Shin Honkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka

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Disclaimer: it may contain minor spoilers and talks about the first volume.

Jimmy Page once explained the music of Led Zeppelin as a contrast of explosive sounds accompanied by contemplative moments and called that effect "Light and Shade". Navigating on those extremes highlights their power, and it is in that understanding that lies the work of NISIOISIN's Shinhonkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka.

Another understanding you might want to have is how the story plays in the context of the Sekai-kei narratives of the early 2000s. Pause and Select has an excellent video about Sekai-kei. Kizutaka Kugi contrasts characters like Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is considered the grandfather of ... that type of apocalyptic storytelling. Though yet to be well-defined, it's a style of storytelling where grand narratives are replaced with the subjectivities of the postmodern world. What matters is the individual and their actions, or lack thereof, towards the world, accompanied by a slice-of-life element in the story. They usually delegate the action to their empowered female companion, who they are in love with or have some sort of moe relationship. In that sense, Kizutaka spites that kind of guy and wants to bring happiness to the world—much like Light Yagami from Death Note, its contemporary. He bears the responsibility and so the action and consequences of making the world a better place, albeit his actions are questionable, to say the least.

But, of course, he's not the only protagonist in the story. If in Sekai-kei stories, the girl bears the responsibility of fighting the Other, NISIOISIN won't simply go to the other extreme. He won't waste characters. He thinks characters are everything in a story. So Kizutaka shares that responsibility with Risuka Mizukura, the deuteragonist. They are a duo and cannot achieve their own goals without each other. It's a stable in NISIOISIN's writing. He understands that even with our own individuality—or ego—we, humans, are social creatures and need help from others. Though, even if you can attribute that mentality to how Japan's society is structured, the Sekai-kei stories posed the problem of people losing faith in that structure. So instead of advertising an extreme individuality, he chooses the middle ground.

Upon meeting Risuka, Kizutaka thinks he can use her as a pawn but soon realize Risuka is too much for him to handle. She has her own goals—to find Shingo, her father—and because of that, she can be autonomous. And although that is a crucial element in their dynamic, the important aspect for that is the power that Risuka holds. She is simply too strong. That dialect about power is constant in play in the story, and it is better exemplified when magic—power—affects characters. It is also visible how broken the protagonists are because of their circumstances, and they end up seeking each other comfort and an understanding of their existences. It is in those contemplative moments, contrasting all the violence and pain, that NISIOISIN leaves strands of hope. Deep down, he is a softie. He can write the most violent and gruesome story out there and yet he wants his characters to find peace, happiness, comfort in their lives.

Upon building the world, NISIOISIN uses the concept of magic as a key element for the story. Because of time constraints and the nature of his writing style, the Myth of Cthulhu is used to smooth the reader into the urban fantasy of Magical Girl Risuka. Additionally, NISIOISIN uses the falseness and strangeness of magic as a pillar to construct the world and its people. There's one character that behaves in the way they do because of that. They don't behave using our real-world logic, and that sense of strangeness keeps the reader engaged with the story. Another foundation is the environment and how it can shape people. That's most noticeable with Risuka herself. Her special ability related to time manipulation is that she can "advance" or "accelerate" herself in time until the point she's the strongest, at the age of twenty-seven, and becomes a rude, vulgar, violent person, contrasting her meek younger self, who doesn't want to grow up because of how violent she sees the adult world—she projects that vision onto herself as an adult.

The concept for the story is to be about witchy characters. He fuses Mahou Shoujo with Majokko in Risuka's character but won't play directly into the tropes related to those genres. He brings a grounded view of some of the tropes. You wouldn't directly point out that the story has a magical girl, for example, but if you are familiar with the concepts relating to those genres, you can see them playing out in the story.

Organically, the world unravels for the reader through the mysteries Kizutaka ends up trying to solve. NISIOISIN uses various shortcuts to solve the mysteries in the story—you can think of that as how Kinoko Nasu in Kara no Kyoukai handles the mystery in his story—even jesting the book as a third-rate mystery novel. The comparison with that work doesn't stop there. The Japanese critic Tsunehiro Uno describes this work as the only smooth transition from Sekai-kei to Shindenki. The Neo-Fantastical was a genre used to advertise the new type of works Nasu was writing, especially when he was writing for the Faust magazine. It's another to-be-well-defined genre—more than Sekai-kei, I'd say. Nihilist in nature, both works share this amorality and need-ness of their broken characters. Nonetheless, they are insane characters solving impossible situations.

Due to its nature of being published in the Faust magazine, the three chapters are told in an episodic manner but builds up from previous developments with mysteries, twists, and a lightning-paced character development that NISIOISIN is known for. Kizutaka is an excellent narrator and even if his edginess can put some people off, the absurd of some lines makes the reading a fun experience.

At the start of this bloody-violent tetralogy, Kizutaka and Risuka start a journey of self-discovery and friendship with guilt and blood in their hands.