Demons’ Crest Volume 2 Review

Reiki Kawahara’s Demons’ Crest has an anime adaptation airing as part of the autumn season, although not until November, which is relatively late all things considered! And as excitement around the series builds, what better time to return to the light novels? With Volume 2 in hand, let’s find out what’s next for our cast.

As we reunite with Yuuma, twin sister Sawa and their party, we pick up more or less where we left off – in the aftermath of a life-or-death battle. In fact, the only reason anyone is still alive is because Sawa suddenly transformed and managed to overpower their enemy. And now Yuuma is left wondering how that was even possible.

We don’t have to wait long for the answer, as Sawa soon reveals that she’s currently being possessed by a demon known as Valac, who can take over Sawa’s body for a limited amount of time per day. Valac holds a lot of knowledge that our group would find incredibly useful in their current circumstance, but it comes at a price. The demon tells the group first of all to go and find their childhood friend Nagi, but she’s not here in reality. Nagi is trapped within Actual Magic, the full-dive VRMMORPG that the cast had originally come to playtest before all hell broke loose.

The group were supposed to be on a mission to find food to take back to their classmates in the makeshift shelter being run by the overbearing Sugamo, but Yuuma isn’t prepared to leave Nagi hanging. So the party dives into Actual Magic, where the majority of this volume ends up taking place.

I was not particularly surprised that we ended up back in Actual Magic because this is where all the stereotypical things that make a Kawahara story can happen. He even admits in the afterword that all of the skill levels are based on the Sword Art Online systems, with the biggest difference being that Actual Magic has character classes (although personally I don’t think this has meant much yet). Luckily for our cast, their equipment has carried across from the beta, and they end up in a recognisable area, so they can jump straight into the search for Nagi. Which takes them into a dungeon and into the nearby city.

I came away from this book with mixed feelings. The time spent in Actual Magic feels like generic fantasy fare, which is far less interesting than what’s happening in reality and/or the whole demon possession thing. The fact they can (or at least hope to) move back and forth between the game and reality is an interesting element, but so far there’s no promise that will actually happen in practice. The other issue is that so much time is spent on battles or looking for Nagi that there’s not a great deal of character development. And I didn’t mind that in Volume 1 since there were a lot of characters to establish and far more interesting story elements at play, but here it ends up being somewhat frustrating because the characters are both dull and in a generic setting. They make bad decisions and get taken advantage of in ways that are reasonable for elementary school-aged kids lacking in maturity, but that just feels like a convenient excuse for why it happens as opposed to good writing.

I’m not saying this was a terrible read. I like Kawahara’s work, and even if generic, he does write these video game settings well. However, Volume 1 showed me the potential of a series that is not Kawahara’s usual, and so I’m hoping Volume 3 will prove better since the cast has returned to reality now. Although there is a cliffhanger ending here that had me rolling my eyes, so we’re already potentially off to a bad start there. But at least being outside of Actual Magic returns us to all the things that made this series stand out originally, so there is that at least. And I suppose this volume does feel more self-contained than Volume 1, which was left incomplete since Kawahara decided to go for a cliffhanger there as well. So it’s not bad; it’s just underwhelming.

Demons’ Crest Volume 2 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press under the Yen On imprint and has been translated by James Balzer, who continues to do an excellent job with it. The book opens with a selection of colour pages from illustrator Yukiko Horiguchi, and there’s a cast list at the start (and end) which helps familiarise ourselves with the extensive collection of characters.

In Japan the series is up to Volume 4 as of December last year. Here in English, Yen Press has released Volume 3, but there’s no sign of #4 in the schedule yet. Hopefully with the anime starting, we won’t be left waiting for too long.

Overall, Volume 2 of Demons’ Crest feels like a major step back in many ways, as it puts aside a lot of what made it unique to dive back into more traditional fantasy fare. And that’s not bad, but in that case I’d rather read one of Kawahara’s other series instead. Hopefully a return to form awaits us in Volume 3, and in the meantime there’s the anime to look forward to.

Our review copy was supplied by the publisher Yen Press.