Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete
Gushing over Magical Girls

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Have you ever desired to view a magical girl yuri from the PoV of the dark magical girl. While the dark magical girl has abilities to produce various instruments to create BDSM-esque situations to torture her opponents into an awakening? Perhaps, Mahou Shoujo Ni Akogarete might be your interest.

Subjective: Absolutely absurd, there's electrical prongs to shock Magia Baser's ally into falling for her. This takes Mahou Shoujo from MS to S&M Sadism and masochism. If you think that's interesting combination then perhaps you can read a few chapters Mahou Shoujo Ni Akogarete to see if you'll enjoy this.

Enjoyment: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

I must be the only person out there who went into this not knowing or expecting this to be an ecchi manga (I have no idea how I didn't catch on), and yet... I'm still here, still reading, and still very much enjoying it!

While the plot does generally seem to exist for the purpose of the ecchi content, I actually ended up really invested in it. I really love the concept of the magical girl villain as the protagonist of the story and while there's a ton of characters who only exist as vehicles for, erm, sexy stuff/situations, Utena and Haruka (and later the rest ... of Tres Magia) are especially endearing and genuinely interesting characters to follow.

Since it's a vehicle for ecchi, the plot is definitely stretched thin - it's there and it's good but there's a lot of ecchi to sift through, so if you're really not into ecchi then it might not be your thing, but I personally find it quite enjoyable. Another thing to this manga's merit is the way in which it's sexy - it (probably) is meant for male readers but as a lesbian I still find a lot of charm to it. As another review points out, the sexiness often comes from the situations, and the characters' motivations, not just the actions on the page, or even the art itself. There's also a lot of kink stuff in there that is surprisingly accurate while still being a fantasy depiction of some really horny stuff, which is fun.
Additionally, while I don't think it was ever meant to be that deep, there are a lot of things in this manga that I personally see as an interesting exploration of sexual repression, and that's certainly made me enjoy it a lot more. Again, I don't think that was intentional, but it's to Mahoako's merit that there's room for readers like me to see such things.

I suppose my one yuck is the characters' ages but I've kind of learned to ignore it with ecchi manga and pretend everyone is an adult (and in its defence I suppose there ARE a lot of "noo, avert your eyes" jokes around the youngest character when a sexual situation arises, and she's never part of any of those situations herself so... that's something, at least).

All in all, is this a literary masterpiece? No, but it doesn't really have to be. It's ecchi, and for what it is it's fun, and cute, and actually engaging beyond just being sexy. If you're not into ecchi, maybe avoid, but if you are, I'd whole-heartedly recommend this.

Heads up: I have not seen the anime nor do I have intentions to do so. This review was made exclusively within my opinion of the manga.

"You're hating on [ ] because it's popular! You shouldn't even do this review because it's good, you're just--"

No. I think that this manga just sucks. Dunking on things that I don't like is my personal favorite hobby. Look, I considered to stop reading at chapter six because I was absolutely BORED out of my mind with this manga. I stayed up all night reading it, reading ten volumes that I could've used in a much more better way. ... Now, I think that I'm in the right position to judge this manga as it is. Why do I feel like I have the proper right to review this manga, you may ask? Mostly because:

- I ADORE Kamen Rider and Mahou Shoujo series (none of that deconstruction of the magical girl genre bullshit!! magical girls made for 8-9 girls who love pink and PUNCHING monsters!!!)
- My parents have a BDSM kink (found about this the hard way.)
- I love raunchy and erotic comedies. Just stupid humor in general works for me.

This manga practically fails in everything related to these categories. Which sucks, since I DO think that the idea of a BDSM dominatrix villain being the MC could lead to some chucklesome results (like doronjo from yatterman but porno version), yet somehow ends up being EVERYTHING that I didn't want it to be.

First things first, it's not even that raunchy. This is just a hella generic ecchi series, and one that tries to pass off as a deeper work than it wants to be! People tried to sell me on this because it was a "BDSM Mahou Shoujo" manga, yet the only proper kinks I've seen represented are:

- Tickling (deviantart typa shit)
- Spanking (boob slapping is inside this one btw)
- Tentacles

And. I believe these things are common in Mahou Shoujo shows? It doesn't try to think outside of the box, reading the raunchiest and most horniest chapter of this manga feels like a fetishized version of Precure (which it shouldn't, since this is meant to be a "highly sexual action/comedy" according to most people that like this series), but that's enough talk about how this one isn't erotic enough. I'm gonna talk about that later, but now, onto the actual aspects I can criticize of the series. This is a Mahou Shoujo series, right? How are the action sequences?

Ahem. The few action sequences that are in the manga are... quite bland, really. Sure, the punchline is to get into the whole punishment time, but there are whole chapters dedicated to fighting (like four or five I believe) that are honestly really, really, really, REALLY boring. While I'm not expecting something that's engaging, I atleast expect something that looks cool or just something that makes me interested. The biggest sin is when something actually interesting happens, only to reach the 24th page or so and you'll just get cucked out of a cool set piece and have the Tres Magia go "uhm we let them escape! shucks!"

Oh. Did I tell you that this is also a deconstruction of the genre? Y'know, the smut series where it shows, at length, that most of the power and mental development of the Tres Magia gang could only happen because Utena kept pushing for them to grow, is the one instigating most of their conflicts and is also the main villain that has to be defeated AND is also one hell of a Mary Sue? Yeah. It's practically a bunch of nonsense, because that's how I view it with my two own eyes. Most of this development is kinda retconned, specially when you're limited to 23-25 pages per chapte.r

The thing is, besides Utena, almost all characters are quite boring. If this is a "deconstruction of the genre," then why are the Tres Magia such nothing of characters? You could come up to me and use the "this is a ecchi manga" argument, but then explain all the development subtext in this manga? If the Tres Magia characters have actual development as y'know. Characters, then why don't they even have personality traits in the first place? Seems redundact, specially when you're mindbreaking them and putting them in diapers, how am I supposed to care for the actual "protagonists" when they're downplayed as vehicles for more smut?

Utena is a Mary Sue at heart, by the way. Everything she does is "correct" and has no actual flaws, besides being a "villain" in parenthesis. In reality, Utena doesn't really do a lot. Sure, she sets up the raunchy punchline but that's it... Utena only really has two character traits, the "introverted girl that also smells like rotten cheese" trait and the "quiet girl who is actually a dominatrix" trait. Besides being the "dark villain" of the series, Utena has no actual flaws or actual villany whenever she's not doing the whole magical girl slack. I'd expect her to actually become somewhat more of a snobby douchebag, specially since she accomplished her dream of becoming a magical girl? Y'know, get into the role and such? Behave like a villain and actually see that the world could be hers? Practically, she's just another "Bocchi-esque" character who middle-aged fat white men use to self insert themselves. Yeah.

Biggest offense is definitely Chapter 10. This is the one that people have been gassing up, and ironically enough, Utena doesn't really grow as a character from this one, Nor does it affect her in future chapters. This is what I meant earlier. Utena doesn't really have much going on as a individual, not even changing her personality a little to reflect how she's evil and the like, and unlike the Tres Magia girls she has like... two character traits. Which should be enough to atleast make her do something different, but nothing is done with this.

The rest of the plot after the first few chapters isn't interesting. As always, you get pretty simple and forgettable chars that set up the plot only to have Utena or the arc villain do some nasty things to a magical girl, except that the manga is suddenly a battle shonen now for some reason? Even though the action is still bland and ends up getting cut for ecchi gags like Chapter 8 but on steroids?

"You're not in the position to ask this much from series like this!"

Then why does it try to pass off as a deconstruction of the genre, and not a gag ecchi manga about magical girls?

Oh yeah. The little girl being the most sexualized character doesn't really help either. Doesn't matter if they make her taller and older, that's still a kid. Yuck.