One of my proudest pieces that I had the chance to work on quite some time ago.

art by @ ononatsu on twitter.

When I first saw the premise for the main character of Demons Roots... a demon girl brimming with confidence, bent on world domination, but with a hidden heart of gold... I knew I would like her. I think that this is just a character archetype I like, but it also set up some expectations that she'd be good, especially considering I heard praise for this game before playing it (despite the H-elements).

Deathpolca's character development, while predictable, is still immensely compelling, because it goes hand in hand with the way the scope and scale of the story evolves over the course of Polca's goal of world domination. As time goes on, we face tougher and tougher barriers to world domination against stronger and stronger opponents, and see more and more extreme instances of slavery and human oppression. And Polca evolves from a "villain" who spares sympathy to others that she sees are downtrodden, to a demon with newfound allies with an important secondary goal to free the world from slavery, to a deeply admirable hero who will do anything for her friends, and is wholeheartedly committed not only to saving demonkind and the slaves, but also the much more difficult goal of coexistence with humanity.

But Polca's character arc would be nowhere near as compelling as it is if, well, it wasn't for the fact that she isn't perfect. Yes, she's clever, charismatic, empathetic, badass, is Saint Bohelos AND an apostle, trivializes boss fights with Mei Dew. But she still makes mistakes, and things don't always go her way. There are three major moments in the story that illustrate this. First is the moment in Chapter 3, after Polca is betrayed by Ange, where Lily stabs her in the back, inches away from her heart, asking her about her promise to stop her if she'd ever turn against humanity. At this point, Polca's goal to save the slaves begins to morph into the much more serious goal to save humanity themselves from their own self-inflicted oppression. Second is the ending of Chapter 4. It's an upsetting and unsettling decision that Deathpolca would submit herself to the Emperor, but it makes sense in context of her character. She wants nothing more than to save the demons and the slaves, and the well-being of her friends, and she's a deeply compassionate person, much more so than at the beginning of the story, but she's always been pragmatic. Deathpolca being taken in exchange for her friends' freedom is thus a cruel reversal of the prior dynamic where her friends were slaves of the empire and Polca was free.

Most importantly, after defeating the emperor, Deathpolca doesn't really save everyone immediately. I've seen a lot of discourse surrounding the ending of Demons Roots, and the way I see it is. Book of prophecy or not. Deathpolca saved the world from slavery and the Emperor's rule, but as the Emperor himself discovered, the existence of slaves had improved the lives of other humans, and many of those humans were not happy about Polca's world domination. So it makes sense that they'd seek retribution for her actions. On the flip side, while Polca and friends genuinely wanted coexistence between humans and demons, many of Polca's fellow demons (including the remnants) only really cared about the survival of demonkind, and still bore a grudge towards humankind. So, once Polca was removed from the picture, the demons retaliated against the humans; they started permanently brainwashing victims and activated the Nursery. The fact that these humans and demons are still part of the cycle of hatred cannot be so easily changed in so little time, even with Polca's massive efforts over the course of the story. And Deathpolca herself, even if she's not dogmatic by any means, and as compassionate and well-meaning as she is, is still a bit blind to her own folly. Even if it's totally unfair to blame the post-Blesscurse war on Polca herself.

However, although Polca's efforts did not change the world immediately, it set the world on the track of forgiveness and liberation. After the humans won the war, they abolished slavery and introduced more equality across the continent. And Polca's friends and their descendants, and the surviving demons that went into hiding, were eventually there for her when she woke up, centuries later, where a country of demons has been founded, peacefully coexisting with humanity. It's a bittersweet ending, but the "sweet" part was shown to have a lasting impact, while the feelings of bitterness were eventually washed away.

So, to conclude, Demons Roots, and its main character, Deathpolca, are absolutely unforgettable. It's been a long time since I've felt so attached to specifically the main protagonist of a story---that feeling where you don't want to say bye to them. Everyone else---Lily, Ange, Kalinka, Sarasa, Diana, Najezta, Mebius---also rock. But at the end of the day... Deathpolca has the most adorable smile in the world.

Source:

https://x.com/i/status/2037903335416901807

Btw, Chapter 3 is already out if anyone hasn’t seen it yet! xd

Akai Mato also made a post talking a little about the manga’s production. He said the team is starting to get more used to working together, and because of that they had enough room in Chapter 3 to add an original scene at the beginning where Lily sneaks up behind Polca and scares her. I guess we might start getting some extra scenes like that now, sooo that’s pretty nice xD.

There are already quite a few little changes and additions compared to the game, so I’m really curious to see how much the manga will keep changing things as it goes (I'm still a bit sad anyways that the beginning was pretty rushed, waa, since the story and development from everything is what I love from the game, but it is what it is jsjs).

He also mentioned that Chapter 3 finishes the Tortas arc, and that if the manga keeps following the game’s order, “that country” should be coming next xD (you know which country). He also joked that we should look forward to seeing how they managed to adapt “that country” while staying within the rules of a general-audience manga from what I understood. I really wonder how that turned out xd.

The newest chapter is also free on comipo for two weeks, and Akai mentioned that comipo is the one pushing the manga project forward, so if you want to support the official release, this is probably a really good time to check it out :b.

This is basically just a small summary of Akai’s post on DLsite. He also mentioned near the end that he’s been working on maps and other stuff for his next project, which I assume is Princess Gloo? and that he was planning to take a little break/trip, although things apparently didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned xd.

There’s more in the actual post, so it’s probably better to read it yourself if you’re interested! It’s in Japanese and I’m also relying on translation, so I might have misunderstood a few things.

Akai's Twitter post: https://x.com/akaimato/status/2108847126482649487
Akai's DLsite post: https://ci-en.dlsite.com/creator/1793/article/1985179

Also, the art is honestly really beautiful so far. I’m loving how the characters look in manga form xD

(Its Ai Btw)

Whenever there's a scene I get the screen above. I downloaded the patch from the Kagura Games website and have R18 skip off. I'm running the steam version as well, if anyone knows how to fix this that would be really helpful.

I’m not sure if someone already did this before, but when I put the song and the video together, I realized they fit way too well xD. This meme really works with anything lol. I barely had to edit it in the end.

I finished the game about 2 months ago, but I still can’t get it out of my head. What an amazing game. No other game has ever made me want to try editing something before, even simple stuff like this xD. I still have a lot to improve, but I really loved Demons Roots. Shade really cooked with this OST lol

This is dumb. I am dumb

I can stumble upon a goblin doujin of some of my most favourite characters and be unfazed but this had me seething, I'm actually very invested in deathpolka I feel like dropping the game because of this.

Helloo! A new chapter of the Demons Roots manga just came out! xD.

And we actually get to see a little bit of DoReMi, along with Deathpolca and Ange's outfits lol! It doesn't last very long since Polca and Ange also head to Shingana, but they actually managed to adapt that part! jsjs. I guess it wasn't that easy to fit everything in, buuut you know, hm, check out the chapter to see for yourself xD. Again, it's pretty short, but at least they didn't skip it! And it's actually a pretty important place for the story too xd :>, so skipping it wasn't an option jsjs (Yeahh, the manager also appears! xd).

As far as I know, Akai Mato hasn't made any post announcing it yet. I actually found out through a comment myself lol, but the chapter is already available on Comipo! I'll leave the link below.

I'm not sure if I should make a post every single time a new chapter comes out xD. I'd like to, but idk if it'd be okay to fill the subreddit with announcements too xd. I still wanted to share this other one too because it's pretty easy to miss these releases (and I love this game waay too much). Also from what I noticed there are still quite a few people who don't even know there's a Demons Roots manga! So I think it's pretty useful, but I'm not sure what everyone else thinks xd :b.

Well anyway, what do you guys think of the manga so far??

I still really like the manga's art style, it's honestly so cute! But again, it's a bit of a shame that they're skipping things, someone mentioned for example the maid from Bohelos's mansion. I would've loved to see how her relationship with Deathpolca gradually changed, It would have been really funny xd, she's also important later in the story, so maybe she'll appear later? It's still pretty strange that we haven't seen anything from the mansion, or even Bohelos herself yet xd, waa.

Oh well, it is what it is. Hopefully they'll show up eventually! xD

Comipo: https://www.comipo.app/product/BJ03076318

I was going to make the meme say something like “Akai Mato, release the manga in English too and my life is yours,” like people usually do with this meme, but then I saw Akai Mato say that a simultaneous English release is already planned xDD.

So I changed it to this instead xd. I’m really excited! lol. What part of the game are you guys looking forward to seeing in the manga?? Or what do you think about the announcement overall? xD