Hoshi no Samidare, better known by subtitle Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, has a somewhat simple setting. Student Amamiya Yuuhi is tasked by the talking lizard knight, Sir Noi Crezant, to protect the princess of earth from the mage's golems and stop the Earth's destruction from a doomsday device called the Biscuit Hammer. Yuuhi is given all this information in the first few pages, and quickly throws the lizard out through the window. Sir Noi Crezant, not so easily shaken, teleports back into the room and reiterates the situation with a more flustered tone. Yuuhi tries to clear his head by going to his classes, only to find the Lizard does not give up and that he cannot be seen or heard by anyone else. On the way back to home, Yuuhi is attacked by a one eyed rock monster, which Noi identifies as a golem. Noi tells Yuuhi to use the weapon of the Lizard Knight, domain control, to fight the golem with the power of the domain control ring that has been placed on Yuuhi's finger. Yuuhi summons his power and uses the weapon to do no damage to the walking bolder, who tries to cut him in half. Out of nowhere, a girl comes and punches the golem into smithereens. Noi Crezant identifies this girl as Samidare the princess of Earth, and that is the beginning of the story with the Mage and his golems, the Beast Knights, and the Biscuit Hammer.
Initially in the story, no background information is given besides the stuff Noi Crezant spews out in a flurry in the first few pages. There is an unidentified being as the mage who supposedly controls a device known as the Biscuit Hammer, and is sending golems to attack the characters. Why there is a talking lizard, magical rings, and superhuman princesses, no one yet knows. Fortunately all things are revealed with time, and this manga does not save all mysteries for the end, with most of the information give out by the halfway point, the fifth volume. As you will soon tell by the tone though, this is not a story that revolves around its yet to be revealed info to keep the reader's interest, its rather the opposite, because this is a slice of life manga as well, but more on that later. The story itself I enjoyed alot, it was simplistic in design, concise in execution, and its characters the highlight of the mix. To me it often seems that the shorter manga are the ones with the most concise character development, that is written well enough to not come on as to obvious or forced but still amount to an actual change in personality, with subtle upbringing of these changes the most fragile part of all. Luckily Hoshi no Samidare achieves all of this quite well. It's a bit of a spoiler, but there are other knights like Yuuhi, 12 of them in fact, and they are all characters that are given multiple chapters to highlight them exclusively, giving them a shine despite being side characters. Some very good examples are one character's changes after the passing of another, and another after finding his baby sibling, things like this. It flows well, above all. Yuuhi and Samidare's development differ in circumstance, while both of these characters change according to the plots progression, they are not truly highlighted like the rest until the very end. Yuuhi pledges himself as a knight to the princess, the princess being a 16 year old girl who wants to destroy the entire planet after they defeat the Mage who is trying to destroy the planet. It's this kind of nonsense that the reader knows is not as simple as it may seem, and is intrusively linked to the character of the Princess and Yuuhi, the protagonist. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll leave the development at that. The actual story is interesting though, and serves more purpose then just developing characters, although it is not quite as essential to enjoyment of the manga as the former is. As I mentioned in the introduction, this manga tries to do a variety of other things as well and for the most part succeeds. The sad parts are very sad, the slice of life is slicey, and the comedy is funny. The romance is very slow, and does not take a central role until the end and even then its nothing too brazen, in fact there is more romance going on with side characters.
Quick passage to talk about the art before I wrap this up. The art is nothing special really. It's very simplistic.
Is it so mediocre that it detracts from the rest of the experience: no. The spreads are drawn fairly well, and like most manga, the mangaka uses tone and atmosphere to fill in for what the art is lacking in several more emotional parts.
This manga is popular for the things it does very well, the story, the characters, the tragedy, the slice of life. But more than that, what this manga really accomplishes is putting all of these elements together into something that actually works. It's a genre diffusion at its finest, and is perfect for anyone looking for a shorter story.
