Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun: IruMafia Edition Volume 4  Review

“You should be prepared to kill him, if needed.” Captain Ifrit to Alice Asmodeus.

Iruma, young underboss of the Babel mafia syndicate, is determined to find out the whereabouts of Urala, Clara Valac’s missing little brother. Thanks to a tip-off, he finds out that Urala is going to be sold off at a black-market auction. But infiltrating the auction will be a highly dangerous undertaking.

Meanwhile, syndicate treasurer Kalego is hot on the trail of the traitor in their midst. It’s only a matter of time before they’re unmasked! The ‘traitor’ just happens to be Alice Asmodeus, who’s really an elite undercover police operator – but Asmodeus has a complicated past which is about to come back to haunt him in a big way. He’s also begun to feel very conflicted about being a double agent as Iruma’s naïve charm and honesty has begun to win him over. As for his childhood? He adored his mother, Amuryllis, who was also a national police officer – but then she disappeared, reputed to have been working for a criminal syndicate. Asmodeus joins the national police preparatory academy where he falls under the influence of Eito Djinn Ifrit, who’s assigned to be his mentor.

Fast forward to the present, and Alice and Opera, disguised as guards/merchandise couriers, bring more ‘product’ to the auction (the ‘product’ is none other than Iruma!) thanks to information from the hacker in Ameri’s gang. The one they must be very wary of is the Black Rabbit ‘the invisible guardian who keeps all details related to the auction hidden away from outsiders.’ But when they locate Urala, the poor boy is so petrified that he can’t believe he’s about to be rescued and runs away, with Opera in pursuit. The Black Rabbit appears and reveals his true identity to Alice and Iruma. The Black Rabbit is about to shoot Iruma – but then Asmodeus raises his handgun and fires instead. Iruma falls.

This is the volume of the Irumafia series in which things really turn dark – much darker than the main series (although that’s had its moments). The mafia setting, of course, demands a much more edgy, violent vibe than the fantasy world of Babyls and Osamu Nishi and Hiroja are really delivering the goods. This Iruma seems much more vulnerable than the original version and the stakes are higher.

Hiroja’s art is also beginning to take on an identity of its own, while remaining faithful to the original manga. There’s a different kind of energy emanating from the pages, especially with Iruma who feels distinctly ‘different’. We get to meet Ifrit (who doesn’t really take a significant role in the original manga until Volume #26 and we’re only at #20 in the English edition) but also the ‘back alley doctor’, Shinichiro Balam.

One nice touch is that Iruma, having got the measure of Clara early on, distracts her by making her head of the amusement park design team, a role that she takes to with 110% enthusiasm. But has he underestimated her abilities and her determination to be at his side?

The Vertical edition is ably translated again by JM Iitomi Crandall (who also translates the main series) with a splendid variety of lettering by Eve Grandt. There are five colour pages at the front (always a nice addition) as well as a brief character guide and the story so far (always a good idea!) Extras at the end include a three-page story about the former ringmaster, four yonkoma panels, a page each of afterwords from Hiroja and Osamu Nishi, a two-page ‘spoiler alert’ for Volume 4 (me neither!) and an illustrated preview page for Volume 5 which is due out in August.

This is a much darker volume and all the more successful for being so; the mafia version has at last begun to differentiate itself from the source manga and to take on its own identity. There’s an anime TV series coming in 2027 from NHK and it’ll be really interesting to see how that approaches the drama and the characters.

Our review copy from Vertical was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).