sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
soph ([personal profile] sophia_sol) wrote2023-04-17 11:19 pm

Magical Boy, Volume 1, by The Kao

This is the first ever magical girl story that I've read, as far as I can remember! though of course I've heard a lot about the genre.

In this comic, Max is a trans teen boy who comes from a long tradition of magical girls on his mother's side of the family. His mom is delighted to see the powers of the goddess Aurora being awakened in the next generation; meanwhile Max is horrified by the frilly dress and the expectation of ladylike grace.

But he can't ignore his magical powers because there's a threat he has to face! With the power of friendship, and of learning to stand up for who he is, Max is able to become the MAGICAL BOY!

It's a charming and delightful story and I enjoyed all the characters. The art is great at communicating feeling and motion, and at keeping all the characters distinct, though sometimes the speech bubbles were arranged in ways where I found it difficult to navigate what order to read them.

It is unfortunately not a story that's complete in one volume, but I had fun reading it, and maybe at some point my library will get the next volume and I'll stumble across it, the way I did this one!
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)

[personal profile] chestnut_pod 2023-04-18 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
This sounds cute!! I'd totally read this if it came to a satisfying conclusion sometime soon.
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)

[personal profile] chestnut_pod 2023-04-18 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
Oooh, thank you so much!
conuly: (Default)

[personal profile] conuly 2023-04-18 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
Sweet!