How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord (Manga) Vol 1

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Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2018

Takuma is one of the best of playing his MMORPG. He has gain a reputation as the Demon Lord, the most deadly player around. He reveals in his abilities, finding a place in the fictional universe that he lacks in the world world.

Then one day, every thing changes.

He awakens not in his bed, but atop an altar on a stone tower with a busty elf and a petite catgirl kissing him on the cheeks. They declare they have summoned the Demon Lord and he has to do their bidding. Only problem, the bickering Rem and Shera can't agree on who actually summoned him. Even more unusual, for them, their enslavement ritual has backfired. They find themselves his slaves.

Not sure what to make of being summoned into his favorite video game, and awkward around girls, all Takuma can do is pretend to be the Demon Lord, to roleplay while he struggles to figure out what is going on all while perverted fantasies dance through his head.

After all, they are his slaves...

How Not to Summon a Demon Lord is a harem/litRPG manga. The art for the character is cute, with the contrast of the petite catgirl and busty elf to appeal to all comers. It has some naughty fan service in it, but is more heavily focused on introducing the world and setting. It's starting out fairly cliché and predictable, but it has some charm to the squabbling characters, neither able to agree on who summoned him, and has potential to be a lot of fun.

Our protagonist isn't the demon lord he pretends to be, but fakes it to deal with his social awkwardness. He's got room to grow as they story moves on. We're getting a hint of a goal forming, so we'll have to see where this series goes.

All in all, it was a fun, if light-hearted read. Here's hoping for some more naughty fun in the parts to follow!

Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2019

This novel covers the events taken place in its anime adaptation from episode 1-4. A socially crippled gamer becomes his game avatar Diablo and acts out his demon lord persona as a front for his inability to communicate, especially towards girls. To his dismay, Diablo's summoned party happen to be two attractive girls. Plenty of hijinks and lewd situations follow.

The novel adaptation actually explains reasonably why Diablo is far stronger than the people in his fantasy summoned world. Diablo is defined as a powerful elemental magic user(rare) which he, as a gamer, powered up because there is no fear of actually dying in a video game. Since there are no magic spells to revive a dead man in Diablo's new world, fearful adventurers choose instead to become summoners. Basically, they can't die if they are not the ones fighting. This also means while Diablo's 150 level is considered impossible, level 30 is considered decent.

There is quite a number of minor differences between the novel that the animation cut out or modified for overly explicit content or creative reasons for an animated story. For instant, Shera L. Greenwood being known as a princess of the elves happens when registering at the adventurer's guild.

If you enjoyed the anime, you'll probably enjoy this novel adventure. I certainly found it entertaining.

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2017

Sadly it has the male "deamon" in reality being a shutin apparently verry young boy, is what you can tell from his thoghts. Or it is because it is a manga like trope to keep it pg 12 or something. I liked the art as i do like mangas and dojins and the like. But the ever agrivating male trope in manga and anime is annoying to say the least. Thankfully it is not to the point wich he get nose bleeds when he get into boob contact or see lightly clad women. But is telling that he even mention that.
It is so mixed, some bits has bodies and gore mentiond, one time before the narative cutts of when he was going to get a thrashing from the cat girl. And having him so pathetic in some parts, and acting like the deamon loard, but not keeping it up to get what any male would want, or even just messing that part up some how, he dont try, his hormones seem mostly activate on boob contackt lol.

And even with above, i will get the next book if it comes out, because i truly wish to know where the story leads.
Sadly probably no future parts will go past the echi into the eroge territory, but even so i vill enjoy it.
Even tho i had hoped for that. lol

Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2017

Before I purchased this book (w/ a $5 ebook credit from Amazon), I read the sample and I was mildly intrigued by the premise. A demon is summoned from another world and his passive ability turns the 2 summoners into slaves. However, it turns out that the "demon" is a player character from another world. So the main character spends an enormous amount of time trying to compare his knowledge from his game to the new world he landed in. And he finds himself to be extremely overpowering. This plot is straight from Ovelord, another light novel that is extremely novel. The twist here, though, is that the MC is here by himself and lacks the support of minions and underlings, compared to the MC in Overlord.

The story moves at a decent pace as the writer fleshes out the background for the 2 summoners and readers learn more about the world setting. There is also plenty of magic and action to satisfy readers. But it remains to be seen what the protagonist decides to set as his goals--world conqueror? Do-gooder? Or something else? Either way, fans of Overlord will enjoy this light novel series.

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2021

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