Book Review: Magical Boy by The Kao
Goodreads Description: Although he was assigned female at birth, Max is your average trans man trying to get through high school as himself. But on top of classes, crushes, and coming out, Max's life is turned upside down when his mom reveals an eons old family secret: he's descended from a long line of Magical Girls tasked with defending humanity from a dark, ancient evil! With a sassy feline sidekick and loyal gang of friends by his side, can Max take on his destiny, save the world, and become the next Magical Boy? A hilarious and heartfelt riff on the magical girl genre made popular by teen manga series, Magical Boy is a one-of-a-kind fantasy series that comic readers of all ages will love.
My Review: This will be another review in my series of, "I don't usually review this genre, but..." Magical Boy is a beautifully drawn, full colour graphic novel with an anime inspired art style. The story originally debuted on the comic website Tapas, which is where I first stumbled upon it. I was thrilled to see it was picked up for print publication by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic. This story holds a special place in my heart, so I'm thrilled for the opportunity to share my thoughts and help connect it to more readers.
To begin, the art! This book is drop-dead gorgeous. The cover gives you a glimpse of what's in store, but the art inside takes it a step further, from small intimate panels to gorgeously detailed fight scenes that convey a tremendous sense of movement and action. The colours pop, backgrounds are detailed, the linework is clean, and the art blends an eastern and western comic style that is refreshingly original. Traditional anime/manga facial expressions and expressive reactions are mixed with a western action style of large, detailed panels and classic comic sound effects, like 'whoosh, pow, smack.' Unfortunately, the panels were originally drawn for a vertical setup on a webpage, where readers could scroll infinitely, so at times, the panel spacing on the page is cramped and the flow is disjointed. While the panels and speech bubbles are usually arranged in a way that takes your eye smoothly through the scene, some pages failed to achieve a flow and became messy and confusing. Even though I had already read the comic, I struggled on some pages to figure out in what order some panels and speech bubbles were supposed to be read. This confusion was overall minor and didn't take away from the story.
As for the story, have you ever been bouncing around the internet and stumbled across a story prompt idea that you would die to see happen? Magical Boy is one of those. The world we live in is incredibly gendered, though many cis people fail to realize how deep the gendered expectations go, as many have never resisted or took issue with them. Magical girl stories are often hyper-feminine, and when you toss a transman into the mix, who is trying to assert his own masculinity through stereotypically masculine behaviours, you've got an excellent environment to play with and parody gendered expectations in western society. The magic that gives Max his feminine battle outfit also works as an excellent metaphor for cisnormative expectations - as he attempts to transition, the magic pushes Max towards a femme presentation, until he's able to assert his will and the magic adapts to an outfit that matches his identity. One major change I noticed from the online version was Max's deadname has been censored in dialogue, but left untouched if it's part of the background/scene. This sort of bothered me, as I felt it was silly to censor the name when the book tackles some of the realities of transitioning, which includes misgendering and deadnaming. I understand that the target audience, however, is younger and probably far more sensitive about seeing beloved characters misgendered than my old, jaded soul, so I can understand why the change was made.
At times, the story can be a bit cheesy, but more in a wholesome way than overtly cringy. Then again, I do enjoy a nice helping of cheese now again, it keeps my soul from becoming too black and crispy. The story is mostly focused on Max, his transition, and trying to get his mom to accept and understand him, so some part of the narrative can fall a little flat. The villains were very one-dimensional, as if they were trying to hit every square on the Classic and Stereotypical Villain Bingo card, but as the fantasy is mere metaphorical dressing for the interpersonal drama, it didn't take away from the story that much. However, if the antagonists and magic system had more depth put into them, it could have reinforced the interpersonal themes and scaffolded this story up into something really cool. Max's friends also come across as a little one-dimensional, as they don't seem to have lives outside of Max and focus entirely on him and his issues. While this turns them into a wholesome cheerleading squad, it constricts the story into something small and simple, which has its own set of pros and cons.
All in all, Magical Boy is an adorable, heartwarming, gorgeously drawn trans story that makes a great addition to any child's library. I can't wait to get my hands on volume 2, the finale, if only so I can flip through and admire all the beautiful artwork.
TL;DR: 4/5 stars. A hyperbolic trans metaphor using the magical girl trope to highlight the absurdities of gender.
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