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scans_dailyEver wondered how a magical girl series written by Garth Ennis would look like? Look no further.
Warning: I will talk about death and sexual violence against teenagers a lot, as well as incest and violence against animals. Also, spoilers to the ending of the manga. Seriously, this series required ALL the trigger warnings on Scans Daily, proceed with the utmost caution.
To say that the life of Aya Asagiri sucks is an understatement. She is both viciously bullied at school and abused by her older brother at home, with implication that the abuse sometimes turns sexual. And her father would be the worst person in the world if all those villains didn’t exist. One day, Aya finds her kitten murdered by her bullies and later finds a gun in her locker. If it was a realistic story, it would be much shorter. However, it’s a tale of magical girls, so when cornered by bullies dead set on violating her, she shoots then with the gift. It kills them, but by transporting them just in front of a speeding train, thus making it impossible to link her to the crime. However, a surviving bully is certain it’s Aya’s fault and attempts to murder her, but Aya is saved by a girl who can stop time, Yatsumura Tsuyuno. The two discuss the origin of their magical gadgets, face a magical girl killer, discover the titular website with a mysterious counter, befriend other magical girls and fall in love.
When described that way, the story doesn’t seem too bad, right? Unfortunately, not. The narration takes delight in raining suffering on its female characters, magical girls and bystanders alike, most of it of sexual nature – to the point that the narration of the final battle gets stoppen in its tracks to show that a character’s mother was randomly gang raped in prison. It gets really repetitive – a girl gets terribly hurt by a violent, crazy man, thus making her susceptible to become a magical girl. It is best seen in the finale, where a perfect world free of suffering is created by… police officers being at right places at right time. That’s literally it. Furthermore, in the whole manga there are only two male characters who are neither abusers nor rapists, and those are a man avaiting death penalty for multiple murders he DID commit (it’s complicated) and a boy who sexually harrasses the girl he has a crush on. That unfortunately includes the handful of gay men in the story, including a terribly racist portrayal of a Black gay bear. Why do you hate men, author, aren’t you one?
Also, a suicidal girl now can heal others (but not self) by having them drink the blood from where she cuts herself. What the FUCK.
As the story goes on it becomes needlessly complicated and sometime after the first of the many time skips the readers are bound to realize that the author has no idea how to end it. It was never particularly well written, but the narrative in the last few volumes is simply awful, to the point that I didn’t care at all about the happy ending. Furthermore, last second reveal about the gender and magic undermined the volumes of positive portrayal of a transgender magical girl and is downright insulting to male rape victims. Even the main characters returning to life and continuing dating is kinda icky when you remember they are twins, of which only Aya is aware.
So, that’s it. Don’t read the manga, its few redeeming qualities aren’t worth it. If you are curious about the transgender magical girl and the romance between the protagonists, you can watch the anime – it has an original ending taking place right when the quality of the manga goes sharply downhill, and it’s honestly pretty cool. It still has gratitous violence and mysery porn, though.
For something more light hearted, below are some pages from Aya and Yatsumura’s first date in chapter 54, volume 8.
It would have been such a good chapter had it not started with gore...
Warning: I will talk about death and sexual violence against teenagers a lot, as well as incest and violence against animals. Also, spoilers to the ending of the manga. Seriously, this series required ALL the trigger warnings on Scans Daily, proceed with the utmost caution.
To say that the life of Aya Asagiri sucks is an understatement. She is both viciously bullied at school and abused by her older brother at home, with implication that the abuse sometimes turns sexual. And her father would be the worst person in the world if all those villains didn’t exist. One day, Aya finds her kitten murdered by her bullies and later finds a gun in her locker. If it was a realistic story, it would be much shorter. However, it’s a tale of magical girls, so when cornered by bullies dead set on violating her, she shoots then with the gift. It kills them, but by transporting them just in front of a speeding train, thus making it impossible to link her to the crime. However, a surviving bully is certain it’s Aya’s fault and attempts to murder her, but Aya is saved by a girl who can stop time, Yatsumura Tsuyuno. The two discuss the origin of their magical gadgets, face a magical girl killer, discover the titular website with a mysterious counter, befriend other magical girls and fall in love.
When described that way, the story doesn’t seem too bad, right? Unfortunately, not. The narration takes delight in raining suffering on its female characters, magical girls and bystanders alike, most of it of sexual nature – to the point that the narration of the final battle gets stoppen in its tracks to show that a character’s mother was randomly gang raped in prison. It gets really repetitive – a girl gets terribly hurt by a violent, crazy man, thus making her susceptible to become a magical girl. It is best seen in the finale, where a perfect world free of suffering is created by… police officers being at right places at right time. That’s literally it. Furthermore, in the whole manga there are only two male characters who are neither abusers nor rapists, and those are a man avaiting death penalty for multiple murders he DID commit (it’s complicated) and a boy who sexually harrasses the girl he has a crush on. That unfortunately includes the handful of gay men in the story, including a terribly racist portrayal of a Black gay bear. Why do you hate men, author, aren’t you one?
Also, a suicidal girl now can heal others (but not self) by having them drink the blood from where she cuts herself. What the FUCK.
As the story goes on it becomes needlessly complicated and sometime after the first of the many time skips the readers are bound to realize that the author has no idea how to end it. It was never particularly well written, but the narrative in the last few volumes is simply awful, to the point that I didn’t care at all about the happy ending. Furthermore, last second reveal about the gender and magic undermined the volumes of positive portrayal of a transgender magical girl and is downright insulting to male rape victims. Even the main characters returning to life and continuing dating is kinda icky when you remember they are twins, of which only Aya is aware.
So, that’s it. Don’t read the manga, its few redeeming qualities aren’t worth it. If you are curious about the transgender magical girl and the romance between the protagonists, you can watch the anime – it has an original ending taking place right when the quality of the manga goes sharply downhill, and it’s honestly pretty cool. It still has gratitous violence and mysery porn, though.
For something more light hearted, below are some pages from Aya and Yatsumura’s first date in chapter 54, volume 8.
It would have been such a good chapter had it not started with gore...
Tags:
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:09 am (UTC)A lot of the concepts feels like they could have been interesting if handled by well... someone who had an idea of what to do about it. Like, Mohiro Kitoh is also a misery-porn bordering on torture writer, but he usually tends to at least have a vague point about human evil or something.
Doesent help that it was in the middle of a post-Madoka "gritty magical girl" shows. (often agian with "vaguely interesting concepts", the one that was basically "Magical GIrls as PTSD-prone war survivors" had an interesting concept but ended up just being badly written, f.ex.)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 11:07 am (UTC)Also, Ange is what tabletop afficionados tends to call "A PC", the scene where she breaks the cup is just great. As is the scene where she stabs embryo, it doesent work, so she tries stabbing him again (doesent work either but it takes him more work to get out of it) its pretty great.
EDIT: I think what makes Cross Ange works while this one doesent is A) Mizuki Nana obviously having the time of her life and B) The show having its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Cross Ange is ludicrous and it leans into that in a way these shows dont.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 01:58 pm (UTC)Sold!
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Date: 2021-06-11 04:01 pm (UTC)https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BPUAAOSwxFZevv2C/s-l640.jpg
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Date: 2021-06-11 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 07:02 pm (UTC)Like Madoka did poke a bit at the entire "cutesy mascot might be sinister" thing, and a bit at the "Why young girls specifically?" what I would like to see (and what I hoped Spec Ops Magical Girl Asuka would be) would have been more of something about the concept of the retired magical girl, someone who used to do this thing in her tweens/early teens and who is now grown up, and what that does. Could be used for all sorts of interesting things.
Except it became a gorefest with psycho lesbians and juvenile attempts at international intrigue.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 07:58 pm (UTC)It's just the topic of superheroes that causes his brain cells to cannibalise each other.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 08:03 pm (UTC)I'm still undecided about Magical Girl Boy. That one could theoretically be considered offensive for its use of man in a dress for humor, but within the series itself nobody really bats an eye at it and automatically accepts the hero without question. And I LOVED the joke where a female character declares her affection for a girl, the girl does the usual "but maybe she means that we are really close friends, like sisters!" interpretation that publishers always use for plausible deniability, and the character immediately responds "no, I want to fuck."
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Date: 2021-06-11 08:21 pm (UTC)But yes, Tutu is fantastic, though it's less a deconstruction of magical girls than it is about storytelling in general.
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Date: 2021-06-11 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 08:41 pm (UTC)What was that one show where the magical girl gets hit by a car halfway through and (I think) hallucinates the rest of the show? Was that Princess Tutu or was that something else?
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Date: 2021-06-11 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 08:50 pm (UTC)When everything becomes a deconstruction or a subversion, there ends up nothing left to take apart and so the stuff that was originally being deconstructed or subverted loops back around to becoming refreshing (and even subversive thatself in how straight that might play things).
no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:02 pm (UTC)I don't think subversion and deconstruction are quite the same things, a subversion is basically rooted entirely in taking a genre expectation and doing something else with it, while a deconstruction is all about looking at the assumptions baked into something and thinking about them.
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Date: 2021-06-11 10:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:12 pm (UTC)But it is also a show I cannot recommend to anyone.
As mentioned, it's edgy, often gratuitously, it's relentlessly horny in a fairly unpleasant way, it constantly makes plot twists seemingly just for the sake of Drama. It has a running gag where the male love interest keeps falling face-first into the female main characters crotch. There is so much rape, actual and metaphorical. It's sometimes straight up nonsense (what the hell was that flashback with Ange and Salamandine?) Characters literally die only to show up alive with a "oh, i was wearing flak jacket underneath"
But it also... Kind of rocks? Ange as a character ends up as a refreshing asshole in a way that female characters are very rarely allowed to be. She repeatedly Does Not Give A Shit. She learns (after a lot of humiliation, much of it sexual) that the best way to deal with things is stabbing shit, and if that doesen't work, try to stab it in a different way. The villain is literally the patriarchy (like, seriously) it manages to do surprising things with side-characters you thought were throwaway (the three flunkies of the Mean Girl in the opening Women in Prison segment ends up having a pretty reocurring storyline and their romantic and sexual relationship is actually important, thematically and plot-wise) it has weird-ass music, it has some dope mecha-on-dragon action.
And it has it's tongue firmly planted in cheek (the post-credits "in next epiosode" recaps are hilarious, usually involving the cast talking about how bullshit the show is, including the incredibly lame revelation of why the show is called "Cross Ange" ("Because Ange is always cross")
by no rights should it work, and it's definitely not something I can in good faith recommend to anyone, yet I kind of love it.
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Date: 2021-06-11 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-11 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 12:16 am (UTC)*I mean honestly I'd rather watch Madoka again than read DKR but that's just me.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 12:56 am (UTC)But I'm not going to defend either. I'm also not watching the second season. I....will go digging in yuri mangas if I want more cute lesbian romance.
no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 01:03 am (UTC)Magic Girl Pretty Bell - starts off with cute magical girl mascots looking for their next hero and somehow end up with a girls 35 yr old body building neighbor instead. He sort of intervenes - decides fighting demons isn't for little girls - and shit just rolls downhill from there.
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Date: 2021-06-12 03:05 am (UTC)And Madoka is excellent. One of my favourite stories period.
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Date: 2021-06-12 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-12 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 12:53 pm (UTC)In Tutu, the heroine learns that she was never truly in love with the hero, she had mistaken a good person's compassion towards a victim in need for love. Similarly, the hero's apparent preference for Tutu turned out to be his longing for his missing heart pieces, and once he was whole again he realised that he was in love with the Rival, who had been by his side all along.
That is most definitely a deconstruction of the Power Of (Romantic) Love trope that is the very foundation of the typical magical girl story.
Furthermore, in the end Tutu stays a duck. A perfectly normal duck. The whole point of magical girls is that some girls are special despite their supposedly (aka Informed Ability) being average. But here the special girl is quite literally an animal. I definitely count that as a deconstruction (possibly a subversion).
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Date: 2021-06-13 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-06-13 07:00 pm (UTC)