Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!'

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Maoyu Maou Yusha, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha - 'Be mine, Hero' 'I refuse!', Level Hero!

Japanese: まおゆう魔王勇者「この我のものとなれ、勇者よ」「断る!」

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 18

Chapters: 59

Status: Finished

Published: Apr 26, 2011 to Apr 26, 2016

Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

Theme: Mythology

Serialization: Comp Ace

Authors: Ishida, Akira (Art), Touno, Mamare (Story)

Statistics

Score: 8.00¹ (scored by 4,718 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #786²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1086

Members: 17,250

Favorites: 250

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8.00

Ranked #786Popularity #1086Members 17,250

MangaComp AceIshida, Akira (Art), Touno, Mamare (Story)

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Volumes: /18

Chapters: /59

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Synopsis

After a long and treacherous journey, our Hero finally arrives at the Dark Lady's castle only to find himself being asked for help. The Hero explains how the war that the demons have brought upon the humans have killed thousands and put more in misery. The queen of demons however argues that this war has made the human society band together as one and showed empirical evidence how it has increased population, increased production, boosted economy and improved society overall. Furthermore, she explains to the Hero that ending this war will result in a civil war that will produce more bloodshed than there ever was. The Hero, convinced that the only way to bring peace, relatively speaking, is to join forces with the Dark Lady, agrees to help with her plans!

(Source: MU)

Included one-shot:
Volume 12: Level Hero!

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Background

Kadokawa Bookwalker digitally published the first 16 volumes in English as MAOYU: Archenemy and Hero "Become mine, Hero" "I refuse!" from December 24, 2014 to March 1, 2016. Yen Press now holds the license for digital release.

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Alternative version:

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

More characters
Characters

Maou

Main

Yuusha

Main

Onna Kishi

Supporting

Onna Mahoutsukai

Supporting

Maid Ane

Supporting

Maid Imouto

Supporting

Maid Chou

Supporting

Rou Yumihei

Supporting

Seinen Shounin

Supporting

Ratsuwan Kaikei

Supporting

Reviews

Aug 28, 2023

hexashadow13

Recommended

tl;dr: A manga that chronicles how a fantasy world evolves with a massive amount of depth and a large cast of fleshed out and interesting characters, though it somewhat fumbles things with it’s main characters towards the end and has pretty weak art.

Maoyu is a manga that takes an incredibly generic and generally shallow premise, a struggle between a hero and a demon lord, and uses it to tell an incredibly unique and insanely deep story with it. The manga begins with the Hero coming face to face with the Demon Queen and ready for a fight to the death. However, she instead asks him ... to become hers. As the title of this manga suggests, he refuses. He was expecting some sort of offer of great power or wealth if he helped conquer the world or something like that. However, as they begin talking, he discovers she has something different in mind. She discusses the flow if history, how the demons and humans have always been at war and how in the grand scheme of things they would remain at war regardless of who died if they were to fight. However, she has a desire to “look over the hill” at what lies beyond the current state of the world. And she has a plan to do it. Complete social, political, and economic reform of both humanity and demonkind.

This is an incredibly wordy manga. After all, her plans require a lot of explanation of a lot of different things, from the effects of potatoes on the economy to how religion and politics intertwine to the evolution in tactics that needs to occur due to the introduction of muskets. Still, the manga does try it’s best to minimize how much it explains in the midst of the story, generally explaining the minimum necessary to understand the plot while having one page ‘lectures’ in between chapters that are just walls of text with further explanation for those that are interested. However, once you also take into account that it needs to do a tremendous amount of world building of the many factions on both the human and demon side with their various cultures, histories, and competing interests, all of whom are constantly changing and developing, and in the end in the end it still ends up an incredibly wordy manga.

However, despite that the story still flows incredibly well. It starts at a somewhat small scale with the Hero and Demon Queen planting the seeds of change in a small village. This is partially through the introduction of new techniques and technologies. But more importantly is in that the Demon Queen, who also takes the moniker of the Crimson Scholar, begins tutoring a number of pupils. At the same time, the Hero, who also takes the moniker of the Black Knight, begins dealing with problems in the demon world. Through this a number of side characters begin growing tremendously, and as the story progresses and larger scale events start happening, they take center stage in guiding the world towards a better future, continuing to grow in the process and guiding many others towards growth as well. The character arcs aren’t particularly complex and to a degree they’re mostly all similar, they all involve characters becoming wiser and more open-minded. Still, they’re all executed incredibly well and in the later stages of the manga these side characters are what really hold up the manga. Ultimately, the human vs demon conflict had a great ending followed by simple but satisfying epilogues for the core side characters and world overall.

This is a double-edged sword though in that in order for the side characters to have a more prominent role the main characters, whom I would consider the Hero, Demon Queen, and Lady Knight, are pushed into having a smaller role. While the conflict between demons and humans remains a core aspect of the story throughout the manga, towards the latter half of the manga another plot line that’s somewhat meta and involves the origin of the hero vs demon lord system comes into play which the Hero and Demon Queen end up distracted with. Ultimately, I do feel that this was worth it, because to be frank the Hero and Demon Queen are overpowered and if they were dedicating their full attention to the demon vs humans conflict it would likely play out in a much more predictable and not as interesting manner with far less suspense. Leaving things to the side characters allowed for a lot more variety to things which ultimately resulted in the manga feeling much better paced, not to mention it was essential for the side characters to really shine.

However, this meta plot line overall was pretty weak, especially in comparison to the human vs demon conflict. While the human vs demon conflict was multidimensional and a battle of interests between various parties who all had reasonable interests that made sense, the whole hero vs demon thing ultimately becomes a conflict against a one-dimensional cartoon villain with a bunch of other generic JRPG tropes thrown in as well without doing anything particularly interesting with them. And while I would say the ending is reasonably satisfying regarding the Hero, Demon Queen, and Lady Knight, the writing felt somewhat disappointing in how it handled the side characters that were more involved in this plot line than the human vs demon conflict, namely the Lady Mage and Chief Maid. It also felt like it lacked a sense of closure regarding the romance aspect, though to be honest the romance was pretty weak throughout.

The other main weakness of this manga is the art. To be frank, it’s not very good. It certainly can look good, as can be seen with the cover art, color pages, and the extra illustrations at the end of certain volumes. After all the style and character designs are pretty solid. However, in general the quality is pretty low, and I feel it actually gets worse over the course of the manga.

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Sep 9, 2022

darkpixelftw

Mixed Feelings

TL:DR
primarily about politics and economics and a bit of military tactics. Weird end. Not great characters, splash of harem. Conditionally recommend, only for people who are interested in a more cerebral political/economic/military type of story.

Story: 7/10
Primarily about political movements and economic developments across the world this manga is set in. I like the developing world and the slow introduction of new players. The ending gets a bit mystical, which is a disappointment considering the very grounded plot prior to the conclusion.

Art: 6/10
The character design is pretty good. The backgrounds are nice too when they're used however there is usually a blank grey instead of ...

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Feb 27, 2024

BreezyDizasta

Not Recommended

Alright, Imma be real with you. I tried to give this manga the benefit of the doubt, I really did. After seeing so many positive reviews, I thought that this manga had to have something to it. I kept telling myself to push through and read the next chapter because there was no way this many people would praise this series over nothing, so I just kept on pushing through chapter after chapter... until it was over. Let's just say that I was pissed when I finished reading it. I wondered, did I seriously waste all this time suffering through this story for nothing? Apparently ... I did and that's not okay. That's why I feel like I have a moral obligation now to give this series the hate that it deserves so more people can avoid falling victim to its dreadfulness as I did.

First off, the art is bad. I was debating whether I should start off by rewriting the synopsis or reviewing the story, but I think this is more important. The art is not bad in the sense that it's a unique style that's hard to get used to, but in the sense that it's just lazy and sloppy. The panels are missing a lot of detail, and I mean a lot. Most of the panels have little to no background, and the backgrounds that are drawn are extremely minimal. The details in general feel very messy and low quality. The very best panels that this manga has to offer are well below average. Literally nothing stands out, from the character designs to the battle scenes to the diagrams used for explanations. Everything is just not good, and it only marginally gets better with time. The art seems like something a 6th grader would draw when they want to create their own manga. It's that level of quality. The art is so watered down that it actually takes away from the experience.

Sloppy and forgettable doesn't just apply to the art, it also applies to the characters. Sometimes a manga has a cast of characters that are so well written that they leave you with fond memories like Beck, sometimes a manga has a cast of characters that are so horribly written that they piss you off like Mirai Nikki, and sometimes a manga has a cast of characters that doesn't stand out either way but they're still good enough to leave you satisfied like Claymore. This manga does not fall into any of these categories. The cast of characters in this manga is so mind numbingly dull that I feel nothing toward any of them. Hell, I straight up forget most of them just a few days after finishing the story, that's how forgettable they are. The only thing that I remember well about any of the characters is that the Demon Queen has big tits, that's about it. The personalities are one dimensional, their backgrounds make little sense, and there's little to no character development (the only character that got any actual character development is the older maid sister, and even then it's average). I have zero emotional attachment towards any of the characters, I just couldn't get invested in the characters.

When the characters and art are this bad, there has to be some powerful story to cover the gaps and then some. Maybe this is the case in the light novels (I haven't read them nor do I plan to), but it definitely isn't the case here. The story presented in this manga is very flawed and weak. The main story is a cliche premise of the two main characters being on opposite sides of a conflict and then working together to end the violence. I don't have an issue with a story being cliche if it's executed right, and this story is definitely not executed right. I have three issues with how the story was handled.

The first is the lack of development. Nothing really moves in this manga. The romantic relationship that was established in the first chapter goes nowhere over the course of the entire series. The main characters, as previously mentioned, stay largely the same with the exception of maybe one character. The complexity of the plot doesn't progress and it stays very underwhelming. I just didn't see any growth, and that's a big issue for me. What a separates a good story from a bad one in my opinion, is this type of growth. The developing progress is what makes a story interesting, it's what makes characters relatable, and it's what makes readers invest in the series. The fact that this manga was so lacking in this regard firmly puts it in the trash category of stories.

The second is the lack of complexity. The main selling point of this story is supposed to be that it explores economic and political concepts, supposedly giving it a sense of intellectual depth. However, the concepts that are mentioned are not deep or complex at all. The benefits of crop rotation? The concept of inflation? The idea of the printing press? Really? Who's impressed by this? It doesn't help that the explanations given are very simple and oversimplified. Maybe I've gotten too old, but these concepts are so basic that they just seem childish to me. They might seem complex to a kid in middle school who hasn't learned basic economics/politics yet, but if you're any older then it's not intellectually stimulating at all.

The third is the shallowness of it all. One example of this is the interactions between the characters. The vast majority of them are so damn agreeable, it's excessive to the point where it hurts the story. There's no conflict between the characters, there's no drama, and there's very little disagreements. You have about two 2 or 3 supervillains and everybody else is a yes man. It makes the story predictable and repetitive. Another example of this is the comedy, which I think was not very well handled at all. Most of the jokes in the story just revolve around the size of the breasts of the female characters... which I just don't find funny. I would been more fine with this type of humor if there was more to it or something else accompanying it, but there isn't, the size of the breasts is the whole joke again and again and again. I also would've been fine if it was used in between arcs where comedic relief makes sense, but instead we get some of these thought provoking jokes during climatic events, like when a coup d'etat is happening for example. To me, these jokes just showcase that the author himself doesn't take his story seriously. If the author can't get invested in his own story then why should we?

As harsh as I am being with this series, it's not all doom and gloom. There are a single digit number of pages in this 57 chapter book that are pretty good. Hell, a couple even made me "heh" out loud or hold my breath for a second or two. So it does have appeal, but only for specific demographic. This story is probably a decent read if you're in middle school and wants a quick feel good story. It has a plot that explores concepts, comedy, and romance at that level. However, if you're any older, this story will only come off as childish and weak and is not worth your time. If you're above the age of 13 and are considering reading this manga, then take some advice from uncle Breezy, and just don't. I suffered through this manga so you don't have to. If you want to read a story that goes in depth with war politics and strategies the right way, read Kingdom. If you want to read a story that explores intriguing economic topics while balancing it with a complex romantic relationship, read Spice and Wolf. If you just want to read a damn good fantasy story with demons and war then read Berserk. All three of these are better than this manga in every way imaginable. This manga just ain't it.

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Poll: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!' Chapter 58 Discussion Kuma - Aug 30, 2020	7 replies	by MASTERCRAFT938 »» Aug 27, 2023 9:47 AM
Poll: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha - 'Kono Watashi no Mono Tonare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!' Chapter 14 Discussion notsureifsrs - Jun 11, 2012	13 replies	by Lukenzo »» Jul 9, 2022 8:17 PM
Poll: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!' Chapter 56 Discussion Kuma - Apr 24, 2020	3 replies	by Hikarizu »» Apr 26, 2020 6:28 AM
Poll: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!' Chapter 55 Discussion Kuma - Apr 15, 2020	0 replies	by Kuma »» Apr 15, 2020 7:33 PM
Poll: Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!' Chapter 54 Discussion Kuma - Apr 15, 2020	0 replies	by Kuma »» Apr 15, 2020 12:36 AM

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!'
MAOYU: Archenemy and Hero "Become mine, Hero" "I refuse!"
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Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: 'Kono Ware no Mono to Nare, Yuusha yo' 'Kotowaru!'
MAOYU: Archenemy and Hero "Become mine, Hero" "I refuse!"
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