Content Warning: Some blood, parental death.
Welcome back to “Magical May!” This week, I’m delving into another genre with magical elements, the “Urban Fantasy” genre. While much more popular in the West with Young Adult (YA) audiences, it does do fairly well in Japan, too. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll be able to pick up on the themes pretty quick.
“Princess, princess, why do you cry?” This line is etched into my mind. I stumbled across this series years ago and thought it was pretty good. But does it hold up?
Our story begins with a rather brooding looking young man threatening a young woman with death. And then we get narration from Mahiru about how unlucky she is while others glomp her to get good luck, while we get the Japanese names and portents for the phases of the moon (or the names of the characters she’s going to meet). When she falls into the water, we discover that she sees visions of a Yokai man and the moon princess. No, not THAT moon princess, the one from Japanese myth.
Anyway. The story really gets started with Mahiru talking about how she has a dream when there’s a full moon and when she’s on her period about Princess Kaguya, the aforementioned moon princess. Mahiru also scores some points on the Young Adult Protagonist Scoreboard because her parents died when she was young and now lives with her aunt. We see more about her life, with her hanging out with her friends, and discussing how unlucky she is and she scores more points on the Scoreboard. Eventually, she leaves her friends to go hang out on a sea wall around Tokyo Bay. There, she ends up getting found by the guy who said he would kill her at the beginning. They have a very brief conversation and she runs away. From here, she goes to the library and she keeps running into people that will be important later. They’re trying to layer on the myster but it gets annoying quickly. Between the fact that we have to fill in the story from the opening pages, learn a bit of a fairy tale, and have all this mystery faffing about. On the re-read, it’s rough.
Quickly, Mahiru goes with the two mysterious boys she met at the library, gets attack by the angry emo boy, and gets taken to a club by a werewolf. Yeah, a werewolf. You see, Mahiru is the descendant of the Princess and these people are all members of the “Lunar Race.” Werewolves, vampires, Tengu, Kitsune, and others, the monsters of myth and legend are what makes up the Lunar Race and they want Mahiru’s help. She says nope and runs all the way home. The group, except angry emo Mitsuru, the Tengu boy, agree to keep an eye on her and protect her.
Mahiru agrees to help the group, giving them her power to power them up, while they try to steal a Teardrop Of The Moon that’s on a dinner cruise in the bay. We’re also given an introduction to the antagonists of the series, the detectives who are chasing after the thieves (the main characters) and we get a little bit more exposition. The heist goes fairly well, due to Mahiru’s help, but the detective wasn’t effected by the magic and is heavy armed. They manage to escape but Mitsuru’s magic fails while returning to shore and Mahiru has to save him because he can’t swim.
In the next chapter, we find out what exactly the Teardrops Of The Moon are. They’re ancient gems that were stolen by humanity from the Lunar Race and now they’re being collected. The reason why will be explained later. We also see Mahiru returning to her normal, schoolgirl life, while the gang watch over her. She goes back to the Oboro’s night club and we learn about the Lunar Race and their love of music. Oboro is the group’s leader, an older man, but we don’t find out exactly what kind of “monster” he is. The group is trying to get Mahiru to move into an apartment at the club, under orders from someone, a young boy who seems to be important, but she hesitates and Mitsuru makes it quite clear that he doesn’t want her there. You see, Mitsuru was raised by humans and is still learning how to control his powers, and since Mahiru makes them get a boost, he can’t control his transformation when she touches him. Akira, the werewolf, forces them to touch and he goes berserk, transforming and flying away in broad daylight. The group, with Mahiru, go chasing after him. Using song, they’re able to calm him down and Mahiru accepts that he isn’t a monster.
And that’s where this volume ends. It really gets going in fits and starts, with that action opening, then doing a bunch of flashbacks and exposition dumps, before getting the story started. There’s a lot of gaps and things left open, most of which are explored in later volumes. I remember that it took me a while to really get into this volume, perhaps to the half way point, before I started to really enjoy it. The characters are probably the biggest selling point for me, as well as seeing YA done with a different basis for the myths, magic, and monsters compared to the ones we see in the West.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Suggestion: If you can
find it, and you like urban fantasy or magical girl type stuff, it
might be worth a read.
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