Ahead of the summer release of Akuma no Riddle: Riddle Story of a Devil, Volume 5  in English, I sat down with the Japanese version, Akuma no Riddle ( 悪魔のリドル). Somewhat to my surprise, I felt I enjoyed it more than I had the anime.  (I’ve just gotten the anime and will be re-watching it soon, so I’m interested to see if that holds true when face it again.  In the meantime, I have to say I approve of the cover to this volume. ^_^)

We ended Volume 4 in the middle of the final battle against Hanabusa, who intimates that Haru is the wielder of a great, although unconscious, power of leadership.

And now, Toukaku has to face the possibility that she’s been manipulated…even though she thought she’d been doing what she did from free will. 

The climax of the story is almost identical to the anime, but what makes the manga worth reading is the epilogue, which adds just enough of post-story to give us room to imagine a more satisfying ending than the anime left us with. (Something I felt was short-sighted at the time. It doesn’t take a genius to remember that life is far more than just graduating high school.) The epilogue goes a little way into actually giving this series the  Yuri credentials it needed.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 7
Characters –  7 
Service – 3
Yuri – 5

Overall – 7

Ultimately, as a manga adaptation of a short anime series, this was a very decent example of the breed. When the English edition hits shelves in August, definitely consider taking a look, if only for the color pages.