Thursday, August 1, 2024

Book Review: A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon (translated by Anton Hur)

Magical girl manga meets millennial angst

CW: discussion of character experiencing suicidal thoughts.

I can't decide if this book is very deep or just very odd. It's quite possibly both.

A Magical Girl Retires follows an unnamed young Korean girl struggling with debt and a difficult job market, unable to live up to the promise she showed in her grandfather's jewellery shop, never having become the watch designer she dreamed she would be. At the start of the story, this drives her to a bridge in the night, contemplating jumping into the water below and hoping no one notices or is inconvenienced by her. Just as she finds herself unable to do it, a stranger appears to tell her that she is destined for greatness, not this, and to come away immediately. She is thus drawn into the world of magical girls, real-life magic-wielders like the figures from manga, who use their skills to make the world a better place.

Which sounds... well, there are some obvious places that story can go, and this isn't quite any of them, though it does follow some of their themes some of the time. But the narrative never quite sticks to any of the expected paths, winding in between them but never fully committing, and what you get at the end is instead a strange, dreamy and meandering study of a character reassessing her place in the world and her relationship to her self-image, to her abilities, and to what power means. The depth of it all sort of sneaks up on you on the way, presenting itself gently, subtly.

And that approach bears out in other aspects too—especially the worldbuilding, such as it is. It's a story that very much assumes you know what magical girls in manga are, how they transform, and approximately what they do, because it has little interest in spelling out the basics for you. If you've ever watched a few episodes of Sailor Moon, that's more than enough, but in the actual text of the book there's very limited interest in drawing that picture for you then and there. The focus instead is far more on the mundane sides of the job —because it is, in this story, very much a job— from conferences and job fairs to unions and international co-operation and jurisdictions. Without going full ham with it, Park does a lot of work to undermine the sparkle of it all, tying it back to the most uninteresting basics of life, money, food, housing, the day-to-day grind and what do you actually do. This becomes especially true through the protagonist's perspective, as her precarity, her knowledge of how precipitous her own situation is, casts a shadow of realism over everything she encounters. Her fridge —the source of a good deal of her debt at the start of the story— recurs at several points as a touchstone for these themes, constantly bringing the reader back to the realities of the story.

And in this lies its strength: it is, by and large, a story about all that angst, that daily life stuff, with the magic... not exactly sprinkled on top, because it's fundamental to how the story is being told, but ultimately in service to the angst rather than the other way around. It's not about magical girls, not really; they're just the way Park is making the key points.

And those key points live or die on how relatable —distressing to use this particular word, but needs must— you find the unnamed protagonist. If you've ever been stuck at a pointless, rubbish job with a ridiculous boss because you need the pittance it pays, if you've ever been stuck at a point where the basics you assumed everyone have start to seem more luxurious than you'd ever have expected —like a fridge, for example— then her motivations and her journey are incredibly effective. It's a story calling out to lost twenty-somethings who feel adrift in the world, no longer steered by the guidance provided in childhood, not yet acquainted with the more self-assured situation of the thirties and beyond.

And by using a framework intrinsically tied to childhood, as magical girl stories so often are, it really dials up the pathos, even as it twists those girls into something more mundane and adult. Only magic can bring you unionisation, a good credit score, and a well-paying job with long term prospects, it seems to say.

This is before we even get into the climate crisis part of the narrative, which is... well, it's blunt, let's say that. The magical girls are all well aware that the planet is doomed at its current rate, and are doing everything they can to fix it. As part of this, they know they need the magical girl with the power to control time, as only she can prevent the inevitable planetary apocalypse that's coming to us all.

Wow, that sounds miserable when I type it out. And I won't lie; it is, by turns, quite a depressing book. But those other turns more than make up for it.

Because the other main thread running through it is that of relationships, the need for people in one's life, and what they can bring, even to someone right down in the pits of it all. There are two that figure most strongly: that of the protagonist with her deceased grandfather, and his memory, and with the magical girl who finds her on the bridge, Ah Roa. Ah Roa has the gift of prophecy, and is our protagonist's cheerful, knowledgeable guide into the world of magical-girling. But she is also, instantly but quite understandably, very fond of her too. And throughout the story, that fondness, alongside the often-prompted memories of a loving, nurturing and proud grandfather, serve as a balm to all the grimness, and slowly, very slowly, pull our main character out of her hole and back into the world again.

Against the background of climate change and an unexpected, rather more immediate, magical threat to all of humanity, that's what this story is about: surviving precarity day by day, the solace we take in those around us, and one person steadily pulling herself out of a hole and remembering to dream of the things she can do with her tomorrows. Despite the glittery transformations and mirrors that see the future, it is a story about a little life, finding little steps into progress, in ways many of us will find something comforting, familiar or recognisable. It uses the trappings of childhood magic to highlight some very grown-up problems, and the delicacy of that contrast is beautifully handled throughout, ending up packing far bigger a punch than its short size might suggest.


Highlights: meaningful character relationships; intensely likeable main character; lovely art pages

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Reference: Park Seolyeon. A Magical Girl Retires [HarperVia, 2024].

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroformtea.bsky.social