Content warnings: Supernatural Entities, Age Gap (Not under-age), Dark Romance, mentions of suicide. This review covers volume 1 of The Demon Prince of Momochi House: Succession. Contains spoilers for the original 16 volume series.
Ten years after the events of the original story, the Momochi estate no longer exists, and now fully human, Aoi is no longer trapped there as its spiritual guardian. Himari and Aoi are reunited, living as a couple and attempting to get married. But their supernatural beginnings are creeping into their happily ever after, as yokai and shikigami threaten their normal human existence.
The Story
The volume opens with Aoi cleaning houses as a part-time job. He’s 18 and is working on getting the equivalent of his GED, having not attended school for the better half of his childhood due to being trapped in Momochi House. He’s engaged to Himari and lives with her in her new home as she attends grad school.
Due to the bizarre and confusing time skip that took place in the last chapters of the original series, Himari is now 26, meaning that she and Aoi are further apart in age. They intend to get married however making sense of court documents is a problem, because the outside world seemed to forget Aoi during his time at the Momochi estate and his family history has been seemingly erased.
The story that transpires revolves around Aoi coming to terms with being human while also having ayakashi who are drawn to him. The original series depicted many scenes that discussed Aoi’s relationship to power. Now that he is no longer able to transform into Nue, he does not have the powers he once did. Yukari and Ise continue to perform duties as his shikigami, permanently tied to him until he dismisses them. Throughout the volume Aoi learns to harness a new kind of power in his human state. It would be poignant if it wasn’t so confusing.
Can you read this sequel series without having read the original series? You can, but it certainly won’t make any sense.
The volume doesn’t bother to even give a recap at the beginning, instead just throwing the reader right into the action. Even readers who are familiar with the original series, should perhaps reread it before diving into this, as the story references events from the previous series constantly.
In preparation for this review I reread and reviewed the original series. I binged it over two days, and then started reading this new volume. And unfortunately, even having done that, this volume still doesn’t make much sense. While it’s fun to see old characters again, it’s mostly just confusing. I think most readers will be disappointed that Himari isn’t the focal character, and romance isn’t a plot-driving factor. I’m grateful there isn’t much romance because the age-gap makes it weird, but I don’t understand the point of this series without it. The romance was so integral to the original series, the story is empty without the main characters’ chemistry.
It seems likely that this limited series was just written to add hype to the anime that started airing in January of 2024. The anime adaptation is unfortunately just as disappointing, devoid of the lovely artwork and magical mysteries that made the original sixteen volume series special.
The Art
Much like the original series, the art is good. However, is it as good as the original? I have to say no. Perhaps it’s because this is a two-volume series. The manga delivers a lot of information all at once. It feels like an info dump, and the pages are visually cluttered with speech bubbles, making it a slow read.
Unfortunately, there aren’t as many jaw-dropping panels or splash pages in this first installment as was often shown in the original series. To my own disappointment, there just aren’t any poster-worthy images in this. The art feels as if it’s taking on a different tone. Maybe because Aoi is the point-of-view character, rather than Himari, it relies less on typical shoujo framing and tones.
The art isn’t completely without merit though. The character designs continue to look good, and they are as lovely and expressive as ever. And even if I think the age-gap plot point is nonsense, the art does a good job making Himari look older throughout the volume. Although on the cover she looks more like her teenage-self??? I can’t explain it. All that said, I’m sure that fans of the original series will be delighted to see all the characters making an appearance in this volume.
The Deets:
The Demon Prince of Momochi House: Succession is a two-volume sequel series written and illustrated by Aya Shouoto. Publication began four years after the original series concluded. English volumes are brought to us by Viz Media. Volume 1 is currently out and volume 2 will be released in January 2026.
