Nora Volume 4 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”

Nora, an unruly denizen of the Demon World, is the vicious dog of disaster – the legendary hell hound known as Cerberus, and he defied his superiors too many times.  Her Infernal Majesty, the Dark Liege forced Nora into a bond of servitude to the cool-as-ice high school student, Kazuma Makkari.  Kazuma can even stop Nora from using his powers by simply yelling, “I forbid it!”  Kazuma is about to learn the ways of the underworld, and Nora may learn more about the “real world” than he ever imagined.

In Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom, Vol. 4 (The Truth About Cerberus), Nora and Kazuma head to the location where the Resistance, a group of outlaw demons plotting against the Dark Liege, are collecting Soul Stones.  These stones are five jewels from the Demon World that when put together make up the Dark Liege’s soul.  During a melee, Kazuma’s seal spell on Nora is broken, and Nora comes into his full power as Cerberus and goes on a rampage.  But are the ramifications of the end of Kazuma and Nora’s relationship actually worse than unleashing the vicious dog of disaster?

THE LOWDOWN:  Like many shonen manga, Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom has cool weirdo characters, big fight scenes, and a bizarre internal mythology, but sometimes too much gets in the way of the story.  The fourth tankoubon (or volume) stutters and stops in places.  It seems as if there are too many subplots and too many characters arriving on the scene to let the narrative and main plot develop properly.  But these characters, with their funny personalities (spoiled, bratty, back-stabbing, mischievous, etc.), will keep readers returning for more devilish fun.

POSSIBLE:  Readers looking for comic fantasy with a dark edge will find it in Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom.

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