The Demon Prince of Momochi House, Vol. 2 by Aya Shouoto
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
On her sixteenth birthday, orphan Himari Momochi inherits her ancestral estate that she’s never seen. Momochi House exists on the barrier between the human and spiritual realms, and Himari is meant to act as guardian between the two worlds. But on the day she moves in, she finds three handsome squatters already living in the house, and one seems to have already taken over her role!
After finding out that Aoi can’t ever leave the house, Himari feels very sad knowing that he took on what was meant to be her fate. She thinks to help him, but since she doesn’t have much power against the spirits, aside from being able to kick them out, she wonders what she can do. She hopes to find a way to free him from the house. Meanwhile, they are all preparing for the spirit parade, and a new spirit is hoping to see his little sister’s spirit in the parade. Things go a bit haywire during the actual parade, but Himari forms a good distraction to the soul eater that rises up. I am interested in seeing what happens as Himari gets more and more enmeshed in the spirit world; sure, Aoi is tied to the house as the Nue, but I wonder whether she will be tied in any way in the future, too. She can’t directly replace him, because he won’t accept that, but who knows what might happen in the future.
Soon it is time for her to join a school, and she is an interesting character to her classmates, not only for being from Tokyo, but because she lives in the Momochi House. Some of her classmates invite themselves in for a hangout at the house, so Aoi and his shikigami have to pretend to be her sisters. However, she has inadvertently invited a ghost into the house, as one of her classmates is supposedly dead and she is the one who has to figure out which one it is as Aoi and the other yokai can’t intervene. This was a tonal shift to the storyline, because it comes as horror more than the comedy-fantasy it has been so far. Still love the artwork, especially the horror touches added.
Previous books in The Demon Prince of Momochi House series
Buy links
YA on my Mind 