Uchi no Ko no Tame naraba, Ore wa Moshikashitara Maou mo Taoseru kamo Shirenai.
If It's for My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat a Demon Lord

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*Warning: my grammar is pretty bad.*
"Ew, why are you marrying your daughter?" maybe many people said that after hearing what happened in this series, or maybe guessed it just from the title.
Age-gap relationship is something many people thought as crazy, but you must've heard how some rich old man somehow married an adult woman 10+ years younger than the guy in real life, or maybe the reverse. Well, things happen in real life, crazy or not.

But in this series, you can just turn blind eye to the age gap as how adorable (shy girl template) Latina is growing and her geunine feelings to her savior--Dale. ... What surprised me is, the title didn't really last long (even so, I can't think of another titles that can represent the story). When it happens, it comes so sudden and fast.


Story: (7)
The anime adapted up to 30% of vol 3.
Time is the main trouble for this series. I don't mind the time skips, but I hate when they had slice of life whatever flashback insert after Latina grew so big. I want to enjoy the present Latina I'm currently reading, not getting back to the past to read a random SoL moment.
Vol 5 still had the best writing imo. Vol 8 is second best written.


Art: (8)
As light novel art, I prefer Kei's art. The art evolves each time, and vol 8 had the best arts.


Ending: (8)
It wraps up nicely at vol 8, hits the readers about "living a different time".
Vol 9 contains some after vol 8 wedding, but it is mostly extra contents from the past of the characters.
Latina's parents whole story was explained in vol 6, but of course you need to know vol 1-5 main events.

If you’re coming here after watching the anime hoping for more of the same, I’ll unfortunately have to disappoint you – the whole best part was already adapted, and it only goes downhill from there. For this title, I will have to describe some major spoilers outright, you’ve been warned.

So, let’s take a look at how Uchi no Musume went the way of usagi.

Well, the first two or so volumes are quit entertaining. Here’s where the innocent wholesomeness concentrates in, the tale of adoptive child and a caring father. There are some faults even there of course – first, I would have preferred it if ... more time was given to exploring the language barrier between Latina and the humans. It’s something that’s rarely explored to much depth even in settings where multiple languages coexist. Here too unfortunately Latina becomes practically fluent within few pages, making the language more of an offhand worldbuilding narrative and minor inconvenience than an actual plotpoint. Secondly, too soon is Latina’s design as a demon abandoned. While I understand that breaking off her remaining horn was intended as an emotional impact, it was all too rushed to throw away Latina’s one distinct visual feature and demoting her to just a regular moe girl. In both of the cases, author rushes the story too fast, which ultimately resulted in the the more entertaining part being the shortest with the less entertaining rest being way too lengthy with not many points of interest.

To get to the elephant in the room, the breaking point from which everything went downhill is the point where author decided not only to timeskip the childhood into an adolescence, but also to change the series from one about parenting to one about romance. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposing this choice from moral reasons. It is a fiction and although some would consider this development immoral, that doesn’t change the quality of the story itself. Also, at this point they are adult and it’s actually Dale who continuously refuses to see Latina in any other way than his daughter, Latina being the one pushing for the romance. The problem lies elsewhere – it’s simply a boring development. Romance plots are dime a dozen, even with the incest flavour. Parenting stories are much less common and Uchi no Musume had a good start for actually touching and meaningful one, all thrown away for a generic plot. This novel’s sin therefore is not a lack of a morality, but a lack of an entertainment.

Talking more about the plot, the twist that Latina is too a demon lord was also extremely predictable, you could guess it from 3rd or so volume simply based on how overwhelming majority of demon culture infodump related to the characters was about demon lords, not much about any other aspects of demon society. Latina being a sort of “chosen one” too is a cliché twists that makes the plot less interesting, not more, than if she was simply a regular demon, albeit a bit more talented at magic.

Overall, it’s still an alright read – it’s not great, but it also doesn’t devolve into terrible. It simply makes the reader less and less interested into what is happening.

When you've grown tired of killing, taking care of a beautiful little girl can heal the soul and bring happiness to your life. (Warning: this is a age-gap love story, you have been warned. Usagi Drop all over again)

Good (early) story: Dale stumbles upon a little demon girl, and decides to let her live with him. The idea of a human taking care of a demon when they are generally looked down upon really is an interesting premise and it gives this story a different feeling than most fantasy novels I've read. But it is more of a romantic story than the title implies. There ... is also a really slow start, so do not expect much action, adventures or anything else early on. (I liked the calm atmosphere though)

Mediocre Characters: The personalities are not very unique, it's actually a let down compared to the story. The shy little girl whom everyone adores. The overprotective older man with a dark past. As well as friendly Inn owners that doesn't stand out. It's all been done before, but I can't say I dislike anyone of them.

Art: It's not a very big part of light novels, but the art is really beautiful in this one. Latina is adorable, Dale is quite handsome and the pictures are perfectly portraying that. Absolutely among the top illustrations I've seen in light novels.

Overall, There are many time skips, so the girl's age is always changing, it's a shame that the author rushed the story so much. But if you do not mind age progression, then the story is very interesting. But that title really should be changed, since Latina is not considered a daughter for very long.