Review of Lady Devil Volume 1

Trigger warning: incest, rape, child marriage 

The story takes place in the duchy of House Valdemar, and centres around the twins Giovinetta and her brother Johannes. The two were pretty close when they were young, but an unfortunate accident witnessed by their mother, forced Giovinetta to live in isolation in a tower together with her mother. Her first sort-of escape from this life in seclusion was her arranged marriage to an older man when she was only 12 years old. However, during their wedding night, the man had his heart ripped out and Giovinetta went back to her lonely tower, this time as Lady Devil.

Years later, her father arranges another marriage for Giovinetta with a man way older than she is. Refusal is not an option so Giovinetta does the only thing that comes to mind: she remembers her mother mentioning the devil Ducommun who can grant wishes. Too late, she also remembers that the wishes that are granted are always twisted and don’t turn out the way the person making the wish would have expected. So when Giovinetta wishes to not marry the old man, her brother not only takes on the appearance of a devil but also breaks free of the chains restraining his immoral desires, allowing him to go for his own guilty pleasure—Giovinetta.

Now Giovinetta needs to think of a way to turn her brother the way he was before, while also exploring the attraction between the two siblings that they kept hidden for years.

When I first picked up this volume, I wasn’t sure what to expect as I didn’t find the back cover blurb that clear, so I went in with an open mind. However, I was left shocked by quite a few of the turns that the story takes, which I wasn’t expecting at all.

Giovinetta and Johannes have a forbidden love. They are twins, but spending time together made them develop feelings that their mother became aware of and put a stop to before they could be explored. They were separated and kept in check for years, but when Giovinetta makes the wish to the devil, everything changes. Not only Johannes’ physical appearance, but he’s also set free from the constraints of what society dictates about whom he should love or, in this case, about whom he shouldn’t love. It’s quite disturbing for Giovinetta as she’s been sheltered all her life, but it doesn’t take long for her to get on board with it.

While I called Giovinetta’s life sheltered, it’s more that she’s a product of her time. The story has a medieval setting, not only in terms of architecture, but also in the way how people are treated and raised. As a woman, Giovinetta doesn’t have any value other than being a pawn in her father’s schemes to gain more power and wealth. There is nothing she can do other than obey, so making a wish to the devil is her form of rebellion. Johannes instead is the hero of the family, and he could get anything he wanted if only he asked for it. The twins also have a younger sibling as well, Winfried, who is a monk… in name only. He likes indulging in vices and has a perverse personality as he likes to cause trouble for his older siblings and then see their despair and disappointment. He’s the poster child of twisted personality. He’s introduced in the first volume together with the main cast, but it doesn’t take long for the readers to understand what type of person he is and that he’s about to bring chaos.

The siblings have a complicated relationship, which makes it a salient point in the development of the story. Volume 1 already has quite a few triggers such as incestuous relationships and monster romance. so I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re not into taboo tropes. The series is aimed at an older audience due to the themes it covers and while quite a few things happen when the characters are young, the main story takes place when the characters are of age.

Going in blind to the first volume left me completely unprepared for what I was about to read. I would have appreciated it if the author or the publisher had put a trigger warning at the beginning of the story, giving the reader the choice to start the series regardless of the topics and themes it covered. Lady Devil started as a web novel before being adapted into a digital comic on Manta. On the reading platform it also doesn’t seem to have any trigger warnings, just a ‘forbidden love’ tag. The illustrations are simple, and the artist tends to use a darker palette every time that Johannes turns into a monster compared to the more upbeat and vivid colours in the rest of the illustrations. The rape and the sexy times with the monster are mentioned, but they are not illustrated explicitly—the readers get to the beginning of the sequence, and then see the characters again the next day, after everything is said and done.

While the author keeps the characters’ behaviours to the time period they are supposed to be in (which, is never stated but can be understood by the behaviour and story settings), I find quite a few parts disturbing as those behaviours and acts would be unacceptable in the 21st century, so it was kind of hard for me to be fully immersed in the story.

However, it might be for you if you are into the grimdark genre, as it seems that this series falls into it. Lady Devil covers quite a few of the genre’s main characteristics: amoral characters (aka the siblings’ romantic relationship), and the brutality and violence (the rape and the sexual relationship with the monster), among others.

Lady Devil is written by B. Cenci, illustrated by FUKI. Choco and adapted by hanheun. Ize Press publishes the series in volume format in the English language with the translation from Manta Comics. Volume 2 is slated for release in July 2025.

Our review copy was supplied by Ize Press.