The first few volumes are quite enjoyable and while the middle volumes do stray from what seemed to be the series' premise (and ratchet up the melodrama) they werent terrible, just something of a departure. But then

... Last updated on May 13th, 2014, 8:58pm

As a lot of commentators have said, this manga is pretty good up until the Anna Arc.

I fully got to enjoy Maria and her gang of misfits (which turns out to be pretty much everyone~). The only character that was furiously unrealistic was the teacher (who would have long been fired). But even with that, the sappiness was somewhat, really heartfelt. I don't usually (stand) like shoujo manga, but this Maria up until the arc, got me to...really like her.

What happens afterwards, well as many say, it deteriorates into mediocre. Its not bad per-se, in fact to an avid shoujo fan, maybe it is up-par. I donnu? But to me, it fell into the many plot devices, cliches and terribly executed misunderstandings (I still don't get why some supposed childhood trauma means you should avoid the persons feelings and your own).

The characters further on do a few changes, and although some might be happy, I found they became more superficial rather then the original deep. Even further along, it grows to a point where you might expect Maria to suddenly cry from getting a pat from Meguro. The whole "we can't communicate" becomes a strain on the readers mind. I still braved through till chapter 74. I'm not sure if I'll brave through further, but by now (at last) the two have finally gotten their feelings across, and finally got to the point of accepting her childhood trauma with her mother and the priest.

So my thoughts on this? I'd recommend most people to read up until her Anna friend comes along, and if you are still keen, maybe until Meguro rejects Maria on christmas. But reading further, that is only for someone who is much more of an avid romantic woes-be-me attitude lover.

I'm not going to complement on the plot. And some, if you wish (or believe otherwise) can disregard this review, as to be honest, after the whole big misunderstanding with Maria's trauma, I skipped about 2/3 of the chapters. Ha ha ....

I had to stop reading due to a wave of sickening boredom radiating from this manga. God, it was so disappointing. Akuma to Love-song started off great - Maria was a badass chick who doesn't take s**t from anybody, the supporting cast was also well-rounded. For a psychological drama, they all had interesting backstories...well, except for..dun DUN...Meguro is the dullest love interest I've ever seen in shoujo manga.

Okay, maybe not, but seriously, when standing next to Maria (or the others) he's like a fish out of water. I didn't like their romance at all, it was bland, uninteresting - A Major Turn-off. But then the mangaka had to make a "revelation" that Maria is actually a shallow girl. -_- (trying hard not to rage)

Anyways, PLOT! Wait, was there any to begin with? I mean, was THERE a major plot going on? 'Cause I sure as hell don't see any. It's all over the place - a huge clusterf**k of random teenaged woes desperately trying to create a decent story, but fails miserably. I get that they're supposed to have traumas and stuff, but come on, the melodrama gets really old. Plus the dragging storyline isn't helping one bit.

*sigh* Now I really should stop before I go into Super Saiyan mode.

First off, the art is fantastic. I've been reading the VIZ translations from my library and seeing the printed art, especially the cover art for the tankouban and chapters, it's simply beautiful.
After reading the comments here, I decided to just read it til the Anna arc so I asked Suxxinn who told me that it started in volume 5 and was alright at first and got progressively worse.
After reading the first 4 volumes, I left the series very satisfied.
The main characters are pretty fantastic. Maria sees through everyone's bullshit but has a terrible social life because she reacts to people's true thoughts and intentions rather than their facade and false words. The two male characters try to teach her otherwise.
Shin reacts to people's bullshit by simply interacting with others to the bare minimum but being tolerant of it enough that he isn't hated. Thus he's an outcast, though nowhere near as much as Maria.
Yuusuke kind of embraces people's bullshit. While at first he seemed like an incredibly annoying character, it's all an act to cover up how much he despises his true nature and, from his point of view, the neccessity of putting on a mask at all times.
Really the whole series seemed to be about how our physical appearance is almost totally unrelated to who we really are. I really liked that.
This can be best seen with Yuusuke early on, and then Tomoyo.

Then a couple of months later I saw volume 5 in the library and thought to myself 'Why did I stop reading this again?'. So I grabbed volumes 5 & 6.
More ont hat later, gtg to work 😛

EDIT: Ok it's 9 years later and I don't remember AT ALL what my impressions were. But I DID drop the series so...I'm guessing I really really didn't like what happened in those volumes, much like all the people before (and now after) me. 😛

... Last updated on December 30th, 2022, 7:47am

A person's experience is pretty much defined by how a manga is presented to them, and this is basically the case of either bland translation or just straight up shallow interpretation. Either the translating doesn't communicate the cultural differences very efficiently, or some people didnt fully understand Maria at all, and honestly it looks like a lot of both.

At first Maria seems like the ultimate heroine taking no bullshit from anyone. She's able to stand her ground so strongly against otherwise nauseatingly mean and bigotted classmates, an angel among a slothy pit of hell that is a peer-pressure-filled high school.

Akuma to Love Song is a refreshing change of pace for any shoujo reader, and it has a deliciously ambient tone illustrating the darkness and insanity high school IS, remeniscent of Life to be specific.

But c'mon, how can it be that hard to relate to this manga when the majority religion in almost every English speaking country is Catholic. Devil Maria, an unfitting nickname? Did no one understand how these Japanese student bullies used a Catholic reference against her to triple the blow or has no one seen a bully apply meaningful religious vocabulary to their social life these days and couldn't believe it could happen? Need i mention the irony of it all (referring to my angel comment).

Sure, if you're looking for a manga that surprises you and 'breaks cliche', try it out to see why we all say "the beginning was good." But you'll drop it like a brick like the rest of them being so seduced by that honestly pathetic idea. If you're so 'great' that nearly nothing surprises you, good luck trying to find decent stories that 'satisfy' you, because decent stories are gunna pass right over you and you won't even know it. Every story out there has a trope, you can't avoid them completely, and you'll have better luck finding the manga you're looking for by making the manga yourself, if you're so revolutionary. Needless to say, if you're the type of person who would dismiss Maria crying her heart out as 'cliche', Maria actually smiling because she was genuinely happy as 'predictable shoujo', you don't understand how REAL people develop at all and your manga is probably gunna suck.

That said, I've been reading the scanlation and the translation is pretty redundant and stiff sometimes. Maybe that has something to do with it and you should try the Viz version in your local library. (I haven't done it but I'm going to). But I focus on the story when i read and try to forgive the mishaps, and if the story can shine through so clearly among all the bad translating, well, that says at least something.

Let me talk about how i felt about this series for a second. The execution of this manga for a shoujo genre is nearly flawless. There are so many great elements incorporated here, like self-image (worrying about what others see in you), beliefs (personal religion or method of socializing), conformity (following the crowd instead of developing individuality)... but my favorite is the reoccuring play on sheer irony. How no one is who they make themselves out to be and (what became of) the real them is damn right UGLY. Akuma to Love Song unapologetically explores this.

They even make it ACCEPTABLE somehow.

This manga will make you angry at people. Embarrassed for people. Question why they're even friends with Maria in the first place yet don't we all know people we don't like but who are friends with those we do like?

In a word, the series is raw. Maria can attract readers for being an ideal feminist-appealing trope, but underneath that, the series is about Maria finding how to live WITH pretenders and liars, not against them. She helps show people who they really are and in doing so, she makes true friends, each one of them flawed and fake, which is pretty damn realistic from my experience (cliches stem from truth, but don't get them mixed up.) This is how leaders are born and rise above the rest, and Maria proves that not all leaders have to be men.

Admittedly i stopped reading the series for a while, but i found myself pick it up every ten chapters, and whenever i finished what was out so far, I'd totally want the rest. Maybe it was Anna's arc that drove me to stop following it so closely (i remember how embarrassed i felt for Anna, nothing was going nicely (cough like how i expect a story to go cough)) but that has PASSED in my book and I'm eagerly awaiting Maria to overcome her character flaw, have her love requited, and lead an actual healthy life.

AtLS could totally start a cult following because not everyone can "get" it ("it's not for everyone") but for the people who do, they'd probably love it as well as i do and more. It completely deserved the thirteen volume run it got.

... Last updated on August 20th, 2013, 1:52am

This is one bad shoujo manga.



... Last updated on April 1st, 2013, 6:29am

I think the story should have stopped after the first arc with Maria singing. It felt like a good stopping point. Like other people have commented it starts strong and then when it begins the Ana arc it declines. Maria is an interesting character and has some interesting challenges at her new school which was the best part of the manga. Then it becomes a sloppy melodramatic emo-fest. More characters are added on, but it feels more like tacked on and the story gets stretched out. The love triangles were not working for me because character development was weak. Throw some typical cliches on top of the whole thing and it then became a disappointment. I like Maria and I like some of the art but I feel the story wasn't handled the best way which is a shame because I did like the beginning a lot.

That maria is a good character, and is a strong and smart type of lead, being a misunderstood isn't really a bad thing but makes it bad is that here you have a good character but then she is thrown into a cliche, world that does nothing for her. It really could have become a much better series and overall story if it wasn't so much the other characters where 1D and fake. I also don't like how they kept referring to maria as a devil when she did no such traits, I could see if she pushed people down stairs or something but she never even did things like this the only thing she does is be a very blunt but truthful person.
Wow..such a devil!
But anyway, this story could have been better, I read the first volume, I really love maria but it's a pure shame to be thrown into such a lacking story like this that leaves alot to be desired, I don't like the male lead interests at all. The fact that these boys are shallow and just follow what everyone else say is pretty much showing they have no backbone for understanding the truth themselves but follow rumors, I don't like that.

Akuma to Love Song begins excellently, and then, like many other unfortunate shoujo romance manga, it begins going downhill.

Maria certainly falls under the typical "misunderstood protagonist" archetype, but the saving grace is the mangaka's execution--she really knew how to pull off Maria's personality without it seeming too forced. The side characters are also immensely satisfying--rather than the typical caricatures, they are real people with different facets to their personality. The antagonists are also approached in a similar manner. Their worries and insecurities are explored, and their personality is fleshed out enough to make them understandable, if not sympathetic.

However, Akuma to Love Song soon becomes yet another shoujo that overstays its welcome. With the onset of the Anna arc, the manga seems to have devolved into an angst-fest, and the characters' misunderstandings and dilemmas have become tiring, rather than invigorating. The romance, too, has slowed to such a crawl, with such wangst involved, that I feel more like facepalming than cheering the male lead on.

The problem is that Akuma to Love Song is currently using misunderstandings to further its plot (or lack thereof, in this case). And, although there are rare instances where misunderstandings are done well, this is not one of those instances. The fact is that every single issue in the manga right now can be resolved through open communication between the two main characters, but one of them refuses to communicate with the other, and the reason given for that is flimsy at best.

It's really a shame. Akuma to Love Song could've been a great shoujo romance. There is definitely a plethora of cliches but, at first, they were executed in an interesting and compelling manner. But, unfortunately, after the initial volumes, it seems clear that the mangaka suffers from overstretching and lack of planning, with the later volumes an enormous step down.

Not precisely worth a read, but the art is beautiful, if it's any consolation... though it doesn't entirely make up for the massive amounts of headbang in the recent chapters.

edit: OK, now, as of volume nine, I am seriously considering dropping this. (The only thing that is stopping me is that there's only a few more volumes left. I CAN DO THIS.) It seems that every time Meguro and Maria's relationship moves the slightest bit forward, it always has to move MANY STEPS BACK right afterwards.

And, while before the misunderstandings can at least be (flimsily) justified, the mangaka has really gone too far now. She's basically relying on a totally ridiculous misunderstanding (that can just be resolved by the two main characters HAVING A CONVERSATION, with WORDS) to delay the already trainwreck'd plot. Um. No. Just. No. I've never been fond of misunderstandings, but the one at the end of volume nine just takes the cake for one of the worst ever I've ever had the misfortune to see. Seriously displeased. :I

edit2: OK, volume 12 now, and it hasn't gotten any better. If anything, it has gotten even worse. It's the second to last volume, so I'm going to stick this out, but at this point, any affection I have for this series is completely down the drain. I have nothing left for you, Akuma to Love Song, for you have soundly defeated me.



It's a shame because the earlier chapters of this manga promised so much more. It promised resistance and challenge and a unique narrative. But, in the end, the mangaka chooses to take the easy way out by defaulting to offensive tropes and problematic storytelling. More than the Anna arc, more than the misunderstandings, that is what makes me lose respect for the mangaka.

Akuma to Love Song, you could've been a great manga, but, unfortunately, your mangaka doesn't know how to write nuanced stories, and this arc will always color my perceptions of you, not as "what could've been" but as "complete shit."

... Last updated on June 29th, 2014, 6:21pm

I like characters like her, but I loathe love triangles, especially if it involves 2 girls and 1 guy- it turns this into more of a 'typical' shoujo. Beforehand, it was a fine read- in fact I would prefer it this only had SUBTLE romance lol (maybe, wait, definitely because I personally didn't like the love triangle). As everyone else had say, the art is cool and Maria is especially pretty and a bit dull...

Edit: I read it again, and I seriously loved the beginning, but yet again, it disappointed me again with her I love Megu phase. It got interesting with another new character though, therefore I will keep reading, hoping for the impossible... (I hate cliche stuff, gawd, I should take a break from manga)

... Last updated on August 29th, 2012, 11:40pm