魔法少年なつき×らびっツ 1

魔法少年なつき×らびっツ is a very interesting book. Middle-schooler なつき wants nothing more than to be like the magical girls he watched when he was younger, but is terrified to let anyone know about it. This all begins to change when one day he's chosen to wield magical powers, and a shadowy group bent on destroying the Earth begin to pursue him. If they can land a kiss on him, their evil plan will be complete!

Despite the potentially goofy premise, this very much feels like a story following なつき as he grows more confident in himself and what he wants, and how what he loves can become a weapon he can face the world with. This first volume felt mostly like it was finding it's groove, so I'm curious to see where the story goes.

There's full furigana throughout the book (though the digital quality was absolutely awful at the time of review, so you could barely read the furigana), and the vocab and grammar are all fairly standard. There may be some specialized magic-related vocabulary, but none of it felt all that unique.

Natsuki has always loved cute things, and when he was young dreamed of becoming a magical girl. When he realised these weren't considered "normal" for a boy, he tried his best to hide that side of himself. One day, he's offered the chance to live his dream: become a magical boy and wear lots of cute outfits!

Unable to resist, Natsuki learns to use magic and fight the forces of evil - a bunch of bad guys who want to steal a kiss from him! While Natsuki runs around in cute, frilly outfits, his classmates - unbeknownst to him - do all they can to help, because they want him to be free to be his cutest self.

I absolutely loved this fun and hilarious parody of magical girl manga, and Natsuki truly is adorable (those bunny ears!). There was quite a lot of magic-related vocabulary that was new to me, but other than that, there's nothing particularly difficult language-wise. If you love cute magical boys, this is the manga for you!