🐈‍⬛ Informal デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ Club 🧪

Japanese Reading Book Clubs
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Hello all! In celebration of the announcement that Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army will be getting a remaster, I thought it would be fun to set up an informal club for anyone interested in reading anything 葛葉ライドウ-related (or honestly anything デビルサマナー-related, even if not ライドウ; I’m not picky about participants). Note that this is a multimedia club! Books/TV/video games/etc welcome!

The remaster releases on June 19, 2025, so while there’s not going to be an official end date for this club (everyone is welcome to participate whenever!), I’m going to aim towards that as my goal for my reading.

What is the 葛葉ライドウ series?
Just a quick breakdown here for those who aren’t familiar with it. The 葛葉ライドウ games are set in a fictional Taisho 20 (1931). Our protagonist has inherited the title of 悪魔召喚師・十四代目葛葉ライドウ (Devil Summoner Kuzunoha Raidou XIV), and works at a detective agency investigating supernatural cases. He has the ability to tame demons, storing them in little tubes, and uses them to assist in his investigations. He’s assisted by his mentor 業斗童子 (Gouto-Douji), a previous Raidou who’s taken the form of a black cat.

(Please note that the games in the デビルサマナー series are all independent of each other; you don’t need knowledge of one to enjoy another.)
葛葉ライドウ related media:

Non-葛葉ライドウ media

Will you be participating?
  • Yes :black_cat:
  • No :test_tube:
  • Maybe at some point :snowman: (hee-ho!)
0 voters
Which related media do you think you’ll consume?
  • 葛葉ライドウ-specific stuff
  • デビルサマナー-general stuff
0 voters
What types of media?
  • Books
  • TV
  • Video games
  • Other
0 voters

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I’m not sure how many participants we’ll get, but I at least wanted to set this up for myself to encourage myself to start デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ対コドクノマレビト 1 | L32, which has been on my list for a while. I looooove the covers. :heart_eyes:

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At least it’s a manga, so even if I get it, it doesn’t technically increase my 積読 pile :sweat_drops:

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You are correct! I called the 積読 office to make sure. :saluting_face:

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I’m maybe up for it when I finish ベルサイユのばら | L32 - tho I might have to wait till May, regardless. Are you looking to read all the volumes, or just the first?

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Probably all, since I already own them. (Unless I don’t end up liking vol 1-2, of course.)

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Glad I’m not the only one excited for the remaster!
I’m happy to join the discussion, although I probably won’t be reading anything since I’ve already finished pretty much every bit of ライドウ media I could get my hands on :sweat_smile: Maybe one day I’ll even find a reasonably priced version of the drama CD.

Just a small note on the chronological order:
The novel デビルサマナー 葛葉ライドウ 対 死人驛使 | L36 is set just after the prologue of the first game.
The manga デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ対コドクノマレビト 1 | L32 takes place after the events of both games and could potentially spoil what happens to one of the characters. More specifically: the death of one of the characters. It’s not a huge spoiler that would ruin the game or anything, but I felt like I should point it out.

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What drama CD is this? :eyes:

Thank you! I’ll add the info in the OP.

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It’s called デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ対隻眼化神. Talking about it is clearly not good for my self-restraint, since I just bought the CDs :rofl:
I think I read somewhere that the voice actors are going to voice the characters in the remaster as well.

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I’ll have to see if I can get a copy myself. :open_mouth: Thanks! And feel free to post your thoughts about the drama CD here as well~

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Started reading デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ対コドクノマレビト 1 | L32 during my lunch break, and I’m immediately remembering how intimidated I was checking this out some years back now: page 1 immediate archaic language and kanji, kana and furigana given in katakana. Once we’re past the intro pages and start the chapter proper, there’s no furigana given whatsoever with plenty of era-specific vocabulary used.

Example from the first page, just the bottom half since I can't get a good fullscreen snip of the entire thing

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Speaking of era-specific vocab, エゲレス is a neat new name for England that I hadn’t seen before. It’s apparently from the Dutch “Engelsch”, according to Jisho.

Anyway, the difficulty gave me a little bit of pause, but I’m pretty sure it’ll smooth out before too long; I’m finding only a few bits of vocab I’ve never seen before, so as long as there isn’t too much screwy 悪魔弁 (since they love speaking archaically in katakana), I should be okay.

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Finished デビルサマナー葛葉ライドウ対コドクノマレビト 1 | L32! A pretty fun and fast-paced first volume; I’m hoping subsequent ones will dig a little deeper into the plot. I’m also hoping there’s at least a little focus on ライドウ using demons in his investigative work, something they seem to have skipped over in this book.

Raidou being unnecessarily cool in all his action scenes was pretty funny as well. I feel like the artist used so much energy drawing him 業斗 ends up taking the hit; he feels unusually “cute” in this manga? If that makes sense?

Two fun pictures:

Neat owl thing on left

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Derpy 業斗

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Reading this really makes me want to play the games, haha. Onto the next volume!

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