Bride of Deimos


Bride of Deimos is a Japanese dark fantasy manga series written by Etsuko Ikeda and illustrated by Yuuho Ashibe. It premiered in Princess magazine in December 1974, later moving to Viva Princess, where it ran until the magazine became defunct with the release of its October 1990 issue. Akita Shoten collected the chapters into 17 compiled volumes published under the Princess Comics imprint; ComicsOne licensed the series for an English-language release in North America and published seven volumes before going out of business. In August 1988, the manga inspired an original video animation adaptation directed by Rintaro and produced by Madhouse. In May 2007, Bride of Deimos resumed serialization in Monthly Bonita magazine, with the subtitle "The Final Chapter". It was put on hiatus in April 2014, with six compiled volumes published as of May 2014.

Plot

Bride of Deimos revolves around high school girl Minako Ifu, who has become the focus of the attentions of the demon Deimos. Minako appears to be the physical reincarnation of Deimos' lover and younger twin sister, Venus, the former goddess of love. In order to rescue Venus from the fatal punishment she received as a result of their relationship, he has to bring Minako to the underworld so Venus can possess her body. Over the course of the manga, the reader sees the various ways that Deimos attempts to accomplish this, interspersed with random chapters of Deimos involved in bringing suffering and death to whichever humans he happens to encounter.

Characters

Main characters

; Minako Ifu
; Deimos
; Venus

Recurring characters

The manga tends to be a series of stand-alone stories that have Deimos' appearance as the only thing in common apart from the chapters that involve Minako. However, there are a couple of characters who make more than one appearance.
; Angel
; Death

Media

Manga

Bride of Deimos was written by Etsuko Ikeda and illustrated by Yuuho Ashibe. It premiered in the January 1975 issue of Akita Shoten's monthly (girls') manga magazine Princess on December 6, 1974; it ended in the October 1990 issue of Princesss sister magazine Viva Princess, when the magazine itself ceased publication. Akita Shoten collected the chapters into 17 volumes published under the Princess Comics imprint from November 1975 to November 1990. The company re-released the series twice: first, in 12 volumes published under the Princess Comics Deluxe imprint from August 1994 to January 1995, and second, in 12 volumes published under the Akita Bunko imprint from July 1996 to September 1997. ComicsOne licensed the series for an English-language release in North America and published seven volumes before going out of business in 2005.
Almost 20 years after its last chapter, Bride of Deimos resumed serialization in the June 2007 issue of Akita Shoten's monthly manga magazine Mystery Bonita on May 7, 2007. Titled, the series was put on hold in April 2014 to allow Ashibe to resume her other long-running manga series, Crystal Dragon. Akita Shoten has published six volumes of under the Bonita Comics imprint as of May 2014.

Original video animation

A 30-minute original video animation titled was released in Japan on August 31, 1988. It was produced by Madhouse and directed by Rintaro, with the script written by series author Etsuko Ikeda and the music composed by Yasuo Fukazawa. It was distributed on VHS by Akita Shoten and Toei Video. Adapting a chapter of the manga, is centered on a wealthy brother and sister who live in seclusion. The brother raises a special breed of orchid and takes care of his disabled older sister. The pair have a dysfunctional relationship that ends in death for any potential suitors for either of them. Minako ends up in the crossfire of this feud when she visits the mansion and catches the eye of the brother.

Reception

Jason Thompson of Anime News Network described Bride of Deimos as a "funky mixture of gory horror and mythology, of Buddhism, Christianity, and Greek myth", with "enjoyable old-school manga artwork". He further praised the variety of its "absurd but imaginative" episodic tales and its "special 1970s bizarreness", reminiscent of a Mario Bava horror film. In a review of the first volume, Publishers Weekly agreed that the decades-old manga "retains all its power to chill", crediting Ashibe's "use all manner of odd angles and perspective" in her artwork "to convey Minako's off-kilter world... that veers between ordinary and mystical."