Magia Record | Humanist+Humorist

Celebrated Free Comic Book Day by…dropping a huge pile of cash on the deluxe hardcover Hellsing omnibus.

They’re so big! So crisp! So hefty! The third one has color art plates in the back! Nothing a dedicated fan hasn’t seen before (and I kinda wish they’d done something fancier for the covers), but still, very classy.

And, plot twist: the local comic shop had a raffle that night, and the more you spent the more entries you got. So I walked away with 2 free books after all. (Got my tickets called twice in a row, took the only 2 titles on the table I was interested in, figured that was my cue to call it a night.)

Library traffic has been slow for a bit, so I took the opportunity to raid the manga shelves and catch up on Black Butler.

And wow, what a great showcase of “come up with a core premise/main cast, use it as the basis to write literally whatever you feel like.” This arc: cooking contest comedy. Next: zombie horror at sea! Next: castle with a fairytale curse. Next: school sports drama!

…that wasn’t exactly the order they came in, but you get the picture.

And it definitely went directly from “this arc plot is an excuse to draw progressive stages of injury from exposure to chemical weapons” to “this arc plot is an excuse to draw multiple full-page spreads of 4-bishounen boy bands.”

Followed in turn by “hmm, it’s been too long since I drew a small cute boy getting tormented…what if I did a whole volume about two small cute boys getting tormented.”

This creator is out here living her best art life and I’m loving it.

I’m also keeping up with the new season of Magia Record — or rather, it gets early releases on premium sites and I’m waiting for the free viewing on Crunchyroll, so I’m keeping a week behind with the new season of Magia Record.

As usual, there’s a heap of plot and too many characters and I’m definitely not tracking it all. If you liked the original series for the tight writing and flawless pacing, this is skippable.

But the animation is gorgeous, it’s fun to get more appearances from our long-missed Main Girls (even knowing this is an early timeline), and I can enjoy the emotional beats in the moment while reading recaps later on to figure out “ohhh, that’s who was doing what to who because why.”