Dai Tokyo Oniyomeden
Tokyo Demon Bride Story

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When one wants to discuss the many, many axed manga that populate the Shounen Jump catalog, often there’s a lot to say. With so many varied stories and authors, many of the canceled remain old favorites of readers who found something special and memorable in them to recall back to and discuss from time to time. Yet, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, as is the case in the case of Tokyo Demon Bride Story, there isn’t much at all of particularly unique note to discuss…and perhaps that’s exactly why it found itself canceled to begin with. Yet, despite that…something about this quirky, fun, comedic ... slice-of-life story spoke to me and made me saddened to see its departure. Just what that was is something I’m not all too fully certain of myself.

[Writing]
In regards to its writing, Tokyo Demon Bride Story isn’t anything special to speak of, but nor is it anything bad either. The manga is a comfy narrative with goofy characters and fun antics, the kind that’s just enjoyable to read through and take a break from the oftentimes broadly distressing world of media. As a slice-of-life-styled product, the pacing is rightfully pretty slow, but it’s set well with the enjoyable dynamics going on in each chapter. Overall, though nothing exceptionally unique, it serves well for what it tries to be.
[Grade - B+]

[Presentation]
The presentation of the manga is equally of the same mind as the writing; that is, neither being particularly horrendous nor excellent beyond satisfaction. The art is good, with enjoyable paneling, good designs, and easy-to-follow movement and action, though doesn’t do much to defy expectations or otherwise push the line. The world is distinct enough to stand up on its own and look good, but isn’t particularly fleshed out or unique on its own. As a whole, while it’s fine enough, it doesn’t excel much either.
[Grade - B]

[Fun]
Even with the middlingly average areas that Tokyo Demon Bride Story otherwise has, this much is certainly true; that reading it is just plain fun. The characters are goofy and have lovable little quirks, the gags are absurd but always got a chuckle from me, and the action or narrative is easy to follow. None of these are particularly outstanding accolades, but the manga just has such a strong element of joy throughout it that it makes it hard to not have a good time while reading. Even if that can’t make up for more objective faults, it certainly helps make the experience better overall.
[Grade - A]

Overall, Tokyo Demon Bride Story, while nothing too exceptional, remains a good fun story overall. Sporting a comfy story with enjoyable characters, some fine art with a distinct style, and an overall lovable and charming tone, the story excels in what it intends to be; a cute and goofy comedic story that also has its moments of action and heart within. And, insofar as much, I can’t truly say it fails in any regard. Objectively there are perhaps less than ideal choices made, but in all, it succeeds in at least giving me comfort to have read it at the moment.

Grade - B+

One of the newest additions in the Shonen Jump roster, and one that I cannot see lasting very long. In its first few chapters, Tokyo Demon Bride Story fails to assert itself in the long run.

It has virtually no story nor build up and fails to build up to an end goal. To some degree, its first few chapters make you think "what exactly is the end goal to all this?" Every chapter just seems to have the main cast doing repetitive odd jobs around town and none of the characters seem to be interesting enough to catch anyone's attention. Furthermore, its fights are relatively ... bland, quick and straightforward. Are these all necessarily bad things? No. There are various series like Gintama and Mob Psycho (Web Comic) for instance that tended to focus on odd jobs and seemed to lack a story and interesting characters in their early stages but made up for the lack of those through other means.

Gintama made up for that through its comedy and Mob Psycho made up for that through its relatability to its younger audience. It is also worth noting that both these series ended up having great stories and well developed characters later on.

But what exactly does Tokyo Demon Bride Story have that makes up for its lack of story and interesting characters? It's extremely lacking in the comedy department with its dependence on already overused Shonen Humor tropes. Despite having an implication of a marriage in its title, it also fails to build up any sort of romance. In fact, the "bride" relationship you come to expect is more akin to a stalker and victim one sided relationship that was caused by a childish promise that half the parties can't even remember. It lacks any sort of relatability due to its bland characters and to be honest, it's hard to see any qualities that makes it stand out.

It could be good as a Slice of Life series but as mentioned earlier, it fails to have a unique X Factor aside from the presence of demons that makes it stand out as a slice of life series. Perhaps Slice of Life fanatics would find enjoyment in this series but personally, I feel that there are much better SoL series out there than this one.

Overall, Tokyo Demon Bride Story is a series that does not know what to focus on and as a result fails in all the aspects it attempts to be. I think that if it chooses to focus on one aspect and executes that well then it may have a chance at survival. Particularly either a proper romance or comedy (or even both). It could also have a shot at survival if it decides to switch to being a battle shonen however a battle shonen about fighting demons has already been done countless times in the past (Yu Yu Hakusho and Demon Slayer for example). If it keeps up at its current rate however, I cannot see it surviving past 30 chapters. To me, this is probably the weakest link in the current WSJ roster thus far.

Bleach-y but not nearly fun enough to stand out of the crowd. None of the side monster girls were interesting, Jinta was worse Ichigo, Manaka was one-note.

If you have a magic baseball bat as your protagonist's weapon, you should introduce that IMMEDIATELY because that's the most interesting thing about this series. Art isn't eye catching enough and way too busy per panel, plot wasn't able to figure out if it was a weekly misadventures thing or a longer story arc series and kinda ended up doing neither successfully. Ouch.

Power system was unclear and too restrictive without reason, which led to action being muted while ... thinking it was more intense. Mediocre manga in an era of much better real-world fantasy!