Demon Girl Next Door Chapter 89 Review

Written by Rei Caldombra 2/28/2024 Audio version: https://youtu.be/uYot2c3cdmc

I’m back to talking about one of my favorite series ever, Demon Girl Next Door / Machikado Mazoku. If you didn’t see my post giving my thoughts about Demon Girl Next Door as a whole back in September of last year, please check that out! I’m keeping the promise I made there of doing a post on each chapter of going forward. I’m very happy to finally be writing about chapter 89 of Demon Girl Next Door. There will be spoilers and this post is largely written chronologically with the chapter.

This chapter gets right back into the most recent plot development, which is Shamiko wanting to dive into Anri’s memories to obtain the family recipe that was lost in the fire. I’m very happy we are getting a lot more focus on Anri and getting introduced to her family. I’ve always really liked her as a minor character. She fits in perfectly with the cast as she is an eccentric weirdo like everyone else, but in a more normal flavor. She can be silly and gung ho with the weird things in this story that you’d think a normal person wouldn’t, but has more normal reactions and information. She is the most helpful for Shamiko navigating social situations. I think she helps keep things grounded while still contributing to the silly energy of the story. But who knows, that grounded normalcy may be changing in the future based on what we learn here. 

We’ve seen Shamiko’s abilities grow a lot in recent chapters. The most notable new one that is mentioned in this chapter is that Shamiko can now mend wounds, including broken bones. This is a pretty big deal, giving her a new way to be helpful to the people around her in a way only she can. Recent developments shown in this chapter are important and I'll get more into how great of a character Shamiko is later in the post.

Shamiko is such a caring girlfriend, making sure Momo eats properly while she is gone by preparing her lots of healthy meals. I still love these two so much and they are the only couple I go full shipper with.

Some of the magical side of things is actually pretty complicated. Sion’s thing as a book demon got brought up here, which I will honestly say I do not get very well. I need to re-look at the arc that focused on her sometime and try to understand it better. I feel her purpose recently has largely been to give cryptic information that is not as helpful as it could be, when we know that she is at least more knowledgeable about the wider story but doesn’t give us all that info. I don’t dislike her as a character, but I don’t love how she is being used like this. It’s pretty much my only criticism of the series right now, and it’s hard to describe why she just doesn’t vibe with me. I think I just don’t like feeling that information is being withheld for no good reason. It’s not a problem of severe note, and maybe if I understand her better than I'll fully see a good reason. 

Oh boy this is officially our 2nd foray into proper horror in this series. A meat grinder is a good choice for the family of butchers. Those shots are genuinely creepy and well done, I’m terrified but excited to get more. The horror works especially well because of how long we have had with the series being very wholesome and cutesy. The juxtaposition works very well, so we will see if it continues to work well as we get more scary content. I'm confident it will.

We’re getting some serious lore here. It looks like this story involves the Russo-Japanese war, which I assume is mirroring the real life one. We also learned that demons participated in that war. If I remember correctly Momo was found by Sakura at a Russian facility and spoke Russian when Sakura approached her. So the Russo-Japanese war may have been the event that led to Sakura finding Momo. The old picture mentions Shirosawa which gives the story an avenue to how we can hear another account about this event. A big question going forward is how this factors into the conflict between demons and the light clan + magical girls. Were there demons and magical girls fighting together on both sides of wars? Or is it more in line with each faction being on one side? Is the world at large as aware of and blasé about magical stuff as Tama City is? It looks like we will see more into how magical beings have played into politics, and likely get more into detail about the conflict between the demons and light clan. This is some heavy stuff, showing how the series is maturing into taking itself seriously and has much more to say than just being wholesome and funny. I love the more serious directions it’s taken and hope it continues to feel well balanced with the wholesomeness we all love. 

In terms of what this means for Anri, it’s pretty complicated and hard to say right now. The issue in the family Sion mentioned is clearly about the darkness that came in at the end. The family must be under some kind of memory shenanigans. Right before they went into Anri’s home she says that she has a large family. But when they are eating at the table she states that they are a two child family, which totals at 4 people. That is not a large family by normal standards, that’s exactly average. Lilith’s “I see” response is likely her picking up on this. The table is also set in front of those chairs which is strange. When Shamiko goes into the dream we get to see more of the family tree, which I will admit I am not great at reading. But it’s clear that there are 3 siblings who are being blocked out from memory due to some terrible event. 

The ending to the dream dive is very rough for Shamiko, as she was unable to save them in that moment.

Shamiko started off being incapable and incompetent whose failures are mostly played for laughs. But it becomes clear that her weakness and lack of skills gave her issues of inadequacy. I think this stems largely from her long state of being physically weak and ill, along with her time of health where she generally appears as pretty stupid and unfit. We even get reminded of this idea in this chapter through the joke of Anri’s little brother only knowing her as losing and crying a lot. We saw these feelings showcased a lot with her initial interactions with Momo. Such as her getting angry over being looked down on and pitied, and thrusting herself into situations she is not prepared for like fighting Momo in desperation to prove herself. Over the course of the story we have seen her struggle and grow into a more confident and capable person. She got many genuine wins due to her own way of thinking and capabilities, such as defeating Sakura’s minion, freeing Ugallu, and most recently fixing Anri’s broken bone. She has grown to be much more secure with herself, but deep down she still has issues of inadequacy. This coupled with her desire to help people after seeing the darkness inside Anri, makes her feel like she did not succeed here even though she still completed her mission of getting the recipe. Shamiko deeply cares about helping others, likely due to her own past weakness, so when she is presented with the opportunity to help she puts everything else aside to focus on that. And she is still harsh on herself, calling herself a failure for not being able to help in a situation she just found out about. It’s details like this that makes Shamiko feel like such a realized and endearing character. 

I’m sure it won’t be long before Momo finds out about all this. She is quite perceptive, so I’m not too surprised that she would know that Anri usually sleeps early. We have seen her notice people’s minor behaviors to a surprising degree, such as when she mapped out how Shamiko’s tail portrays her emotions. It’s also nice to see that Shamiko also does not expect the deception to go on long, showing how well she knows her magical girlfriend. They’ve been close for awhile now and I believe the series does a great job of showing the growing understanding between them. They still have some conflicts but they know each other very well. This is one of the reasons why they are such a great couple. I trust that once she finds out she will help Shamiko get through this. 

I’m glad the first chapter we got in awhile is a meaty one! Absolutely worth the wait! I’m very interested to see how the story develops from here. And I do want to end by saying that if you love the series as much as I do, I highly encourage buying the manga and anime DVDs. It’s the best way to support the series. I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone, I just believe it’s best to monetarily support the media you truly care about when you can in addition to talking about how awesome it is online. Most of the manga is available in English already.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be doing posts on each chapter going forward so please stick around! Hopefully the wait will not be as long for the next chapter but I'm happy to wait as long as Ito Sensei needs.

Demon Girl Next Door Series Overview: Demon Girl Next Door Series Overview - I Love this Series Dearly. — Blog Under a Log

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