【Samon the Summoner】Super-wacky super-natural manga series by Numa Shun!!

Samon-kun wa Summoner (literally translated as Samon the Summoner) is a supernatural comedy manga series written and illustrated by Numa Shun. It was serialized from 2015 to 2017 in Weekly Shonen Jump by Shueisha, with a total of 10 volumes.

The series was part of the JUMP START initiative, a promotional program for the English version of Weekly Shonen Jump, where the first three chapters of a series get a chance to be showcased and read for free in English.

The story follows Teshigawara Sakura, a high school student with an angelic personality who is often praised and idolized by her peers; and Samon Shosuke, a new transfer student with the ability to summon demons. Samon with his twisted personality and supernatural power relentlessly tries to corrupt Sakura into showing her true self.

At the start of Samon the Summoner, a high school girl named Teshigawara Sakura was worried and concerned for her class’s newest transfer student. He wasn’t fitting in with his peers and was completely isolated by the rest of the class. The reason for that was his intense self-introduction when he first showed up.

“I’m Samon Shosuke, I’m a summoner. My hobby is summoning demons”, was how he introduced himself on his first day. Coupled that with his different colored eyes and unusual outfit, Samon was what people would describe as a person with “middle-school syndrome”.

In Japan, “middle-school syndrome” is a common term used to described teenagers during their years of middle school, playing make-believe that they have supernatural power in their daily lives.

However, Samon was already in high school. Naturally, his classmates would never want to be caught in his childish play and rather focus on their studying. There was only one person would concern themselves with Samon and that was Sakura – the class representative.

Sakura was trying to help Samon by suggesting him to join a club or create one to find friends with similar interests. Seeing that, her classmates began to praise her, calling Sakura by nicknames such as Buddha Teshi, Angel or Bodhisattva.

Sakura got these “holy” nicknames during her class’s field trip the year before. She was sitting next to Gero on the bus, who had a severe case of motion sickness. When Gero couldn’t hold it in and puked, Sakura reacted and caught it with her hands. While everyone was panicking, Sakura asked if Gero was okay. This touched the hearts of everyone on that bus, especially the boys.

However, instead of falling for Sakura like normal, the boys started to worship her as a religious figure. Ever since then, Sakura had been enduring what she called “angelic teasing”.

After hearing the story, Samon’s attitude towards Sakura began to change. He started to talk to her more, telling Sakura that she was a good person every now and then.

One day, Samon asked Sakura to meet him on the school rooftop alone, which was a popular spot for love confessions. Flustered by this sudden request, Sakura went to meet Samon with her heart pounding through her chest.

When their eyes finally met, Samon casually told Sakura with his usual smiling face that, “I hate you so much”.

Sakura was completely frozen and speechless. It was not the confession she was prepared for. Samon kept on pointing out what he hated about Sakura. He thought she was a hypocrite and was really annoyed by her blatant display of kindness.

Sakura looked down at where she was standing, to the direction of Samon’s pointing finger. There was some sort of a magic circle drawn there. Samon suddenly chanted an incantation and a demon really appeared – a real demon emerged from the magic circle and started to haunt Sakura!

A few days later, Sakura was seen running late for school. Behind her was Bushyasta, the sloth demon with the ability to make people lazy that Samon summoned. She was the reason why Sakura had been feeling abnormally tired in the morning and was often late to school. At lunch, Samon summoned another demon named Behemoth with an elephant head. This gluttony demon tempted Sakura into eating the biggest lunch-set so she would get fat.

All of this were parts of Samon’s plan to make Sakura reveal her true desires and become self-destructive. Meeting Sakura’s resistance, Samon kept his signature smile while drawing yet another magic circle onto a piece of paper.

This time, he summoned a will-o-wisp. With a flick of Samon’s finger, the will-o-wisp flew like a bullet towards Sakura and exploded. That was Samon’s way of saying Sakura had no way out of his grips.

Sakura found herself in a pinch but she also realized something else about Samon. When Samon was with his demons, he seemed to have a lot more fun; and for Sakura, that was a small victory.

While the two were walking, Sakura met a strange demon in the hallway. This time, it was not a demon summoned by Samon and it started to attack Sakura.

Samon explained that it was very common for demons coming to attack him. Since he summoned high-class demons on a daily basis without much care for the consequences, parts of the demon community had grown to hate him.

Thinking that Samon had all kind of tricks, Sakura pointed at the demon and told him to vanquish it. “Sorry, I’ll pass for now”, Samon briefly replied and walked away, leaving Sakura to her fate.

While Sakura’s life was flashing before her eyes, another explosion flashed in the demon’s face. Samon came back with his magic circles. He had gone to the library to photocopy a hundred will-o-wisps. At his command, a barrage of flame bullets fired at the demon and extinguished it, thus saving Sakura’s life.

“I won’t let you die Teshigawara, until you become the worst and terrible”, said Samon, with a usual smile on his face. From that point onward, it was the story of Sakura’s descent into hell.