Mage & Demon Queen

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Mage & Demon Queen
Mage & Demon Queen Banner Art.png
Malori "Mal" Crowett and Queen "Vel" Velverosa in an image appended to end of the webtoon's first issue in August 2018
Author(s)Kuru (Color_LES)
Website WEBTOON
Current status/scheduleEnded
Launch dateAugust 20, 2018
End dateNovember 1, 2023 [1]
Publisher(s) WEBTOON
Genre(s) Fantasy, comedy, yuri [2]
Rating(s)9.78 Stars on WEBTOON

Mage & Demon Queen is a fantasy-comedy webtoon created by Filipino artist Kuru (Color_LES). [3] The series follows an adventurer mage, Malori, as she attempts to seduce the Demon Queen Velverosa of her RPG fantasy world. It began publishing weekly on WEBTOON in August 2018. [4] The eleventh-most popular comic on the WEBTOON platform; as of January 2020 it had 86 million views, [5] and as of December 2020 WEBTOON reported that it had 2.1 million subscribers. [6] In November 2019, WEBTOON released an official Spanish and French language version of the series. [7] The webcomic updates weekly on Webtoon, [5] and readers with the "Webtoon Fast Pass" can access pages earlier. By June 2021, 154 episodes had been published across three separate "seasons". [8]

Contents

In September 2019, characters from Mage & Demon Queen made an appearance in the ninth episode of WEBTOON promotional animated web series Let's Play, made to promote the Webtoon of the same name and the platform as a whole. This series marked WEBTOON's first foray into animation. [9] [8] [10] [11] In May 2020, Geek Tyrant expressed interest in a potential anime adaptation. [12]

Plot and themes

Mage & Demon Queen is set in a fantasy world operating by the rules of role-playing games, where teams of human adventurers seek to challenge the Demon Tower, and whoever can ascend to the top floor and defeat and kill the Demon Queen Velverosa will gain fame and fortune and a rich reward from the kingdom, with near-unlimited retry opportunities thanks to resurrection magic. A particular thorn in the Demon Queen's side is Malori, a particularly powerful young mage that has repeatedly reached the top at the expense of her best friend Cerik, not to kill her, but to win her hand in marriage. [4] [6]

Plots in season two of the webtoon include the backstory of Velverosa and the King, Cerik being revealed as the original hero summoned to kill the Demon Queen, Princess Leora Siegwald seeking to seduce Malori and summon a second hero, and Malori being identified as a Demon Charmer and deciding to pledge allegiance to the Demon Army to end the war between the two. Plots in season three of the webtoon involve the return of Malori's mentor Cecillia and Velverosa's estranged fiancé Sepheron. [13]

Major characters

The following characters are central to plot lines in the comic and make regular appearances:

The characters in Mage & Demon Queen are each defined by plays on various role-playing game stock character archetypes. According to columnist Avery Kaplan, "Queen Vel bears a striking resemblance [to Camilla from Fire Emblem , with] the world bear[ing] many striking mechanical similarities to the conventions of RPGs in general." [19] [4]

Influences

In an interview with Okazu , Kuru lists some of the sources that she uses for the Mage & Demon Queen series. [2] They include Hayate × Blade by Shizuru Hayashiya, Tamen de Gushi by Tan Jiu, Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid by Coolkyousinnjya, Tales of by Yoshiharu Gotanda, and Fate/Grand Order by Yosuke Shiokawa and Yoshiki Kanou. Other influences are Disgaea by Nippon Ichi, Ragnarok by Thomas F. Boyd and Rob Vawter, Kannazuki no Miko by Kaishaku, and Strawberry Panic! by Sakurako Kimino.

Reception

In 2020, WEBTOON announced that Mage & Demon Queen had been viewed over 86 million times, making it one of the top-30 most viewed webtoons on the platform. [5] [20] As of May 2020, Mage & Demon Queen is the eleventh-most popular webtoon on the platform, with over 2.1 million subscribers. [6]

In an article for the Polish publication Polter, columnist Szymon Brycki recommended the webtoon, saying: "I must admit that I am pleased with the [characte]r creation. These characters don't just consist of a desire to seduce or run away from another person, [but] their psyche and behavior are justified by their story and life events that we learn gradually as the plot progresses. Their relationship with each other is also changing", additionally praising "[t]he line style [a]s very cartoonish, the colors [for being] in the right shades, [with] the shading also leav[ing] nothing to be desired", before concluding that "what you can enjoy most about this webcomic is not the promise of a lesbian romance or beautiful drawings, but the humor present in each episode — [that] the comedic potential of Mage and Demon Queen is the greatest advantage of this work." [21]

The Beat praised Mage & Demon Queen for "combin[ing] multiple genre frameworks to create a queer comic that feels familiar but fresh", and for having "[s]elf-awareness about its foundations [to] give [the series] the chance to deliver on the validation of its central queer romance – and that's something worth coming back for at least a dozen times", [19] with Avery Kaplan specifically in particular praising its "AU stories about the characters by Melathia the Lamia [for] allowing irresistible fan service as well as a fascinating perspective on the role of fan fiction." [22] [23] CBR reviewer Samantha Puc described the series' "characters a[s] interesting, the plot utterly original", also praising "the art [as] so perfectly detailed it's impossible not to get sucked in right from the jump." [14] A reviewer for The Geekiary praised the "attention to detail in the panels [as well as] the coloring", in addition to the "comedy, especially among the various demons, [of the] light-hearted romance with a heavy dose of adventure." [15] Wendy Lian Martin of Castle Swimmer described the series as "really good" comparatively with other webtoon series including Novae and Lalin's Curse. [24] while Makma referred to it "[as the] perfect blend of comedy and romance [against] a video game backdrop." [25] Additionally, Catherine Zaw of Geek Gals said that the comic is a "fresh unique twist on RPG game-based stories," which will draw in readers. [26]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Color_LES (w,  a). "Series Finale" Mage & Demon Queen,vol. 3,no. 61(November 1, 2023). Line Webtoon.
  2. 1 2 Kuru (March 29, 2020). "Interview with Color_LES (Kuru,) Creator of Mage and Demon Queen". Okazu (Interview). Interviewed by Erica Friedman. Online. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  3. ↑ "IN LOVE WITH A MONSTER -- Mage & Demon Queen (Explained) -- WEBTOON". YouTube . Webtoon. January 28, 2019. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 "Mage & Demon Queen (Official Trailer)--WEBTOON". YouTube . Webtoon. November 28, 2018. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 MacDonald, Heidi (January 17, 2020). "Sales Charts: The Top 30 comics on Webtoon in 2019". Comics Beat . Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 "Mage & Demon Queen". WEBTOON . Archived from the original on December 28, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  7. ↑ Kaplan, Avery (November 22, 2019). "WEBTOON launches Spanish language versions of popular series". Comics Beat . Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  8. 1 2 Tantimedh, Adi (September 12, 2019). ""Let's Play": Popular WEBTOON Comic Releases Final Animated Promotional Short [VIDEO]". Bleeding Cool . Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  9. ↑ Tantimedh, Adi (September 5, 2019). ""Let's Play": Popular WEBTOON Webcomic Adapted as Anime Short [TRAILER]". Bleeding Cool . Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  10. ↑ WEBTOON (September 10, 2019). "EPISODE 9: Let's Play, Promotional Animated Shorts!". YouTube . Archived from the original on July 24, 2020.
  11. ↑ Kuru (Busy Working) [@Color_LES] (September 11, 2019). ""Mage & Demon Queen" along with other great webtoons made a cameo in "Let's Play" animated shorts! Thank you @mongrelmarie and @webtoon. Watch the other episodes in the webtoon channel: https://youtube.com/user/linewebtoon" (Tweet). Archived from the original on December 28, 2020 – via Twitter.
  12. ↑ Williams, Tommy (May 2020). "WEBTOONS That I Want to See Become an Anime". Geek Tyrant. Archived from the original on December 26, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  13. ↑ Jessica, Mason (September 7, 2019). "How Lore Olympus and Webtoon Finally Helped Me Love Comics". The Mary Sue . Archived from the original on May 22, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  14. 1 2 Puc, Samantha (September 26, 2020). "Weekend Webcomics: Magic Misfires In Castoff, Cursed Princess Club and Mage & Demon Queen". CBR . Archived from the original on October 6, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  15. 1 2 Sugah, Jamie (January 16, 2019). "Wednesday Webcomics: Mage & Demon Queen Is RPGreat". The Geekiary. Archived from the original on June 8, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  16. ↑ Color LES ( w ,  a ). "S2 - Episode 45" Mage & Demon Queen,vol. 2,no. 45(October 28, 2020).Internet ( webcomic ): Webtoon .
  17. ↑ Color LES ( w ,  a ). "S2 - Episode 44" Mage & Demon Queen,vol. 2,no. 44(October 21, 2020).Internet ( webcomic ): Webtoon .
  18. ↑ Color LES ( w ,  a ). "S2 - Episode 43" Mage & Demon Queen,vol. 2,no. 43(October 14, 2020).Internet ( webcomic ): Webtoon .
  19. 1 2 Kaplan, Avery (July 25, 2019). "Queerness in Comics: Mage and Demon Queen". The Beat . Archived from the original on July 25, 2019. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  20. ↑ Tantimedh, Adi (September 2, 2019). "WEBTOON is the World's Most Successful Comics Publisher – And You Hadn't Heard of it Till Now". Bleeding Cool . Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  21. ↑ Brycki, Szymon (May 20, 2020). "Mage & Demon Queen: Webtoonowy romans w świecie fantasy" [Mage & Demon Queen — A webtoonic romance in a fantasy world]. Polter (in Polish). Archived from the original on December 28, 2020. Retrieved December 28, 2020.
  22. ↑ Beat Staff (December 2, 2020). "The Beat's 2020 Webcomic Gift Guide". Comics Beat . Archived from the original on December 2, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  23. ↑ Kaplan, Avery (June 12, 2019). "12 Queer Comics to Read on WEBTOON Right Now!". Comics Beat . Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  24. ↑ Martin, Wendy Lian (June 12, 2019). "Interview: Discovering the creative process behind CASTLE SWIMMER with Wendy Lian Martin". Comics Beat (Interview). Interviewed by Avery Kaplan. Online. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
  25. ↑ "Le webtoon Mage & Demon Queen en VF" [The Mage & Demon Queen webtoon in French]. Makma (in French). March 29, 2020. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  26. ↑ Zaw, Catherine (June 22, 2020). "5 Webtoons You Should Be Reading Right Now". Geek Gals. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
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