The premise itself is simple. Demon comes to earth. Demon finds child. Demon raises child. Demon and child proceed to get together.
If one part of this doesn't seem fitting, then congratulations, you're a human being with a healthy outlook on what sort of relationship is moral or not, and have a decent idea of the age and conditions needed for a person to have a knowledgeable opinion on love and responsibility of making such a decision.
Unfortunately, the author of this work (as well as many fans) does not share these qualities.
Let me get something out of the way first, for whoever hasn't already stopped reading. I'm a hopeless sap. I'm a romantic at heart. I go out of my way to find and read romantic manga, feel-good stories, happy endings, etc. They're what I mostly like to read, because they represent the sort of ideal happy-ending that I know is impossible for real life to achieve.
Because of this, I could not truly hate Hana no Akuma. Despite it's many (and there are many) flaws, I could not stop myself from getting drawn in, at least to a decent degree. That is why my score is even as high as it is. Considering how deeply troubling the rest of my impression of this work is, a 3 is much higher than I want to give it.
Anyway, as I said, the author does not seem to understand how deeply unsettling and even outright creepy his work is.
It's an ode to pedophilia and incest, thinly disguised with terrible excuses and bad explanations. Hana is no older than 14 when Vivi begins making romantic overtures and eventually realizes his feelings for her. Vivi who, as it happens, is also 200 years old. That might sound like a fantastical number so I'll disregard that. For the purposes of understanding this story, Vivi is an adult. His exact age doesn't matter. He's a fully grown adult, already completely established as person before Hana was even born.
There is an argument to be made about relationships with a big age gap. After all, age is just a number after a certain point. That is true, of course, but 14 is NOT that number. Not even close. What the hell. To anyone reading, forget that this is a drama manga for just a second and bring to your mind the last 14 year old kid you happened to see. Does that seem like a person capable of making decisions and life-choices, never mind deciding commitments with 200 year old demons who find themselves attracted to their adopted daughter?
The series tries to fool itself and us with the whole '3 year time skip' thing, but it doesn't succeed. All the feelings already exist, all the characters know what's going on. Hell, by this point they've shared several actual kisses, most of them initiated by the older man between them. No one is fooled.
Which brings me to my second point. Incest. True, they are not related by blood. It's technically safe. That's not the point. Vivi raised Hana. He found her when she was a baby. Hana's earliest memories were of him. He taught her to speak, to walk, to run, to dress. He was there for all phases in her life. He was, for all intents and purposes, her father.
Even the romantic in me could not help but cringe at regular intervals at seeing this play out. When I stopped to consider it it made my stomach churn, if just by its implications.
It's a huge shame, too. The first several chapters, before even the tiniest hint of romantic interest, the manga is at its best. When Hana and Vivi are nothing more than father and daughter, the series hits a level of effortless quality that no amount of cheap drama gags will ever bring it. The entire storyline could have been based on the love a father shares with his daughter, biological or not, but no because this is manga and we need to have romance between the leads, damn it!
The manga could have been something truly inspiring if it didn't fight so hard to stick to conventions and appeal to the very niche crowd that seems to like softcore pedophilia (Oh, sorry. Is 'loli' the right term?) coupled with incest.
There is also the fact that Hana's deep obsession and almost physical dependence on Vivi, would, in real life, be considered actual cause for worry and require the help of professionals to solve. This sort of dependence and obsession (especially as displayed in the first 20 chapters or so) is not healthy in any stretch of the word, even ignoring the incest that will eventually occur.
Beyond the deeply unsettling and creepy backdrop of the entire series, there were several other issues that also helped reduce points. The art was passable, but barely so. It was not good, but not terrible either.
Then, we have the fact that series doesn't even try not to just abuse dramatic cliches to extend itself and create fake drama that everyone knows will be solved without too much trouble. The sort of facepalm-y unrealistic misunderstandings and retarded situations that only occur in fiction because real life doesn't work that way.
Then there was Hana's frankly annoying trend to alternate between referring herself on the third person and the first. Honestly, characters who refer to themselves on the third person are ridiculous and annoying in the first place, but those who aren't even consistent in doing so are even worse. Perhaps that was a translation problem, however, so I won't hold it against the story itself.
There were some decent things about it, however. The Demon King being the prime example. Perhaps the one actually enjoyable character to follow.
Also, there were hints of an interesting setup in the little we learned of the demon world and Vivi's place in it, but that was sadly cast aside for even more ridiculous tearjerker moments.
In the end, for all that the romantic sap in me wants to like this, there are too many things wrong with it. It could have gone for something original - the building blocks were certainly there. It could have done something different, something better than the usual senseless dramatic drivel. There was nothing unpredictable, nothing realistic, nothing that spoke of actual quality storytelling in this manga.
It could have been all those things and more but, unfortunately, it is not.
