Title: The Strange Tale of The Twilight Demon (Ushimitsu Kitan)
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Suspense
Publisher: Isaona (JP), Digital Manga (US)
Artist: Midori Hagi
Original Release Date: May 5, 2013
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One shot stories usually go two ways: either incredibly terrible and liable to be forgotten in an hour, or filled with flaws but with potential to continue its story down the line. This one shot story falls into the former: lazy, terrible, and immediately forgettable.
The Strange Tale of The Twilight Demon is an attempt to do something meaningful. The problem is in only having 37 pages to explain what it actually wants to do — connecting two people who were once close — it doesn’t do it in a manner that’s any good. You would think the story it has might be solid enough: Kuya Imaru is a high school kid doing research into bizarre phenomenons when he meets Miki Kaname. Miki happened to be the friend of a girl who mysteriously disappeared years ago after pursuing information of the Twilight Demon, a ghost story that seems to grow in stature with the nearby school where it’s set. This year, messages have been left, apparently by the missing girl herself, so Kuya decides he has to figure out what’s going on.
This story is not spectacular, but on the surface, it’s okay. At least we can try and discover clues, attempt to crack down and understand why this ghost story is growing, and see what Kuya has up his sleeve, right? Unfortunately we don’t. Instead, we get introduced to characters who don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things yet eat up a good portion of the pages. I don’t know if it wants to be scary or if it wants to be a mystery. Though it could have done both, in this case, it’s too unfocused and forgettable. Then we get to Kuya revealing he has a certain power that allows him to see demons at the climax. That was definitely the perfect time to reveal this.
This manga reads more like a continuing series then an actual one shot, and let me tell you, there’s no other chapters or series, so it makes reading a chore since we don’t really know any of the characters. It tries to tie together a sizable amount of elements (flashbacks, introduction, talking, etc), but can’t execute anything well because of its page limit. There needed to be more definition and direction as to where it wanted to go to prevent it from being the boring, narrative mess it is. The only good thing is the artwork, and that’s probably for the just the character designs. Other than that, there’s nothing to remember about this.
