Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun: IruMafia Edition Volume 5 Review

The Babel family (or crime syndicate), led by young Iruma (who’s recovering from being shot by Alice Asmodeus, yes, that happened!), is preparing to storm the sinister secret Black Auction and rescue Clara Valac’s younger brother Urala from being sold as a slave. But who can Iruma trust? Alice Asmodeus has been working as a double agent, gathering information on Babel for the national police, led by Captain Eito Djinn Ifrit – but he’s now begun to experience serious doubts as to where his loyalties should lie.

So when Babel storms the Black Auction, with Opera and Kalego leading the attack, there’s a stand-off. Opera hurries to free Urala and is shot in the shoulder but being Opera, they stubbornly refuse to stand down. But then who should make a stunningly dramatic entrance but Ameri on her motorbike with Iruma and Clara on-board, and they’re spoiling for a fight! The only problem is, as Alice Asmodeus learns, that the auction hall has been booby-trapped with explosives by the police with the aim ‘to massacre everyone down to the last valuable life, all in the name of justice.’ Can Asmodeus warn Babel before it’s too late? His onetime police colleagues, especially Ifrit, have put a price on his head – and Ifrit is planning to set the auction house on fire before anyone can escape!

If you’ve ever wished that the dangers encountered by Iruma and his friends in the original series could be more explicitly and dramatically portrayed, then this is turning out to be the series for you! The differences between the original Welcome to Demon School! and the darker Irumafia spin-off have become more marked from volume to volume and here we reach the darkest, most intense volume so far. Even though Osamu Nishi is collaborating closely with Hiroja, the mercurial, inventive humour that’s so delightful in the original series has faded away to be replaced by high-stakes, edge-of-the-seat drama. There’s even a moment in the crucial confrontation in the burning auction house between Iruma and Alice at the volume’s climax in which Alice wonders, What if our lots in life, our ages, the very world we’d been born into had been different? Would our stories have gone in another direction? And the mangaka accompanies these thoughts with poignant images of Iruma, Alice and Clara in their Babyls school uniforms, laughing together. As Asmodeus is contemplating ending his own life at this moment, with the muzzle of his gun pressed to his own throat, will he listen to Iruma and let himself be persuaded by the young under-boss?

This is perhaps the first volume in which Iruma’s willingness to put his own life on the line for his ‘family’ is placed front and centre. He’s shown to be utterly unwavering in his determination to trust the people he wants to save – and there’s even a touching ‘hat’ moment, a little reminiscent of Luffy and Shanks, between him and Opera. But the spotlight is also on Alice Asmodeus and the very difficult decision he has to make while the auction house is going up in flames.

There’s still fun to be had for Welcome to Demon School! fans in identifying characters from the original manga appearing here without demonic horns or tails in new roles; look out for Dantalion Dali but also someone rather more ominous toward the end of the volume.

Another pleasure in reading the IruMafia manga in these attractive Vertical editions from Kodansha is the number of colour images and the extras. This volume, as well as having seven splendid colour plates at the beginning, has an extra surprise with four more inserted at the climax of the story arc, including a searing double-page spread. There are also informative afterwords from Hiroja and Osamu Nishi at the end, as well as 4-koma panels, a little side story Chapter 17.5 featuring Don Sullivan and Balam and ‘Select Drafts of Color Illustrations that Didn’t Make the Cut!’. And, of course, the helpful cast of main characters and story summary at the front.

Translation for Vertical is JM Iitomi Crandall and works splendidly to make the high-action story an exciting read in English, helped out by Eve Grandt’s lettering. Volume 6 is due out in November with #7 following in January, by which time, we might have learned more about the upcoming TV anime version promised earlier this year.

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