The Kyo Kara Maoh! light novel, anime, and manga series features a cast of characters created by Tomo Takabayashi and Temari Matsumoto. The story mainly takes place in an alternate world, in a country called . Yuri Shibuya, a Japanese high school student from Earth, travels between this other world and Earth by coming in contact with water. On Yuri's first visit to the other world he is informed he is the king of The Great Demon Kingdom.
The Demon Kingdom is split into 11 different sections. One section is ruled over directly by the king and each of the rest are ruled over by one of the ten noble families of The Demon Kingdom (Christ, Voltaire, Grantz, Bielefelt, Karbelnikoff, Wincott, Spitzweg, Gyllenhaal, Rochefort, and Radford). "Von" comes before the surname of anyone who is a member of one of the noble families.
The Original King's era took place 4000 years before the present storyline. Volume 1 was released December 26, 2005 in Japan.
Genres
Comedy, Fantasy
Main characters
Yuri Shibuya
is the protagonist of the story. He was born in the United States and grew up in Saitama, Japan. He is a high school student who enjoys baseball more than textbooks. The kanji Yuri's parents chose for his name means profitable, so people make fun of him by saying (roughly translated meaning "If Shibuya is profitable, then Harajuku is unprofitable"). His mother insists that he is named Yuri because he was born in July and has nothing to do with money or the fact his father is a banker. In the English dub, this became the pun "Yuri is short for urine." He later finds out that Conrad inspired his mother to use the name since while she was in labor, he said that July is called "Yūri" where he comes from.
When Yuri first arrives in The Demon Kingdom, he is told that he is the 27th King of the Demons. Throughout the series, he strives to create a world in which demons and humans can live together in peace, something that progresses slowly but surely as the series goes on.
Yuri easily gets caught up in his emotions, to the point he loses control of himself. He is quick to anger, and cannot stop himself; when he is angry, sad, or feels a strong emotion, his powers emerge. Fans call this condition "Maoh mode" (literally, , and as Yuri is a huge fan of Japanese period drama, his speech becomes similar to expressions from that genre. In the novel, there is no note of his appearance changing, while in the manga and anime his eyes become thinner and his hair may grow longer.
At the beginning of the series, Yuri could access his magic only at the height of his emotions. He would usually pass out after using his powers, only to wake up later and not remember what happened. Later on in the series, Yuri learns to control his abilities, summoning powerful magic even in human lands, while most demons can only perform limited magic outside their country. He is unaffected in houseki-filled areas and can wield magic in those spaces, even while full-blooded demons have difficulty standing or breathing. Yuri has a contract with water and uses his magic to alter it into various monster-like forms, notably water dragons. He has also been known to make other messy magical "creatures" from mud, food scraps, etc., much to the horror of the other demons and everyone else.
Due to a misunderstanding, Yuri ends up engaged to Wolfram von Bielefeld on first meeting. Wolfram, angry at the idea that the half-human Yuri is supposedly the king, insults his mother for being human. In anger, Yuri slaps him: the etiquette of the demon nobility dictates that a slap on the left cheek is the way to propose marriage. Wolfram considers this insulting, so he challenges Yuri to a duel by throwing his knife on the floor. Yuri mistakenly picks it up, unaware he accepted Wolfram's challenge again because he is unknowledgeable in the local culture.