Skip to main content

Manga REVIEW :MachiMaho Volume 1

Y’know, before I started typing for this review, I thought why not write about my favorite anime for Winter 2019, ‘Kaguya Sama: Love is war’. But then it hit me; lets write about another cute highschool girl with a twisted mind. And now we’re here, in a not so nice place.

                      
MachiMaho: I Messed up and Made the Wrong Person the Magical Girl is a manga, and not a light novel with that title. Its about a rebellious girl who chainsmokes and punches things while having a latent talent to destroy evil. Its not like I’ve seen that trope before.

Before I rip this volume to shreds, let me give a brief plot synopsis. An alien, who is also a cute cat, stumbles upon Majiba Kayo while escaping a demon, also known as Atsunmos. To save his life, he trasforms his powers into Kayo, only for her to pop a cigarette into her mouth. The mascot, Myu, realizes he fucked up, but since Kayo is a punching prodigy of Muhammad Ali, she defeats the demon in one punch.

Hence, her nickname: One Punch Psycho 100. And yes, she is a messed-up individual for her tendency to snap at a moment’s notice, like someone pushed her panties into her butt by poking it all day long. Speaking of panties, I hope you like them, because this first volume has 9 chapters, and all of them has at least one pantyshot. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.

As far as this volume goes, it’s a 'monster of a chapter show', with a little bit of world building which is minuscule one time and boring the other.

Now let’s divide the review in the positives and negatives, which will make your life easier.

ZE POZITIBEZ

The artist helming this project goes by the name of Souryu, who is known as a hentai artist. I have seen his work pop up on a very cultural website nhentai.net. In short, he knows how to draw cute girls in erotic situations. His/Her art pays off the ahegao look Kayo sports in the manga.

The character design for Kayo’s rage faces to her subtle cuteness goes a long way, so does the human designs for Myu and Mya-Mya, as well as best boi Masanido Rei and Kayo’s foil Shusai. The magical girl attire is clearly inspired from Kill la Kill for their tendency of panty display and ribbon bras. And who can forget the cute little hearts on their panties, because that is what the magical girl society condones. Overall, their daily attire is over simplified, and their Magical Girl dresses seems to be uninspired.

Would you like a sucker punch, my love?
But… But… But… the art goes knocking out of the park when action shots are introduced. I can’t stress hard enough how phenomenal are the action panels are in this book. I hate to say this, but white effect lines in an action scene don’t have quite an impact that cracked effects do. I mean, this is taking the environment to JoJo’s level. And that is always a good thing. Always. Seriously, if I was given a choice, Which I do have, I’d prefer Souryu doing the action bits for My Hero Academia. Maybe then, MHA’s fights can be more than a single punch and less emotion driven [Don’t even argue with me how boring Izuku vs. Gentle was].

One Punch Psycho 100, Anyone?
White Panties + Badass Punch= <3
If you want any more reason to pick this volume up, it’d be the reaction faces. This is some Mob Psycho 100 & Grand Blue Dreaming level stuff people. I can’t wait for this manga to get an anime adaptation. People WILL go nuts with its visuals.

Mascot War: Dimple vs Myu
ZE NEGATIBEZ
OOO… boy, where do I start with the negatives! Let me explain how I felt about this whole volume of 9 chapters in 1 word: TROPES.

If the art was its ace of spades, the characters are its +4 in your face {We were playing Cards or Uno, Dammit!}. In short, the characters are not the appealing part of this story.

Let’s start with our protagonist, Kayo. If you pick up this volume, you’re going to enjoy it, but not for her. she is such a one-trick pony with overplayed-Japanese-high-school-rebel-but-totally-a-scholar-personality that everytime she was sitting at her desk with her legs on top of it, I wanted to dip the book into a tub full-of-water. I’ll explain why I have a deep hatred for her, and why it is not JUST her.

Firsts, she is like five characters mashed together with no coherence, further distancing me from her. The hair is a copy of Selenia I. Flamehart from god-awful Ladies Vs. Butler.

Drills, Anyone?
Her characteristics is equal to Akemi Homura from Grade A show Madoka Magica, only if you crank her craziness up to 11 and made her gay for violence and cigarettes. Her rage feels empty, and I can make an argument that it is how she portrays herself due to loneliness, but that is a trope in itself, so no points for creativity. Reading through the whole volume, not once did I laugh out loud, and Kayo was the backdrop for that reason more times than not.

As a main character, she doesn’t play out as well as I had hoped. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong in following volumes, but this standout volume on its own makes no attempt to change my mind.
Following her, we focus on her companion Myu, who gives her these magical powers she clearly doesn’t need because she was blessed with the genes of Connor McGregor and Brock Lesnar combined. It is a standard cute cat, following the foot steps of Kyubey [Madoka Magica], Happy [Fairy Tail] and Kerberos [CC Sakura]. Nothing is special about him except her tendency to get punched a lot and being a bitch of Kayo. He can transform into a hot hunk, which I certainly didn’t search for in hentai format. But can I nitpick once again? His crotch is hidden with BLACK CIRCLE, JUST LIKE GRAND BLUE. If this ain't plagiarism, I don’t know what is.

I'll pet him all night long!
Coming down to my favorite character, Rei is someone I’d be looking out for. Her is 50% afraid, 40% generic, and 10% lovely. His twist that his fancy hair is a disguise, is already done. IN CROMARTIE HIGH!

Hayashida did it first, bro!!


C’MON, SOURYU! I cant even turn a page without spotting a reference, which is so blatant copy and paste that it makes my head hurt.

…And I’m too exhausted to expand on the righteous Madoka clone, Student council president Shusai. She’s more like a Mamika clone from Re: Creators, because of the property damage she causes. But, whatever.

Now the last thing i can point out, which actually is a pretty big deal is the dialogue. sometimes it just felt like one panel was missing, and thus, the dialogue will become a million times harder to follow. another times the dialogue bubbles would be so populated with words, I'd skip them just because the context isn't there for me to care. such wordy paragraphs crammed into a single bubble was clearly an amateur's mistake.

I dont need exposition like this. EVER. Punch it once more, Kayo!
Overall

When I turned the last page, there was no sense of satisfaction. It was not pleasant, it was not revolutionary by a long shot. In the end, its just another magical girl trope reversal like Magical Girl Ore and Magical Girl Site. And I know you didn’t remember those shows before I mentioned it. I hope the artist can come up with interesting twists and a compelling story, but this first volume on its own is like an abandoned shack in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. ITS EMPTY. Just like Smores need crackers and marshmallows, reading this property should be successive, not individual volumes.However, I see a lot of potential with the series. If it improves, it has the potential to stand up as one of the faces for Shonen or even Seinen manga of the recent, joining the ranks of phenomenal Promised Neverland, and battle shonen titles like Black Clover, MHA and Seven Deadly sins.

FINAL SUGGESTION: BUY IT.

ART: 9.5/10

CHARACTERS: 6/10

STORY: 6.5/10

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Yuri Harem (Vol. 3): Three-In-One [57]

The wind blew with great velocity outside, but not a single blow seemed to affect Gian’s house. Apparently, all houses are tightly insulated in Canada. Which is unsurprising because I used to live in one of these years ago. but it came as a strong surprise to Kyo, who complimented the warmth of the inside as soon as she entered through the front door. After our reunion, Gian turned around and met the company. She immediately recognized Trigman. And he continued to introduce his husband, who was les that enthusiastic with his greeting. Kyo on the other hand was hesitant. When all was said and done, Gian offered us a bed and warm dinner at her place. We all hopped in our car and followed her through the downtown on this small town to a closed alley. There were nine houses and a cul-de-sac. Gian’s was fourth, on the right side of the street. We parked our cars in her driveway and followed her in her dimly lit house. She gave us a change of footwear and guided us t

My Yuri Harem{Vol. 2}: Round 4[49]

The night was still young when we started. It marked the milestone in our lives. The first time I’d be in the bed with toys all around me. Various kinds of lubricants, dildos, getups and instruments. The round bed that I was so familiar with rested such unique and different devices on it. Amaan had made it obvious of her desires when she wouldn’t stop talking about toys and sex at the same time. And I had no choice but to oblige. But the context was not sexual at all. It had shifted drastically. The story of ‘Cornerstone’ was really important to me. I had to know what was going on between those five boys as well as the professor. And thus, I needed some time to research. I got in contact with those five boys later, but they were too terrified to be of any use to me. It was obvious that if I asked Amaan directly, she’d take some action against me. Just her name seemed to terrorize the boys. And she did give that aura sometimes, but I never got that impression from her. It was b