whose dream this apparently is. This is news to her as well. They can get out if they get permission from Krayon! After they leave her, she finds unusual trouble seeing Raenef's future...and the supposedly dead Raenef IV shows up, causing her crystal ball to shatter.

Erutis calls Krayon out for a fight because she's done too many smart things this volume and needs to restore balance to the world. Asking him nicely surprisingly doesn't work, and he fires a big ol' blast at Raenef. Eclipse figures out where to find Raenef just in time to make the save, but shielding one attack took a lot out of him and he's probably not going to survive a second. Time stops as he readies the second strike! Raenef IV appears and tells (and then requests?) Krayon to let them go and give up on winning Eclipse's service. Krayon complies, and time resumes, leaving a very confused Raenef and a pretty banged up Eclipse to lick their wounds safely back home. Raenef is frustrated that Eclipse got hurt on his account, and wants to become a proper Demon Lord so this stops happening. Krayon is also impressed by Chris' latent ability, as he was at least able to get a vague sense of something happening with the whole time stop thing.

Krayon and Seer have a chat- neither of them has any idea what's going on, but we get a flashback to Raenef IV telling her (after their earlier scene) that it's not yet time for that child's power to awaken. Krayon and Seer decide that this warrants summoning the Order. The summons arrives at Castle Protagonist a couple days later. Raenef is off by himself brooding over his shota-ness when he is approached by a weird cartoony book. He offers to give Raenef the nudge he needs to be a true Demon Lord, but no take-backsies. Raenef chomps at the bit and becomes...tall, and a jerk. This is more in line with what he's supposed to be, but nobody around him really likes or understands the sudden change from a Flonne into a Pre-Character-Development-Laharl. The next day, the summons is cancelled in favor of the Elders just meeting by themselves. Raenef takes affront and decides to crash the party, even though that's equivalent to a declaration of war. Eclipse is on the case of wtf is up with the kid.

Bonus material: Robust explanations of the magic system
Bonus material 2: Chris summons "a demon strong enough to beat Raenef," and gets Eclipse, who beats him up instead.

Overall: 8/10
Took a weird but interesting turn at the end there. Lots of meta humor this time!
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