YMMV / The Demon Girl Next Door

• Fan Nickname:
  • Because Yuko actually fits two tropes related to carpines - Gruesome Goat for her horns (plus a proclivity to eat almost anything), and Sweet Sheep for her personality - she's often referred to as "the Goat".
  • Fans also like to call the pre-Horned Humanoid Yuko "Yuuko"^note Which is the correct way to romanize her name, but the author prefers "Yuko".
• Fanon: Fans usually see the pre-Horned Humanoid Yuko as a girl who tries to be her best, but hampered by her poor health.
• Genius Bonus: Nobody can remember the name of the Whatever Staff, so Lilith suggests guessing names in alphabetical order. They guess various names, starting with 'A'. But the shape-shifting staff is obviously the staff of Aaron, first mentioned in the Book of Exodus. In other words, the minute they start guessing (Abyssal Staff! Animal Fat Staff!) they've already passed it alphabetically.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In chapter 60, Seiko says that Banda Terrace used to be a bustling place, but everybody "moved away." They were actually victims of Suika's genocide. Gets even harsher in chapter 89, where it's revealed that Anri had three siblings who were executed by Suika, and Anri can't even remember them due to the memory-alteration magic.
• Les Yay:
  • Yuko and Momo's relationship technically counts as them being enemies-turned-unexpected allies, however several scenarios between them have shown potential for being seen as more than friendly, especially on Momo's end as she gradually grows more fond of Yuko. Following a bit of a heart-to-heart in Episode 12, their relationship develops to the point of legit lesbian Foe Romance Subtext, with the only thing keeping it subtext being that there's no confirmation of actual romantic interest.
  • Once Momo's revealing "fallen" form is introduced, Yuko develops a strange obsession with touching Momo's exposed midriff or tugging at the string tying her skirt together to "see what happens", even though she knows full well it might expose Momo's underwear.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "It's Shamiko's fault."^ExplanationOr, in original, シャミ子が悪いんだよ. A line that probably comes from some Yuri Genre fanart where Momo makes out (as seme) with Yuko while saying this. For some reason this trended during the anime's run, to the point that entering "Shamiko" on Google would autocomplete to this.
  • Shamiko on a massage chair ^Explanation The noise that Yuko makes when she wakes up on a massage chair in Episode 4 has become memetic due to how adorable it sounds (even spawning a 10-hour loop video of her on the chair).
  • Cute Shamiko Noises. ^ExplanationThe anime goes out of its way to adapt as much of the manga as it can, including all the different noises and random interjections characters make in the background while others are talking. Yuko takes this the farthest, since she's the MC, where along with the massage chair example, she vocalizes every time she's putting in effort, every time she's freaking out, every time she's feeling happy, and more.
  • The Mad Libs Catchphrase of "Ganbare, Shamiko! Be the kind of demon who can [X]"^ExplanationFans have appropriated this with all sorts of variations of X, also referencing other characters or even themselves in place of Shamiko.
    "Ganbare, Shamiko. Carry this rewatch with the power of your expressions alone!" — From a reddit rewatch.
• Moe: Yuko and Momo are both very adorable.
• Nightmare Fuel: The majority of the story is fluffy and cute content about demons and magical girls, with the darkest it usually gets being emotional rather than horrifying, and the genuinely terrifying stuff being off-handedly mentioned and implied in the backstory. That all comes crashing down with the introduction of Suika Nayuta. She is a magical girl from Momo's past, except she perfectly exemplifies the darkest and worst aspects of them, such as seeing all demons as miserable souls whose only salvation is being slaughtered until every last one of them are gone, including those who have done nothing to hurt anybody and are innocently living their lives. She was also fully willing to beat the younger Momo into submission for getting in the way of her genocide plan, and all but lobotomizes both her familiar and Momo's with magic curses.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Seeing how frail Yuko was ten years ago in Chapter 36 broke more than a few readers' hearts, especially a frame where Seiko holds Yuko's heavily intubated little arm.
  • Chapter 89 reveals that Anri isn't actually the Token Human. She's distantly descended from a cow demon, which made her family a target of Suika's genocide. Her three siblings were all butchered, but the memory suppression magic prevents her family from even remembering they existed in the first place. They just keep subconsciously making enormous helpings of food and setting out extra plates at the table, and don't seem to realize what they're doing. However, they live on in Anri's dreams, where they implore Shamiko to protect their little sister from the truth so she doesn't cry.
• The Woobie:
  • Yuko. Prior to the start of the series she was near-constantly sick, requiring frequent hospital visits. While the story starts with her better, she's still almost completely hopeless when it comes to nearly everything, with every attempt she makes at being an opponent to Momo failing miserably. It's to the point where a common response from her when it comes to interactions with other people is crying out of fear and/or sadness.
  • Momo. For all her Magical Girl power, good grades, wealth and other advantages, Momo is terribly lonely, somewhat depressed, and her relatives are nowhere to be found.
  • Lilith. For all that she can be a bit of a jerk, you cannot help feeling sorry for her. She keeps getting beaten up or mocked, is less capable of coming up with evil plans than the local magical girl, and later chapters reveal that she was stuck in total isolation for 2000 years to the point she developed nyctophobia.
  • Everyone, really. Mikan's curse means she is unwilling to make friends with anyone who isn't crazy strong like Momo, for fear of endangering them. Yuko's mom has had to raise two young daughters on a ridiculously small monthly budget, and she's not past occasionally breaking down. However, a major point of the manga is that Yuko's presence makes all these characters' lives better.
• Woolseyism:
  • The anime translates ブチ殺す (Buchikorosu) as 'murderize', as in "It's my destiny to find and murderize a Magical Girl". The suffix "-ize" serves to convert any word into a verb, e.g., "normalize" means to make something normal. But "murder" is already a verb, so "murderize" is slightly ungrammatical. The net result is to make it sound cute, whereas the actual translation of Buchikorosu (to kill by hitting) is too brutal-sounding, and it would feel out of character for Shamiko to say it.
  • In chapter 30, Shamiko uses the English loanword trauma — pronounced "tora-uma" — to describe the old factory, which is accompanied by an Imagine Spot of tigers ("tora") and horses ("uma") rolling off an assembly line. But HiDive translated it as "a place of CATastropic nightMAREs!" and labeled all the boxes as "cat" and "mare" instead.