I absolutely loved this book, in my opinion it was YA perfection!
The character of Piper drew me in straight away, as did the mysterious demon duo of Lyre & Ash as we join all three in a battle against time to prove their innocence, save Piper’s father and keep the coveted Sahar Stone out of the wrong hands.
The story got off to an action packed start and that action did not stop throughout the book giving me a thrill of a read. Piper is special, she is the only female to survive being born with two Haemon parents, the cost of this is that she has no magic. Piper more than compensates for this as she trains to become a member of the Consul and is well equipped to defend herself. That is until her whole life is turned upside down and she has to put her trust in an Incubus – Lyre – and a Draconian – Ash which begins not only an amazing story but also a very tentative love triangle. I know what you all think – urgh love triangles – I’m not a fan of them myself but it was nicely done here and no one is falling madly in love right now, it was the stirring of feelings between these young people thrust into life threatening situations. Lyre is the happy go lucky, fun character with his flirtatious banter that no one can resist but Piper so that leaves Ash who of course, is the bad boy, constantly brooding, sure of himself, alpha in the making but there’s just something about him that draws you in and makes you want to know more. I like both of these options for her, I’m leaning towards one but would be happy with either at this point.
Now, it’s not all about the romance….in fact that’s just a tiny smidgen of the content of this book but believe me the storyline is awesome! We have a magical world filled with lots of different magical people – Haemons (part daemon/part human) who possess magic, humans and Daemons that come in all shapes and forms. There is a sort of Heaven and Hell but they are known as the Overworld and Underworld that don’t necessarily equate to good and evil, there is a lot of enemies on all sides – daemons against daemons, humans against daemons, Haemons against daemons, and daemons against everyone else- so there is a lot of room for conflict but this story focuses on the Sahar Stone, Piper has it and everyone wants it – meaning that she is constantly running & fighting for her life and to protect the stone throughout the book. Multiple enemies are doing all they can to capture Piper leading her into perilous situations where she is forced to fight for her life without any magic (she doesn’t have any). It isn’t all cut and dried though because there are plenty of twists and turns to keep everyone on their toes, the book full of action and the story at a great pace – I could not put it down! It had everything I want to read in a UF – action, great characters, awesome world building, diverse species, secrets and lies, twists and turns and a smidge of romance…. Now I want more! 

I think several of the characters in this series have forgotten the plot. And also possibly that Kujou is the main character. Still, I give this volume extra points for cuteness.

Mikage continues to be wildly jealous of Kujou because she likes Taiki and is under the mistaken impression that he's in love with Kujou. In her efforts to push the two of them apart, she gives Kujou alcohol while telling him it's juice and later takes a picture of Kujou and Touma engaged in something she thinks is sex (it's not).

Meanwhile, Taiki is pretty sure that Kujou is Kaito, but he doesn't want to see absolute proof and doesn't want other demons to see any either – he believes in taking care of his friends. Souya seems mostly uninterested in proving that Kujou is Kaito, but, unfortunately, Touma is very dedicated to their task. On the plus side, all three of them would prefer that no other demons find Kaito first, so they team up to protect Kujou when a new threat closes in.

I didn't so much like the beginning of this volume. Personally, I thought Mikage was horrible. When she took pictures of Touma and Kujou together, she kept saying that she thought they were having sex, but what actually seemed to be going on was that Touma was raping Kujou (he wasn't – he was just trying to forcibly remove his shirt). And all she wanted to do was take pictures of it all. I would be happy if she disappeared from all future volumes.

Touma got a somewhat larger part in this volume, and yet I still felt he was kind of boring. He was pretty much just a giant ball of werewolfy rage, but at least he remembered what he, Taiki, and Souya had been sent to do. Without him, I might have forgotten what the point of the series was until Sendou, the new teacher, showed up.

The overarching story was even more incoherent in this volume than it was in the first, and yet somehow I liked this volume more. Takashima found new sources of humor – I particularly enjoyed Yaezaki, the girly-girl transfer student whose dialogue included little stars. However, even more than that, I enjoyed this volume's increased level of cuteness. It not only had more Rebun in cat form, it also had the most OMG adorable mouse ever, Taiki in sweetie pie mode (he cares more about his friendship with Kujou than he does about the demon king's orders!), and even a bit of Taiki/Rebun semi romance. It feels weird saying this, since Rebun is basically a cat, but I totally ship her and Taiki.

All in all, I wouldn't say this is a great series, but I'm enjoying it so far. Here's hoping for more adorable animals and sweet Taiki moments.

Extras:

The beginning of the volume has a character list and a "story thus far" section. At the end, there is a one-page postscript manga created by the author.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

This was stupid. But also kind of fun. I'm having trouble understanding how Takashima managed to squeeze five volumes out of the premise, though. Since I own the whole series, I guess I'll get to find out.

Kaito, the prince of the demon realm, desperately does not want to marry his fiancee. He has hated her ever since she stood by while his beloved kitty Rebun almost drowned. Kaito opted to escape his impending marriage by traveling to the human world, where he ended up in a smaller, slighter human body, while Rebun ended up in the body of a full-grown human woman.

Kaito, now going by the name Kujou, isn't completely free yet, however. His father has sent three demons, Touma, Souya, and Taiki, after him. It's a good thing that they're mostly idiots. Souya has the hots for Haga, the school nurse, not realizing that she's actually Rebun, and Taiki is best friends with Kujou and thinks he's 100% human. Touma is smart enough to suspect Kujou's true identity, but the only way the three can know for sure that they've found their target is if Kujou has the prince's tattoo on his back. This, of course, means that they need to somehow strip his shirt off.

That's what this entire volume was devoted to: people trying to strip Kujou's shirt off and failing, mostly because Taiki was not very bright and was super-protective of his friend. And also because Rebun was awesome and one of the series' few intelligent characters. I loved Rebun. She took no crap from anyone, had no problems with using Taiki as a weapon, and was adorable in her kitty form.

I'd probably have liked this volume more if it hadn't been so hard to follow sometimes. The artwork and text placement were occasionally confusing. For example, I thought Zezelle, Kaito's nanny, was actually Taiki. It took me a bit to realize that 1) she was a completely different character (although there were indications that the similarity was intentional) and 2) she was actually a woman. That was also when I realized that an earlier scene, in which Kujou asked out a burly member of the girls' judo club, was not a joke about Kujou accidentally asking out the wrong person, but rather a joke that played on readers' expectations about who he was attracted to.

This series is going to get old fast if the jokes keep relying on “the idiots failed to take Kujou's shirt off” and misunderstandings about Kujou and Taiki's sexuality (several students assume they're a gay couple, which didn't stop one girl from aggressively pursuing Taiki). Still, for now it's an okay series, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of Rebun.

Extras:

Two four-panel gag comics, a four-page comic-style afterword by the author, and four pages of rough sketches of the characters from back when the series was in its planning stages.

The original plan for Rebun's cat form was even more adorable than what Takashima finally settled on. Also, it sounded like Takashima pieced jokes and details together on the fly, which may explain why the story is so crazy. That, and she went through at least three editors during the course of the series.

Rating Note:

I was torn on what rating to use. I liked Rebun a lot, but this really was fairly stupid. I decided to give it 3 stars (C grade) rather than 3.5 stars (C+) because I doubt I'd be reading more than this first volume if I didn't already own the rest of the series.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)