Manga Review: Magic Lover’s Tower Volumes One & Two

[Jason]

Title: Magic Lover’s Tower, vol. 1-2
Mangaka: Kao Yung & Kuan-Liang
Originally Serialized in: ??? (???)
Genre: Shojo, Romance
Licensed by: DrMaster Publications, Inc.
Price: 9.95

Roxanne is the class cleanliness rep, a plain, shy girl who has a huge crush on class bad boy Logan. When a mysterious young man shows up claiming to be a magical guardian, he offers her the chance to play a game which might allow her to finally win Logan’s heart.

Yung and Liang’s two volume series reads like a romance novel written by a middle school student. They toss in entirely too many details and don’t even attempt to make smooth transitions between them. There are deities, reincarnated lovers, and magical bunny creatures who turn into magical staffs which are actually magical towers but not in our world. The overriding message is to strive to achieve your dream…as long as your dream is to marry a hot guy. If you don’t get married, you might as well kill yourself. At least that’s how one character interprets the story.

The characters themselves aren’t that bad. None of them are actually offensive, but they are all bland stereotypes. Roxanne, who is supposedly Asian despite the name and the flowing blond hair, is always being referred to as an ugly hag. She’s praised for becoming more mature, even though that involves beating up the evil math teacher and losing the dorky glasses.

I wanted to think that this was supposed to be a comedy. After all, who can take a work seriously when a character says, “Never fear Cleanliness Rep! You have us for support!”? But I just kept getting the feeling that the authors actually meant this to be a romance and that the comedy wasn’t supposed to be as weirdly, awkwardly humorous as it was.

Yung and Liang’s art is more mature than that of your average middle schooler, but not by much. They seem to have achieved the level of bland manga standard and stopped, so the volumes are filled with gigantic eyes, floppy hair, and screentones galore. Several of the side characters look a little too similar to be able to completely tell them apart.

There are lots of magical shojo romances out there, so I personally would skip this one. It’s not terrible, but it’s not far off. DrMaster’s nice covers and easy to follow translations can’t save a bad story.

Reviewer: Snow Wildsmith
Proofed and Edited By: Jason Punda