Demon King Gets a Job Sexing Up Humans
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Warnings
Synopsis
Review
Results
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Tags:
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Warning:
There will be spoilers for the manhwa series The Secret Life of the Demon King.
Content Warning: There may be references to BDSM (including impact and breath play), mentions of war, dubcon/noncon, voyeurism, animal death, drugging, blood, violence, power imbalance, slut-shaming, excessive drinking, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of corruption, police, mentions of human trafficking, sexual assault, mentions of gambling, cheating (not between the main couple), sexism, transphobia (including misgendering), manipulation, hetero sex (woman top), mentions of divorce, death, mentions of suicide, somnophilia, blood consumption, and pseudo-incest (guardian-like relationship), as they do appear in the manhwa.
Synopsis:
Hel is the king of Hell. Unfortunately, due to a war with the human kingdom, Hell itself has fallen into poverty. Hel is a kind ruler, so while his closest servants are willing to pay his way, he isn’t so keen on using any money he hasn’t earned himself. So, Hel goes out to the human kingdom to find a job. Hel would have a much easier time if he could read human language, but luck is on his side when he lands a well-paying job on his first try.
What the language barrier has hidden is that the job is none other than at a brothel, where human clients, especially those with kinkier tastes, come to find pleasure. Hel has no experience whatsoever on that front, and not even knowing what the job is, he is at a severe disadvantage. Thankfully, Hel is under the care of a man who refuses to reveal his name, going by Manager exclusively. This man is top-tier dom, and even though he is a human, he is perfectly capable of training and dominating the king of Hell himself.
Review:
Don’t let the cover fool you. This is as sketchy as they come. That isn’t so surprising, given the age of this manhwa, which came out in 2021. I initially read this one in 2022, and my memory of it was tainted with nostalgia. Having reread it now, after experiencing so many beautiful BL, it is hard to give this one any praise on the art front, even considering its age. Body proportions, sizes, faces, and much more are all inconsistent. Make it sketchy, too, and it is ugly a lot of the time. This is also old enough that it has weird censorship choices. Nowadays, uncensored releases are becoming more common for English releases, but even simple lightsabers are the limit when it comes to censorship. This has lightsabers, but even the head of a dildo is saber-fied, and the internal x-rays are blurred. I suspect it has a lot to do with the translator, as it isn’t a Lezhin translation (just hosted by Lezhin), but whether it is age, translator choice, or something else entirely, this is a rough one to look at.
Speaking of translation, this is a bad one. It is rare nowadays to find a poor-quality translation on Lezhin. Sure, there may be more typos than I’d like to see in official translations, but overall, Lezhin is pretty high quality. That makes this one all the more jarring. It comes off as an awkward old-school Google Translated fan translation, which I hate to see in a paid title. The phrasing is painful to read at times, and this goes beyond simple typos; it has just plain wrong grammar throughout the story. Add a bad font choice, and not only is this tough to look at art-wise, but it is hard to read, too. Very disappointing on so many quality fronts.
Quality aside, though, this has some things that many titles don’t, which might make it worth a read. This is heavy on the BDSM front, and while BDSM elements aren’t unique to BL in general, there are some things that we see here that are less common. Just to name a few, there is egg-laying, fisting, lots of emphasis on peeing, actual impact play that goes beyond crops or whips, and even fisting. There is even expansion training, which I have to admit I really enjoyed. Of course, with all this unique content, there is more for people to dislike, but there is also much more to experience and enjoy if you’re a fan. I enjoyed the variety, even when some of it didn’t necessarily align with my tastes.
While that is a positive, much of the fun of the smut is dampened by the sorry attempt at narrative. Part of what made this so successful was the simple foundation. Hel needs money and wants a job. He’s a big dummy and ends up working at a brothel, then has various types of sex with a variety of partners. That was all this needed. But then we have Arthur, aka Manager, and there is an attempt to give him a sad background. In a story that is nonsensical smut, having the manager suddenly bust in and tell a story about his lover killing himself is not only a jarring tone shift in the middle of all this smut, but it is wholly unnecessary. I know the intent was to give Arthur a reason why he felt compelled to keep Hel at a distance, but I think the professional relationship and his secret identity as a Champion, the demon king’s enemy, were plenty and wouldn’t have been nearly as horrible. Add in that it is resolved almost instantly toward the end, and it was not only jarring but made something very serious seem trivial. It was probably the thing I hated the most about this entire series.
Results:
This is for sure a miss for me. While it has a lot of unique BDSM scenarios we don’t usually see, the poor quality of the art, the translation, and even the storytelling were just too much for me to enjoy this. If you aren’t like me and can ignore these glaring issues, I’m sure there is plenty to enjoy. But I can’t in good conscience recommend this one as it stands. I have a great nostalgia for this series, but that can only do so much.
Have you read The Secret Life of the Demon King? If so, what do you think? Do you agree with my assessment? Do you not? Let me know, and comment below!
