A one-panel webcomic created by Vincent Grisanti.
Reiko Mouryou is a typical 6-year-old girl. Except she's a demon. A very violent, darkly sarcastic little demon girl. She lives with her three sisters: Shihoka, whose eyes are always hidden behind a pair of sunglasses; Shirabe, a serial dater (and date killer), and Shinobu, a tomboy ninja. Along with her pet crocodile, Lucy (short for Lucifer), imposing Yakuza father, Mitsugu and elegant but gun toting mother, Fumiko, they live a typical family life. By that, we mean that people frequently meet a violent end.
Featured on Grisanti's Web site Tainted Ink.com
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This webcomic provides examples of:
- A Love to Dismember: In this panel.
- Art Evolution: Reiko has evolved slightly since the comic began. Noticeably, her face became rounder, and she lost a pair of worn looking lines under her eyes.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Mitsugu.
- Beyond the Impossible: Most of the hijinks related to Zeni and Nadi. Putting siblings on opposite teams in baseball is fine, but when the siblings in question are conjoined twins?
- Big Sister Instinct : When she sees Reiko getting repeatedly pelted by snowballs, Shinobu deals with it like you'd expect. As in, she stabs the girl throwing them through the back with her sword.Shinobu: Don't fuck with my sister, bitch.
- Black Comedy: Oh boy, is it ever!
- Black Widow : A date with Shirabe is 99% guaranteed to end in brutal death.
- Blatant Lies: I didn't do it.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!: Fumiko's 24K Gold Desert Eagle.
- Blood Bath: "It's great for your skin."
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick "Reiko broke my dolly/dinosaur/arms and legs".
- Chess with Death: He apparently always wins too.
- Continuity Nod:
- This panel, featuring Shinobu skateboarding in the house, is followed up by her punishment for it two strips later.
- Remember Shinobu saying she wanted to wean her Guinea Pig off of vegetables, and onto human flesh? It worked.
- After receiving the gold Desert Eagle, Fumiko uses it whenever the comic calls for her to be using a gun.
- This panel
- Creepy Child: Reiko, without a doubt, between her cold demeanor, dead look in red eyes, and how brazen she is about killing people. Somewhat justified, as she's a demon, so she's normal by demon kid standards.
- Cupid's Arrow: With predictably lethal results.
- Daddy's Girl: Reiko is on very good terms with her father.
- Deadpan Snarker: Reiko mostly, but others have their moments too.
- Death of a Child: Reiko treats maternity wards like candy shops, for God's sake.
- Deliberately Monochrome : The comic is done mostly in black and white, with red being the only color used. Grisanti briefly did color strips, but abandoned the concept later on.
- Dem Bones: Shirabe's friend, Bonny.
- Eats Babies: People generally talk about taking candy from a baby. To Reiko, there's no real difference between the two.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Every member of the Mouryou family except for Shirabe and Mitsugu.
- Eyes Always Shut: Reiko's mom Fumiko.
- Eye Scream: "Eyes on your own paper, Petey".
- Fire-Breathing Diner: The end result of chili dogs and onions day.
- Forgotten Anniversary: Averted. The gun mentioned under Bling-Bling-BANG! is an anniversary gift. Fumiko is appropriately pleased.
- Four Is Death: A recurring motif in the series. There are four sisters, all four years apart, a blushing Reiko is seen offering four roses to The Grim Reaper, and so on.
- Happily Married: Mitsugu and Fumiko. Assuming all four of their children were born in wedlock, they were married at least nineteen years ago, and they're still openly affectionate.
- Headless Horseman:
- Irving. Though he's too much of a Butt-Monkey to be a threat.
- Also his father, who at one point chews his son out for using an eggplant for a head.
- Hidden Eyes: Shihoka, whose eyes are concealed behind a pair of sunglasses.
- Horned Humanoid: All the Mouryou's have horns. Reiko's are hidden under her bangs.
- Kiddy Coveralls: Zeni and Nadi's Iconic Outfit is a pair of overalls uniquely designed to have four straps, two each containing their first initials.
- Kiss of Death: Parodied here.
- Limited Animation: Grisanti produced a few small animations of the comic. The animation was...thrifty, to put it nicely.
- Long Neck: Shihoka has a comically long neck, which is often the punchline of any panel starring her.
- Mama Bear: Fumiko.
- Meaningful Name:
- Reiko is a common Japanese name, but the kanji of her name is spelled atypically, reading as "Ghost Child."
- And her sisters all have names beginning with "shi"—which is a homophone for "death".
- Shinobu takes it one step further, as her name is very similar to shinobi(ninja).
- The two-headed girl's heads are Zenith and Nadir, which means "the highest point" and "the lowest point" respectively.
- Missing Mom: The comic went on for five years without even a mention of Reiko's mom, her whereabouts, or even whether she was alive. She finally appeared in 2010. Her excuse for the long absence? A fishing trip. With a dead whale to prove it.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: As demonstrated here.
- Multiple Head Case: Zenith (Zeni) and Nadir (Nadi) Tweeling.
- Noodle People: Pretty much everyone in the Mouryou family aside from Mitsugu. Justified with Shihoka, who seems to be at least partially based on a rokurokubi.
- Obliviously Evil: It's often hinted that the Mouryou family isn't so much intentionally malevolent as they just consider random murder, mutilation, and torture a completely normal and reasonable way to deal with others. It's not completely consistent on this matter, though.
- Odd Name Out: Reiko is the only one of the Mouryou siblings, whose name doesn't begin with "Shi-".
- Ouija Board: A handy tool for texting grandma.
- Pointy Ears: All the Mouryous.
- Police Are Useless: No smoking
- Precocious Crush: Reiko appears to have one...on The Grim Reaper of all people.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Reiko and Mitsugu.
- Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: A very borderline case. The comic started out as an extremely bleak Sadist Show with death and murder. Newer strips are still dark, but they revolve more around monster-related jokes with the family than Reiko's gruesome exploits.
- Sadist Comic: The comic centers around sadistc demons girls.
- Scary Teeth: Whenever her mouth is open wide enough, Reiko's wicked chompers are visible.
- Shout-Out: Shirabe apparently attends Gein High School.
- Slasher Smile: Shinobu's default expression.
- Tongue on the Flagpole:
- Demonstrated here, by Shinobu.
- Reiko pulls this on one of her classmates... during the summer. Amazing what Super Glue can do.
- Demonstrated here
- Too Dumb to Live: A large majority of Reiko's classmates.
- For two examples, they talk about how awesome and adorable Reiko's boa constrictor is after it's eaten them alive, and eagerly pay to get their picture taken with a "Santa" who's very obviously a vicious child-eating ogre of Japanese mythology, and actually has the lower body of a half-eaten child still dangling out of his mouth.
- Just about any human that appears, really. Considering the Mouryou family's body count, you'd think that people would learn to stay the hell away from them.
- For two examples, they talk about how awesome and adorable Reiko's boa constrictor
- Translation Convention: Fumiko is shown learning English in an ESL course in one strip, so the characters are likely supposed to be speaking Japanese, but the entire run of the comic is in English.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Par for the course, actually, by human standards that is. For demons, this is normal.
- Uncanny Valley Girl: Shirabe is a pastiche of the "popular girl in school" archetype, with the twist that she's also a Literal Maneater demon. Bonus points for being an actual Valley Girl.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Fumiko is the demon world version: a doting mother and House Wife whose hobbies include flower arranging, calligraphy, tea ceremony, katana wielding, drinking booze, and bounty hunting.
- Youkai:
- Uncle Kenzo is an oni.
- Shihoka appears to be a Rokurokubi, a long necked Japanese demon.
- Uncle Kenzo
- Yubitsume: Mitsugu appears to have undergone this. It's hinted elsewhere that it's just his wife's response to touching her cooking before it's ready to serve, though.
