By Kazunari Kakei
Viz, 208 pp.
Rating: T+ (Older Teens)

Nora is an incredibly powerful and unruly demon in service to the Demon Liege, the ostensible ruler of the demon world, who has stripped him of his powers. After making a scene and demanding that the Demon Liege restore his abilities, Nora is sent to earth as punishment and forced into service as a demonic familiar for the strict, arrogant high school student Kazuma Magari. Now the two must figure out a way to function as a team, lest they fall prey to the various renegade demons and rebellious demon factions that are hiding out on earth.

Honestly, Nora really wasn’t my cup of tea. The story did nothing for me and it felt like someone took bits of Zatch Bell and InuYasha and just cobbled something together. Nora’s your typical hothead lead jumping into every situation that crosses his path, while Magari’s the cool headed, think-everything-out type. They fight crime, or in this case battle demons. Magari’s constantly picking on Nora, calling him a “dog” and just generally being an unlikable fellow. He’s quite fond of saying “I forbid,” which in turn causes a magic collar on Nora’s neck to tighten, choking him momentarily. Nora, for his part, isn’t a whole lot better. He’s hotheaded and is always looking for a fight or a way to break the bond between him and Magari. As one might expect, most of volume one is set-up. Kazunari Kakei spends a lot of time introducing the concepts, explaining the various factions and groups at work, how Nora’s and Magari’s abilities function, and why they need to work together to survive, and so on. There’s also a fair amount of humor, but it’s really just your average shonen variety: funny faces, over-the-top reactions and the like.

The art’s OK but nothing spectacular. There’s nothing particularly horrible about it, but it’s not exactly stand-out stuff either. The demon designs are nothing amazing; in fact, there’s something about them that brings to mind the rubber-suited monsters of various tokusatu series. The best looking thing about the book is Nora’s “true” form, that of a huge demonic wolf like creature with two serpents for tails. It’s actually rather snazzy looking; sadly, however, it doesn’t turn up nearly enough to help pull this books visuals out of the realm of decidedly average.

That’s really the whole problem with Nora. It’s not a horrible book, but it’s not a great book. It’s just really average. It’s all so bland and flat with a “been there, done that” feeling to it that it comes off as a paint-by-numbers work. In fairness to Kazunari Kakei, it is his first series, so there’s certainly a chance that it will improve as it goes on. One final thing that struck me as rather odd about this book is the fact that it’s part of the Shonen Jump Advanced line. Supposedly Shonen Jump Advanced books are meant to target slightly older teens than the normal Shonen Jump fare, but Nora really felt like it was aimed at a younger crowd. Again, I suppose this is something that might change as the series progresses.

Volume one of Nora is available now.