A Magical Girl Retires
This was a book that was recommended by some rando online website and given how short the book was, I decided to take a chance on it. I’ll be the first to admit that in spite of my email, I am NOT a fan of sailor moon. I only knew how big Sailor Moon was in the US after lots of folks started spamming me thinking the titular character of the series had that email address.
So I checked the book out of the library (real book!) becuase all the ebooks were checked out already. I started the book at 7 in the morning and finished before it was 9am. It was really good, short and super sweet.
Basically the plotline is that Magic Girls exist because its the universe’s way of balancing out folks who have been disenfranchised their whole lives. And Magic Girl is a profession, the girl part can apply to even grandma’s and they’ve been around long enough that there’s even a guild or union’esque type society.
The story starts with the introduction of the main character about to take her own life becuase she can’t hold a job, she doesn’t have friends, and she has a lot of credit card debt. Seeing herself as a failure in life, she contemplates jumping off a bridge when a Magic Girl jumps into her life and tells the main character that she’s also a magic girl, and quite possibly the most important magic girl.
this obviously is a shocking revelation to the main character, but not 100% surprising since apparently magic can manifest even in an older girl. The rest of the book goes through the main character’s discovery of her powers and a few other plot twist. The book ends rather satisfactorily with how the main character uses her power to save everyone. She did end up being the most important magic girl, but not from first glances.
Ultimately, the book is a bit of a commentary about society, and korean society in particular. It reinforces in me that I will never let my daughter marry a traditional korean man if I can help it mostly because their entire society is pretty messed up. It makes Japanese misogyny look good by comparison.
Highly recommended book, its short and sweet and packs a lot of meanings in their pages. In addition, the book is illustrated and I almost wish they’d just done a manga of it instead.