Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou tai Shibito Ekishi Mini-Review
[Chapter 1 - He who Walks the Capital/Teito wo Aruku Mono]
Published: 2025年6月17日
Word Count: 2,084
So, over the summer I've decided to challenge myself by reading the light novel prequel to The Soulless Army, Devil Summoner: Kuzunoha Raidou tai Shibito Ekishi. Progress has been pretty slow so far if only because my Japanese skills leave much to be desired, but the idea is that if I keep pushing through, I'll come out the other end with a better comprehension of the language. I recently finished the first chapter of the book, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on it because a) I've been wanting to be more active on my site again, and this feels like the perfect place to share the more in-depth thoughts on the book that I've struggled to voice on sites like Tumblr or Discord, and b) Shibito Ekishi is pretty inaccessible to anyone who doesn't speak Japanese (except for a woefully incomplete English fan translation on someone's old LiveJournal blog), so I thought I'd do the Devil Summoner fanbase a favor and at least provide some sort of outline of the story until someone takes up the helm of actually translating it.
I don't have many in-depth thoughts right now, if only because Shibito Ekishi is unexpectedly short for a 250-page novel (probably because the physical book itself is the same size as my hand), but my current impression is pretty positive, and at this point I can confidently say that I'm more excited to read more of this book than I am for RAIDOU Remastered. (Whether that's high praise for Shibito Ekishi or a low blow for RAIDOU Remastered is up to you.)
Plot Synopsis
The story starts from the perspective of a character named Fuyoko Tarawada, who isn't actually all that plot-relevant for a character that we learn so much about. She's in a bit of a frantic state because she thought she caught a glimpse of her father walking around outside, despite the fact that he recently passed away. This opening passage with Fuyoko mostly serves to provide exposition to the reader about the rapid Westernization of prewar Japan and the conflict between tradition and modernity that arose from it. While I was never personally taken out of the story by the amount of exposition — I found it worked nicely enough with the conflict between the old-fashioned ways of Fuyoko's late father and her uncle's desire to preserve their family's reputation by keeping up with modern customs — it really is a lot when what Fuyoko does between infodumps typically amounts to staring down an empty road and looking dejected. It does get better once the story moves on, but from what I've read so far the trend of Shibito Ekishi dropping random paragraphs of tangentially related information in the middle of a scene never really goes away.
To get back to the actual plot, Fuyoko wanders around near the funeral hall where her father's dead body is currently being held, coming to the conclusion that her eyes must have been playing tricks on her and just about giving up, until she does actually see her father. Something's a bit... off, though. As Fuyoko runs towards her father, she's suddenly whisked up into the sky. It turns out that a gang of demons — Gashadokuro, Nebiros, and a mysterious character with dark blue wings lurking in the shadows — had kidnapped the corpse of Fuyoko's father. Their motives for stealing dead bodies remain unknown for now, but before long Raidou shows up and promptly reduces Gashadokuro's already meagre body mass by half. We learn a bit about Raidou's sword, called Muramasa in this book, and how its powers can block demons' regeneration abilities that would otherwise render them effectively invincible against normal weaponry. Nebrios is also taken down with the help of Dormarth, who, for lack of a better term, is made out to be the "partner Pokémon" of Raidou's demon arsenal in this book. The two manage to retrieve Fuyoko from the mysterious winged character as well, but dispatching him proves to be much more of a challenge than his two comrades. As it turns out, the demon is named Alucard, and he claims to be the one to have killed Raidou's predecessor, Raidou Kuzunoha XIII. Despite Raidou turning him into swiss cheese with his gun and stabbing him in the heart, along with Gouto making a surprise appearance to gouge out his eyes, Alucard flees the battle unscathed.
Not wanting their foe to escape, Raidou and Gouto (with help from Pyro Jack) chase Alucard into the Capital. It isn't long before their plan is foiled by none other than the Herald of Yatagarasu, who, in an uncharacteristic move, left her post at Shinoda Shrine to personally give the order for Raidou and Gouto to stop their pursuit. Gouto tries to argue with the Herald about it, but she refuses to budge, citing an old agreement between the Yatagarasu and Alucard not to bring harm to the demon. On the other hand, Raidou completely clams up, obediently following every demand the Herald makes of him during the span of her visit. When Gouto presses him on it, he gets flustered and claims that he couldn't disobey the Herald because, and I quote, "her lips remind him of his mother's" (dear God why). Before things can get too uncomfortable, though, Dormarth enters the scene, angry at Raidou for leaving her with Fuyoko's unconscious body when he ran off to follow Alucard. Raidou, however, is not in the mood to entertain her, and orders Dormarth to bring Fuyoko back to her house. The two part ways, bringing us to the end of the chapter.
Characters
As someone who can be very picky about how Raidou gets characterized, I honestly have very few complaints with how he's written in Shibito Ekishi so far. It's certainly not one-to-one with how I characterize him in my head, but I find the differences to be much more interesting than frustrating. He can be pretty cold and blunt at times — especially in this chapter, since he spends most of it in battle ordering his demons around — which might throw some people off, but I didn't take issue with it at all. In fact, Raidou's bluntness is one of my favorite things about how he's written in Shibito Ekishi. It's a bit difficult to explain why I like it so much when I can't be sure if everyone who reads this is on the same page, so I'm just going to up and say it: Raidou Kuzunoha XIV undeniably has autism and I won't listen to anyone who says otherwise. To me, his bluntness is a pretty big aspect of how he's coded as autistic in this book, along with his unusual way of speaking. He's not uncaring at all, as seen in how he interacts with his demons, especially his awkward (and adorable) bond with Dormarth. Raidou's whole deal becomes a lot more evident when he interacts with his fellow humans in later chapters, though, so I'll save my extended thoughts on his character for later. On the other hand, what I really don't like about Raidou's character is his weird obsession with his dead mother's lips. Was there really no way to establish his mommy issues without making Sigmund Freud... uh... do whatever the opposite of "turning in your grave" is?
For as much as I love Raidou, though, the real best character in this book is Dormarth. She's the yin to Raidou's yang, her boundless enthusiasm balancing out his more standoffish nature. I could see how her constant interjections might annoy some people, but I find it incredibly endearing, like an energetic puppy (because she's a dog demon... get it?). Her constant desire for violence is especially adorable. But again, being Raidou's main partner, I think she shines best when the two of them are together. For all of the grief that she gives him, Dormarth very clearly admires Raidou, and her attitude completely crumbles when she receives even the slightest hint of affection from him. The best way I can describe their dynamic is that they're both emotionally constipated in different directions, which leads to several interactions that are equally hilarious and heartwarming.
Gouto was barely in this chapter so I don't have a lot to say about him right now, other than that I was surprised at how open he was with Raidou about his identity. In The Soulless Army, it isn't revealed that Gouto has been watching over the Raidou Kuzunoha family since the beginning until you've just about reached the endgame, so I had assumed that he'd be pretty secretive about his past in Shibito Ekishi as well. It's definitely weird to see him talk at length about his history (or lack thereof) with Raidou XIII, but it's not the worst mischaracterization in the world, so I can live with it. Other than that, he seems to be the same sarcastic kitty that we all know and love.
Setting & Worldbuilding
If you're looking for a story that's 100% canon to the Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha games, Shibito Ekishi is not the book for you. Right out of the gate there's a pretty big continuity discrepancy; namely that in Shibito Ekishi, there were not just one, but two Great Kanto Earthquakes that occurred in the Taishō era. The first one, of course, being the same Great Kanto Earthquake that happened in real life in Taishō 12, and the second being a "Demonic Rupture" which, based on context, seems to have led to a large influx of demons infesting Japan. Despite being advertised as the prequel to DSRK, Shibito Ekishi isn't all that interested in keeping in line with its world, so I don't think any information sourced from it that can't be backed up by the games should be touted as iron-clad "canon" (which is why I'm so annoyed by people who insist on calling Raidou "Jouhei," but that's a different blogpost altogether). I'm not bothered by the inconsistent timeline, though, and have been of the opinion that smaller spin-offs like this shouldn't be vital to any series' overarching story for a while now, if only for the sake of accessibility. As it stands, I find Shibito Ekishi to be an interesting alternate take on the world of DSRK, and am intrigued to learn more about the second Kanto earthquake and any other new ideas that may be introduced as the story progresses.
As for how well Shibito Ekishi gels with the themes of DSRK and the series' atmosphere as a whole, while I'm holding out on taking a definitive stance until later, what I've read so far has been promising. As mentioned in the plot synopsis, there was some pretty heavy-handed "tradition vs. modernity" conflict going on in Fuyoko's family dilemma. If I had to guess, I imagine that the focus on death in Shibito Ekishi (the title does roughly translate to "Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Courier of the Dead," after all) might tie into the greater themes of DSRK, in a sort of "clinging to the past" way. For a video game light novel, the mystery and intrigue has been handled pretty well, too. I'm always excited to see the Yatagarasu being morally questionable, and I'm eager to learn more about their ties to Alucard. While Shibito Ekishi may not be a true part of the DSRK universe, the first chapter alone has done a good job of emulating its spirit.
Conclusion
I can't say much about the actual literary quality of Shibito Ekishi, both because it's my first time reading a book in Japanese and because I'm still not very good at the language (though I can't imagine it's very high, given that Boogey Toumon's career seems to consist entirely of writing pulp fiction based on video games), but I'd say it's been enjoyable as a Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha spinoff. I'm currently working my way through the beginning of the second chapter (Detective Work/Tantei-taru Shigoto), and it's only been getting better. While I still don't think it's going to come close to matching The Soulless Army in terms of my own personal enjoyment, I'm pretty confident that unless it fumbles hard in the later chapters, Shibito Ekishi is going to end up ranking higher than Lone Marebito on the DSRK media tierlist that only exists in my head.
(Not that it's particularly hard to surpass Lone Marebito, given that I've read it three times and still don't remember a single thing about it other than the artstyle being ass.)
