Click above to listen to Reed’s Recs: Magical Boy vol. 1-2.
Transcript below:
Hello, Niles North, and welcome to Reed’s Recs! I am Reed Larson-Erf, here to talk to you about everything you never knew you had to see. This week, I’d like to talk to you about 2022’s Magical Boy, a heartwarming anime-style graphic novel series by artist Vincent Kao. Based on the “magical girl” genre of anime, which includes shows like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, Magical Boy concerns Max, a transgender boy who gets a gut punch from life when he turns sixteen. As demons who feed on suffering and anger begin to menace his town, Max’s mom reveals a secret. Women in his family inherit the role of a magical girl-style protector of Earth–and now, despite being male-of-center, Max must take up the sparkly baton!
One of the things I love most about Magical Boy is how Max makes the role of magical hero his own. At the beginning, he struggles intensely. His uniform, a frilly dress, is incredibly dysphoric. Max’s mother, the previous magical girl, pressures him heavily to conform to traditional, feminine ways of fighting demons, and refuses to accept that he is a boy. But Max also finds support from others around him–his best friend Jen, former bully Piper, and school jock Sean become Max’s comrades, fighting alongside him despite having no magic powers of their own. Max’s father embraces him where his mother fails to, and pushes her to see Max for who he really is. And as time goes on, Max’s uniform becomes more masculine, as embracing his own identity becomes a source of strength for him. The story centers on a theme of self-acceptance, presenting insecurity about one’s own identity as a corrupting and malignant force.
Artistically, the two-volume story (originating as a webcomic on the platform Tapas) is gorgeous. In a Crunchyroll interview, author Vincent Kao cites anime like Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z as inspiration. Kao brings the styles of both series–with Sailor Moon’s colorful, graceful femininity and Dragon Ball Z’s masculine, aggressive combat poses–to bear on Magical Boy, as Max’s design evolution moves from one side of the gender spectrum to the other. Max’s magic is colorful and vibrant, while his demonic enemies are dark and negative, like something out of an animated cartoon. Yet designs like Max’s uncomfortable original uniform, and the obsidian appearance of a pivotal character in the finale, make it clear that light and darkness can both be elegant or disturbing in their own way.
Overall, Magical Boy is gorgeous, emotionally powerful, and can provide readers with an important insight into the lives of transgender people. I highly recommend you take a look at one or both volumes of the story at the Skokie Public Library. Thank you for listening, and tune in next time for everything you never knew you had to see!
