It’s difficult not to watch The Demon Prince of Momochi House and compare it to Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts. That’s not because they’re similar stories – apart from falling under the shoujo demographic and fantasy genre, they’re quite different. However, both series adapt manga of similar lengths (fifteen to sixteen volumes). While the latter got a full run covering its entirety, the former is stymied by a single cour adaptation and much less fidelity to its overarching plot.
The story follows Himari Momochi, an orphan who discovers on her sixteenth birthday that her parents have left her a house deep in the countryside. Desperate for a connection with them, Himari leaves the group home where she grew up and heads for Momochi House, which turns out to be a huge, rambling mansion in the mountains…and not empty. At first, it simply looks like three handsome young men live there. Still, Himari soon discovers that none are entirely (or at all) human: Momochi House sits on the border of the human and ayakashi worlds and functions as the gate between them, requiring a guardian known as the nue to maintain it. Typically, the nue possesses a member of the Momochi family with spiritual powers, but Aoi has taken up the mantle with none present. He wandered into Momochi House seven years ago at age ten, and since he took on the role, he has been trapped on the house’s grounds, unable to leave. He’s not alone – those other two young men are Ise and Yukari, his shikigami – but he’s not living a normal life. In a bid to protect Himari, he tries to get her to leave, but she refuses, and thus, their new life begins.
It must be said that The Demon Prince of Momochi House isn’t an entirely faithless adaptation. It hits most of the major plot points from the first half of Aya Shouoto‘s manga, covering Aoi’s past, Himari’s heritage, and introducing antagonist Kasha, along with salient events involving Himari’s school friends and the ayakashi who raised Aoi. What’s missing are the linking episodes, the little details that turn it from a sequence of events into a fully realized story. As it stands, this feels like stepping stones rather than a completely paved path – there are gaps that we need to navigate to get from episode one to episode twelve. Only one episode, the third, feels like it’s moving too quickly and leaving things out, but there’s still a keen sense of missing something that hangs over everything, and the finale feels far less final than it ought to. That may be a sharper feeling for manga readers, but even anime-only viewers can tell we’re getting more of an outline than a full story based on how recurring characters function. Kasha is the strongest example of this; we don’t get a clear sense of his motivation beyond making trouble for Nue or his stake in Momochi House. He’s a nebulous “bad,” which severely undercuts his role.
The same can be said for Nachi, a teacher at Himari’s school who plays a very different role outside of it. He’s the driving force behind the mirror incident in episode seven and the overall plot for the final four episodes, but his motivations are left at the surface level. In all fairness, he doesn’t need to be a deeply developed character because part of his role is to force Aoi and Himari’s hands in terms of understanding their pasts. However, he should still come across as something more than nebulously cackling evil. Some elements of his plotline manage this – the entire mirror episode is very well done and has some very striking imagery. The use of the creepy children’s game “Kagome Kagome” is solid, with the voices adding to what the manga provides. But the entire sequence could have been made stronger and more unsettling if Nachi were a deeper character, and that sadly undercuts what in the manga was a powerful storyline.
Despite these issues, this isn’t a terrible show. There’s some genuinely striking use of color throughout, with metallic golds and rich reds and blues in the traditional elements of Momochi House standing out beautifully, which helps to make up for the attempt to highlight eyelashes instead of looking like everyone’s got splinters or tiny blades over their eyes. Aoi’s story is sufficiently tragic to generate emotion, and he and Himari are sweet together as they both are driven by a desire to be together simultaneously and to help overcome their issues. The other ayakashi are fun, from Aoi’s overbearing granny cat (a nekomata) to the foxes Himari invites to Momochi House since their guardian family can no longer see or help them. Animation is less stellar, taking some clear shortcuts occasionally, but it isn’t horrifically bad. The worst you can say is that this is a middle-of-the-road production.
Did the manga deserve better than that? Yes, absolutely; it’s Shouoto’s strongest series. It also has difficulty holding its own against similar shoujo manga adaptations, such as Kamisama Kiss. But even with these issues, The Demon Prince of Momochi House is still good enough to merit watching. It has a good core, and it’s a decent enough time, even with a truncated adaptation that’s more interested in major plot points than the characters that hold it all together. It absolutely could have been more than that, and I’m sorry it isn’t, but to damn it with faint praise, “mediocre” is at least better than “bad.”
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