If you love flashbacks, then this series is for you!

The beginning of the manga is fairly episodal (and if I may say, overly sentimental): a soul gets wrongly sent to hell, Kucabara finds the "innocence item" (the proof the soul had actually led a good life and was unjustly damned), and the innocent soul gets revived. We get 4-5 storylines like this before the larger plot kicks in, namely the real reason Kucabara was exiled from hell. And this is where the series goes flashback heavy and starts alternating between events in the present and stuff that happened in Kucabara's past. The series decides that it wants to tell us, all at once, apparently, almost everything there is to know about Kucabara. The problem with this is two-fold: firstly, flashbacks are a drag, and secondly, the flashbacks are, unfortunately, far, FAR more interesting than anything going on in the present.

The present storyline is, in my opinion, mostly silly and uninteresting. We get all the shonen manga staples--the training sequences, the battles with lesser villains building up to a showdown with the major villain, etc., etc., but the problem is, all of that is done in a somewhat lame way: For example, in order to build up their teamwork ability and train to go back to the demon world, Ida Maria and Kucabara ...play tennis. A lot of it feels like the series is going through the motions: a training sequence and various obstacles are expected, so here you go--never mind the fact that the guy Kucabara is fighting doesn't actually have anything to do with the major villain.

Ida Maria, the series' major female character, pretty much symbolizes all of Defense Devil's problems to me: she is a fairly undeveloped character, acts difficult for the sake of acting difficult, but we're expected to ignore all that because oh look! here's fanservice! (Guys, she gets naked or partially naked all the time, what more could you want?) But don't worry ladies! There's a male character in the series who is just as undeveloped as Ida Maria, but who also likes to take the random shower or two! Whatever your preference, these mangakas provide! And this is what this series comes down to: a whole lot of flash (or is that flesh?) but not much substance.

I don't really get it; had this series been the one we see in the flashabacks, it could've been great: the story of a kindhearted demon prince who rises and falls from power. Instead the present-day stuff feels like we're reading the conclusion to a great story, and not the story itself. I'd have dropped this manga long ago if it weren't for the fact that I've loved their other manhwas and that I keep hoping this manga will settle down and start living up to its potential at some point. Hopefully I'll eventually come back and edit this review when the series becomes great so that I can say "it had a rough start but eventually got better," but for now, I honestly can't recommend Defense Devil.

I'm disappointed is the way the manga develops. What I mean by that is that after a few nice chapters (14) they go from a original idea (the lawyer of hell) to something like bleach. I don't really like that, however it still is good enough to encourage other people to also read it. Why because the hero is someone who isn't ridiculously strong but ridiculously weak. Having weaknesses makes the protagonist likeable, He's one of the most likeable characters I've seen.

(read to Ch 30)

I love the whole evil is good and good is evil. At first you get the idea that its a typical devils being bad and angels being.... angels. Then it gets so much better i love how the mystery just randomly unfolds and how the general audience's assumption on the characters aren't exactly right.

Seem like after Shin Angyo Onshi, they choose to give us a break by bringing us a cliche shounen and even try out some echi xD. Maybe it will piss off their fan who enjoyed their marvelous seinen series which have much more serious story. But I really enjoy it, let's see if they can make a marvelous shounen. At least just keep using their epic art is already so great.

... Last updated on September 20th, 2009, 1:57am

The story start of nice. But maybe around 50 chapter your will be asking yours self questions. Not to bad until your reach 9, everything are just being rush too the end. Still I did enjoy the the book.

Art
Very good art, characters are well done. And I like the artist style of drawing.

Story

rush at a certain point of the story, but still keeps your interest. You might bee asking your self many questions though.

Romance
The artist is an amateur in romance, you only see ram cue on the last chapter and it was not really what I called Romance. Buuuuuut.... Romance is romance

Good and bad
Some people who are religious might either be offend or take it the wrong way. If you read this don't compare it with religion. I have nothing else to say beside I'm not religious so whatever I say might not have any meaning.

Overall
I'm not sure if it was too bad or good, but what I do know is that I raid the book all the way to the end.

Unlike some others I frankly found the start of this manga to be rather lame. The defense lawyer portion had a sort of special uncommon uniqueness but it was overall mostly non engaging episodic crap. That turned out to be mostly a warm up though and suddenly it was going into some sort of battle manga arc for a short bit which while not as unique at least had an actual ongoing story. The mystery angle is kept up to a degree because you can tell things are going on that you don't know about. Up till this point though overall I would of said it's "worth reading when bored but nothing special".

Then at chapter 84 he started to make some interesting revelations. All I can say now is that even after reading probably 100's of mangas for over a decade I really did not see all this coming. After quickly reading from 84 to 95 I just kept going "WTF what is this?" "WHAT?" etc.

People who enjoyed the start will probably continue to be let down. For people who thought the manga was a bit dull yet had some sort of hidden promise I'd urge you to keep reading to this point and decide if you like it then. It's at least enough of a change in quality that you should give it that much.

Nice idea that was kind of poorly executed. However, neverless it is a good read for many type of readers.

It starts off slow and takes around beginning of vol3 to get moving, but the character development and storyline that brought up was worth the wait!!!

The beginning shows us the Kakubawa being a lawyer, but later it concentrates on the demon world. What attracts me most is the demon world saga, it is extra interesting to have the manga jump from human world then to demon world.

Oh, and a bad boy turn good (out of no where, but still you just cant help but be touched by it--- not to mention he is a bishie to boot >.<) bad boy turn good is one of my many fave concepts >.<

For now, Ive only read to chap50 (within 1 sitting) and only paused because that is the latest chapter, I will give the rating as such...

RATING
◘ Art: 7
◘ Beginning: 4
◘ From vol3: 8
◘ Character development: 8
◘ Moe: 6
◘ Mysteries - that keeps you hanging: 8
◘ Friendship, relationship, trust, bond: 8
◘ chapter development (this is how a chapter drags on or is pulled off well): 9
◘ Extra (because I like it, and it doesnt have any of those shoujo bits and pieces, along with annoying fights-fights-with-no-plotline, I will give it an extra...): 0.55
◘ ◘ Overall: 7.8

... Last updated on May 30th, 2010, 4:03pm

Story was okay but the art is what won it for me

Twist twist twists , twist everywhere. It went like : great-boring-nice-huh?-okay?-meh-woah!

It started off great, specially the MC being a badass, happy-go-lucky Devil. but it suddenly went boring when they dragged on a part too much. there's hilarious and awesome scene from time to time but you can't just help but skip some parts.--- Then suddenly came the TWISTS.

THERE'S SO MUCH TWISTS that some things can't be explained anymore! There's the cliche twist, annoying twist and useless twist all in one manga. Luckily, the ending was quite great so i didn't had to curse the author.

I'll give this one an 8 over all.

... Last updated on December 23rd, 2014, 11:57pm

0.0 ok, so I'm quite happy I didn't read the reviews until AFTER I finished reading the actual series because the series itself? It was EPIC!!!!!!!! *_* especially the last 15 or so chapters, those just tied in many little loose ends that had been left hanging all over the story and just RAMMED emotion into me! I don't want to add spoilers so I'll say this, one of the character's made me cry for 2 minutes straight TWICE, the second time being in extreme happiness ! Also, the fact that in the end they leave it open for a sequel is really nice, hopefully the sequel (cross-fingered in hope of hopes!) is just as good as this one.

Ok, admittedly, the story has a slow beginning, and get's kinda tedious at times but the ending is WORTH IT, is all I want to add to this ^^~