Story by Etsuko Ikeda, Art by Yuho Ashibe
Published by ComicsOne
Rating: 13+

Deimos and Minako are one of the more unlikely pairs you will find in ’70s shojo manga. Aside from the fact that Minako hates everything about Deimos, there’s also the matter of Deimos being a horned, black-winged, goat-legged (but still very handsome) personification of the Devil. Unfortunately for Minako, Deimos wants to take her back to Hell to be his bride, and he’s got nothing better to do than haunt and plague Minako’s life until she decides she’ll go to Hell with him, by choice or by making a deal.

Though interesting, the plot above is little more than a framing device for the one-shot horror stories that make up the series. The stories draw from a variety of sources, including Western and Eastern mythology, folklore from Japan and Europe, Noh plays, Shakespeare, and even Hans Christian Anderson (apparently not even Thumbelina is above making deals with the devil). Many of the stories have Minako getting involved with the characters from these sources, but some of the stories are also about other characters making “be careful what you wish for” arrangements with Deimos, who delights in ruining their lives by giving them exactly what they want. Minako falls for this again and again, though side characters usually pay for her mistakes. Even though he’s the Devil, often Deimos isn’t the source of the evil, merely an observer, and from time to time he steps in and saves Minako from things like possession or crazy fictional characters.

The premise for the story is simple enough, and the use of the folklore and traditional stories as a source of plots is a common plot device that’s used more effectively here than it is most other places, but the thing that really makes this series special is its atmosphere. The stories are “horror” stories in the sense that what is going on is unsettling, but it is not so much horrifying. While there are vampires and monsters, they are more sad than terrible, and more often than not, love, revenge, and vanity drive the stories. Melodrama helps set the mood, and a good sense of pacing and tragic timing don’t hurt, either. The stories are fairly simple, but each has a unique plot rather than a lot of depth or character development. Be warned though: the stories may be different, but the devices used can get repetitive. Minako gets possessed by ghosts a lot, and Deimos frequently makes bargains that go badly.

Also, while the story does reference Roman mythology, it… takes a lot of license with tradition. Aside from a strange mix of Roman and Greek names (and Christian ideology), there is the fact that Deimos is not “The Devil,” nor was he God of the Underworld, nor was he punished by his father Jupiter for loving his sister Venus (traditionally, Venus/Aphrodite was his mother and Ares/Mars was his father). These details don’t come up frequently and, frankly, aren’t all that important anyway, but it’s probably worth mentioning in case something sounded screwy.

Aside from the excellent atmosphere, the other good thing this series has going for it is Deimos. He’s sort of an enigma since his spontaneous love for Minako is never really explained. Being the Devil, he doesn’t express his love with flowers and poetry, or even talking about it all that frequently. Deimos’ style is more about randomly showing up, reminding Minako that she is his bride, then looking on smugly as something terrible happens. As the series goes on, you can see that he truly does love Minako for more reason than just wanting to drag her off as his bride. He guards her jealously, and intervenes to save her life on several occasions. And even though he’s pretty consistently evil (or at least willing to take advantage of the evil in human hearts), there are some moments where he does things that he knows will please Minako, and he can never bring himself drag Minako to Hell when the opportunity arises and she’s powerless to stop him. But he’s pretty stoic in general and always sort of a wildcard. You can never quite work out how he’s going to deal with a situation until it actually happens. Minako is more shallow, and aside from rejecting Deimos again and again, she’s usually just around to serve as a damsel in distress.

The art is quite good, if a little plain compared to the better ’70s shojo manga styles of artists like Moto Hagio or Kyoko Ariyoshi. A lot of the artistic devices you would expect are in play, including large eyes with lots of sparkles, long hair with curls, girls that wear only dresses, and excellent use of silhouette, splitting the panel apart for emphasis, and blanking out the eyes for emotional impact. The pacing of the panels, as far as lingering over-long in a creepy moment, helps immensely with setting the mood for the series. You won’t see a lot of tone or extremely detailed backgrounds, or the softness that some art from this period has. Eliminating those elements does help lend a stark appearance that probably adds to the tone, though.

ComicsOne only released the first seven of the original seventeen volumes of the series. To my knowledge, the main storyline never concluded in the original Japanese series run. It recently started running again, with the same team working on it, in Mystery Bonita magazine under the title “Bride of Deimos: Final Chapter.” This continuation is nothing like the original, and doesn’t seem to be moving towards finishing the plot from the first either. The art is extremely spare (don’t be fooled by the pretty color art), and from what I can tell, Minako is not the main character, or even in it much at all. One volume of the new version is currently available in Japan.

In the end, the plot and characters are a bit shallow, but there’s a lot of entertainment to be had from the variety of sources and themes the one-shot stories draw from, not to mention the excellent creepy atmosphere. It’s much different from the other classic shojo that has been published in English from the same era, but it’s probably still worth a read for many. And even though it’s out of print, the volumes can still be had quite cheaply, so pick it up if you are at all inclined.

All seven volumes of Bride of Deimos are available now.