Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World Volume 3 Review
Nicola no Oyururi Makai Kikou
ニコラのおゆるり魔界紀行

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I’m so glad I found out about this delightful manga series. It really leaves me with a good feeling whenever I read it. Fortunately, Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World Volume 3 has more of the good feels, but also has some plot progression as well.

The Story, in Brief

Simon and Nicola attend a formal auction with Count Prime and his daughter, Rosetta. Nicola and Rosetta to go exploring and stumble on a plot to hijack the auction. When Nicola gets in trouble with the villains, Rosetta unleashes her fury with her doll, Mary. Next, Nicola and Simon’s first meeting is documented.

Simon feels he’s being cursed with bad luck. Unfortunately, every good luck charm he buys from fortune tellers make matters worse. Nicola arranges to disguise herself as a fortune teller to help Simon. He sees through her guise, but appreciates the gesture. Before they leave the town, a medium tempts Nicola with his claims to contact the dead. Simon allows Nicola to engage the medium, who provides messages from her dead father and grandmother. But the medium says Nicola’s mom is alive.

Simon attempts to suck up to an information broker named Kuster Gorgon. Kuster is not impressed, forcing Simon to adopt some of Nicola’s determination. As a result, Kuster rewards Simon’s efforts by giving him info on a hidden human village in Makai. However, it is protected by a powerful monster.

Simon hires a warrior and buys armor for everyone. The snake monster causes the guard to flee, but Bruno shows up to help. He agrees to become their new guard. The snake monster turns out to be the tail of a giant spider monster. Bruno is not able to defeat it, but the group comes up with a plan to flip the spider on its back. The plan succeeds, causing the spider to become small. It flees, leading the group to a village.

A Lovely Reunion

I love Nicola’s friendship with Rosetta. It is clear that Rosetta is an ojousama character who’s lonely. Her only other friend is her doll Mary (Marie). So naturally, she’d be happy to see Nicola. And for Nicola, Rosetta is roughly her age, so the friendship works quite well.

There’s an interesting dichotomy in both Rosetta and Nicola. For Nicola, she gets scared when she thinks Rosetta is making the doll Mary say things in a sinister way. But when faced with actual danger, Nicola is as quick thinking as she is quick on her feet. She overcomes her fears and looks out for her friends/companions.

Rosetta’s fears are natural and understandable. Bad guys are around and she’s afraid. But she takes courage (at minimum) from Mary and goes NUTS on the baddies who were about to harm Nicola. So Nicola and Rosetta are a good team.

As to Mary, I think she’s a living entity. I base this on the fact that Miyanaga-sensei shows the doll grinning at one point, then winking in another. And it is possible that Mary possesses Rosetta for brief periods of time, giving Rosetta that amazing power boost. Hopefully, this gets explored more in the future.

Nicola’s Quest

I like how Miyanaga-sensei is advancing Nicola’s story in Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World Volume 3. Sensei took a short chapter to reveal how Simon found Nicola. I’m glad we’ve been given the full story on how Nicola ended up in Makai. And, it is fun to see how Nicola changed from being somewhat timid in a strange new world to someone who’s full of life and loving a new adventure.

I enjoyed seeing Nicola’s influence on Simon. Nicola is the one who becomes determined and doesn’t let obstacles prevent her from reaching her objective. As such, Simon used that same determination to gain information to help Nicola. It was a lovely moment.

We also learned a bit more about Nicola’s dad and grandmother since the medium was able to commune with both deceased people. Hopefully, Nicola’s mom is alive. Finding her has become Nicola’s quest.

Finally, I loved seeing Bruno return. I always appreciate previous characters making returns to stories.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Let me wrap up my review of Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World Volume 3 with some final thoughts.

• The final chapter of the manga is all 2-page short manga tales. I don’t know if this was done just for the volume, or if one month, Sensei decided to just release these shorts. Nevertheless, they do provide some nice slice-of-life moments for Simon and Nicola.
• As before, no Japanese honorifics are retained. As I’ve stated before, while I would prefer they be left in (’cause why couldn’t a world of monsters and demons use Japanese honorifics?), I’m not going to complain in this instance.

In the end, Nicola Traveling Around the Demon’s World Volume 3 is a lovely addition to the series. I like how the manga is shifting to serial story telling, at least for the moment. Volume 4 won’t come out until the end of June 2021 (at the earliest), but I can’t wait to get my hands on it.