Nora – The Last Chronicle of Devildom is about the forced compact between Nora, the Cerberus, a legendary demon also known as the vicious dog of disaster and Kazuma Magari, a demanding high school student. In order to give him some “training” in the human world, his master the Dark Liege entered him into a pact with Kazuma that left the student in charge of Nora’s magic powers; the unfortunate demon had to request permission to use his own spells and Kazuma’s “I forbid” command would cause his collar to choke him. This odd couple is forced to search for the gem stones which hold the life force of the Dark Liege; the same stones that an army of rebel demons are looking for in order to kill the Dark Liege and end the relatively peaceful co-existence between humanity and demons (well, on the demons part; humans seem pretty unaware of their neighbors in the next dimension over).

Nora – The Last Chronicle of Devildom : Vol 8, The Shout of the Soul continues our heroes Nora and Kazuma’s battle with Fall, the leader of the resistance.  Fall was revealed as the old friend of the last Cerberus, Deigree, and the stealer of part of the Dark Leige’s power; now he’s here to claim the rest of it.  Nora’s friends in the Dark Liege army and his friends on Earth are all at risk as Fall’s nihilistic scheme to destroy both the Demon World and the Human world nears its climax in the penultimate volume of Nora – The Last Chronicle of Devildom.

Highlights

The volume begins with Deuce’s snakes bursting out of Nora’s limbs; and what’s worse, they take control of his body and force him to attack Kazuma! If they get through this, all they have to look forward to is the fight with Fall..  Incidentally, Deuce is wearing nothing but shredded rags at this point. I was wondering at times why this book got a T+ rating, but she made an excellent example.

It’s hard to give the highlights here without spoiling the main event; yeah, this is the big battle. Fall and Nora collide in the Dark Liege’s tower, and I have to admit, every volume I’ve been getting further and further into it. The place is coming down around their ears, the generals of the Dark Liege army are struggling to save each other and themselves and even the human world is wracked by a freakish snowstorm. 

There are a lot of “big moments” in this volume. Kazuma and Nora both matured quite a bit, and here they get to show off what they’ve learned, both physically and emotionally. Expect many really cool double page spreads. Then when you think it can’t get even more intense, Fall ups the ante by taking the battle to the Human realm.. this volume is basically one gigantic fight peppered by more of those surprisingly touching flashbacks of a young Fall and Deigree and their friends that have made the second half of Nora such a surprise; far more layered than the first.

Overall

I admit it; this series didn’t impress me at first.  Everything I’d reviewed before this point at ComicsOnline was a winner from page one, but the first few volumes of this series were lacking a little something. Kazunari Kakei said in some of the bonus pages (which volume 8 sadly has few of; other volumes had so many, even with neat behind the scenes info) that this his first manga series, and at first it shows. The art is competent, but basic and didn’t have a real unique style aside from a few characters (I like Rivan’s little head pointy things and how one of the Army members true forms looks like a big cuddly stuffed toy or something), and the characters felt familiar, kind of like an Inuyasha with just angry, sarcastic guys. However, as Nora progresses, Kakei’s writing became more and more confident, more and more dramatic. The fun characters like Rivan and Knell don’t develop as much, but the history of the world took a real twist last volume when you learned that the Dark Liege uses the Cerberus as a living magical battery; one that dies to power the new Dark Liege whom Kazuma was destined to be. That’s the kind of mind blowing twist I didn’t see coming in the earlier, simpler volumes,  The last couple volumes had a few tear jerker moments; I’m not ashamed to say I’m a real sap for this stuff and near the end of the volume Fall gets one that is just so subtle and amazing. It makes me sad to say that it’s ending, but it makes me hope we get the sequel manga, Nora the 2nd.

This is one series that really heated up and proved it had what it took to hang with the big boys; I’m eagerly awaiting what happens in the next volume. I have this theory that Knell’s been playing both sides against, the middle, but that’s just me. Not to mention the last few gems have sort of been forgotten in all the hoopla. In a nutshell, if you stuck with it to get this far, your loyalty has paid off in a big way. On another note, Kakei apparently likes the more human appearance of the Dark Liege as much as the readers like fan-service, because she’s basically been wearing it non-stop the past few volumes. Not that I’m complaining; she’s one of the sexier woman with horns and a big creepy eyeball on their forehead I’ve seen before.

ComicsOnline gives Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom, 4 out of 5 Dark Liege Army members.