Every so you often, you get someone’s attempt at making the Magical Girl genre “edgy”. Results have varied wildly over the years, to say the least. To list some examples, Magical Girl Apocalypse went full edgy, not even trying to have a cohesive narrative of any sort, and Magical Girl Spec Ops took itself more seriously, trying to showcase the aftereffects of war trauma on people and society. But what if you just simply turned Sailor Moon’s simple premise on its head? That’s what happens in MachiMaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person Into a Magical Girl!, published in English by Seven Seas.
In MachiMaho, the usual space cat goes to seek out a chosen girl who is destined to fight a force of one-dimensionally evil demons. But instead of running into an adorable ditz that any twelve-year-old can relate to, he finds Majiba Kayo, a brash young teen whose hobbies include smoking and punching. She doesn’t even remotely want to become a Magical Girl, but her insane negative energy is attracting massive hordes of demons to her, so… She kinda has to at this point.
This premise is the kind of stupid that I enjoy seeing, and it’s even similar to a Magical Girl series I tried to write several years ago. But of course, execution is what counts, and while I ultimately scrapped mine because it sucked, MachiMaho soared to dazzling heights.
And good thing it did, because the story… isn’t really that interesting. Like I said in the premise, the demons are one-dimensionally evil, similar to Sailor Moon‘s almost indistinguishable antagonists. It doesn’t really stir up any intrigue either, other than some hints for what Majiba’s past could’ve been like.
So with a story that’s bunk, what’s left to enjoy? Well, the characters, for starters. If you couldn’t tell from the cover art, almost every egg is put into Majiba’s basket; about as many eggs as what Gaston eats every day. To put it in non-Disney terms, Majiba is the Magical Girl protagonist that we needed all this time. She’s selfish, temperamental, and cusses almost as often as she smokes. “Uh all of these make her sound like a horrible person,” you point out. If you said that, then you must be new to my blog. Some of my favorite main characters have been very… morally incorrect, to say the least, and Majiba’s no different. I love her!
Of course, there are still other characters. There’s Myu, the space cat that tends to be a punching bag that makes an intentionally overabundant amount of cat puns. We also have a rival character in Shusai Nako, a Dark Magical Girl who gets manipulated by her demon, Mon-chan, into thinking that Majiba is evil. We also can’t forget Kuwabara-wannabe Masanido Rei, who despite coming off as weak, can actually hold his own somehow.
More than anything else, the art is what makes MachiMaho so good. From the expressiveness of the characters, to the insane action panels, the art really brings out the edginess in MachiMaho. The best panels are the ones where Majiba smokes and it has the words “HOLY SHIT” written with hearts and sparkles around it. The art does seem a bit TOO similar to Magical Girl Apocalypse, but there really is no other way to draw an edgy Magical Girl series and sell it well besides this.
~~~~~
Current Verdict: 9/10
I daresay that MachiMaho is perhaps the greatest entry in the entire Magical Girl genre. It’s fun, stupid, and full of teen angst. I’d even argue that more girls could relate to it than Sailor Moon. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see wild and crazy action!
Weeb Revues 