Devil’s Candy Volume 1: A VERY Normal School Life

Have any of you just look at the cover of a manga that makes you want to check it out? You know, those of us who aren’t Irina who buy tons of first volumes of manga because of this fact? (I love you, Irina. Please don’t have me.) As a cautious and still much newer manga reader, I haven’t done that a lot. Devil’s Candy was something that caught me eye though. It had such wonderful character designs and colors in it. Basically, it looked like a wacky science thing and I am generally all for that kind of stuff. It felt like something that I needed in my life right now. I was very correct.

Have any of you watched the anime film Hells? A chaotic film centered on a school of monsters trying to escape hell? Basically, Devil’s Candy’s setting is like that but a little more toned down with no escape from hell. The story takes place at a very advanced monster school named Hemlock. The entire plot starts because of a science project. One day, a science nerd by the name of Kazu creates a girl named Pandora a lot like Frankenstein created Frankenstein’s monster except Kazu created an anime girl. The difference is how Pandora is handled. Kazu wants Pandora to get an education rather then just seeing her as a science experiment.

What surprises me of despite all the crazy science, the tons of character designs, and the wild framing of the show, Devil’s Candy is very emphatic and relatable. What better way of characterizing the high school experience by hyperizing it with extra expressiveness. A lot of time is spent with Kazu and Pandora interacting with classmates of all kinds, shapes, and sizes in wild environments. All of them centered on creating the world with Pandora as a central character with Kazu fighting for her to get an education and school experience. When Pandora isn’t beating people up that want to be elitists, she’s getting allowed into model contests and other things. The cast allows both Kazu and Pandora to grow from their interactions. It’s good material.

The only major complaints I have are that the panels could be too jumbled sometimes. There is a lot too much artistic expression sometimes with too many panels on the page. That meeting the very different varied character designs can make the manga hard on the eyes to read. Or you know one could read it on something other then their phones to get a bigger page size for it. Might be helpful. But in general, I had a great time with this manga. Definitely a solid experience if you are curious about it.

If you want to order the manga now, it comes out on my birthday, July 13th. Please check this link here: link, to find where you can read it. Thanks for reading!