Magical girls are young girls who fight for love and justice. They struggle in their own life as well as they fight the dark lord or invading evil forces. But, in my memory from my childhood, there was no scene they receive rewards for it. On the contrary, they always lose their share in their everyday life in order to fight the evil in the world. They get late for school and they become alone in their school trip. But if they don’t give up things in their lives, the world burns. It’s unreasonable, structurally, in a sense. The all of these are done while other people don’t know. Now, a question. If a magical girl wish for her reward, is it wrong?

Looking from the outside, Magical 12th Graders is close to so-called byungmat (insane) webtoon. The protagonist sticks a pin in her head to transform, and her weapon is blunt one, not a common choice for a magical girl. Her partner is a weird girl whose type is a muscular man in a dress, and a character to be called as her assistant is her biology teacher in his magical girl dress. If they were in another webtoon, each of them was enough to be a scene stealer and the character setting is exceedingly comic enough to break the immersion.

           

The intro that shocked everybody

The story it is based on is also comic, at least form the outside. The enemy blocking the way of the protagonists’ party are in grotesque forms, materialized from the force of Cubics, the jewels formed from wishes of students, who suffers from stress of studying. Once the grudges of students tired from studying Korean language becomes the form of a historic poet in Chosun dynasty to pressure the protagonist, and once it becomes Cheol-su, a famous and frequent guy appears in the hypothetical questions of Math textbooks to attack the students. Moreover, the protagonists’ party also recall what they learnt in school to solve the problems with weird ideas. When she was told to fly by transformation, the protagonist transforms, saying, “a fly is a fly because a fly can fly”, which she learnt in English class. Besides that, she frequently throws various parodies during the story development. Because of this, it seems this work can’t be a serious one.

However, the jokes on studying also work as a vulnerable point of main characters. The jokes, like Lim Aran who passionately loves muscular men in their dress or the protagonist who sneers at herself for abandoning Math subject, are not merely self-deprecation jokes. It turns into a gloomy agony on indecisive future; the reality kicks in, ironically as the setting is way too far from the reality. Am I happy to be a magical girl without any reward? Am I happy to do things for others, putting aside my own future? Is it wrong for a magical girl wish a reward for her works?

 

The author, seri, says this in a interview: “I believe, freshness can be squeezed out by twisting the royal road of the magical girl genre. The protagonists of magical girl works are commonly sound in mind, sacrificing herself for love and peace without question. On the contrary to this, Yeorum has a twisted personality. In reality, adults criticize the young as they’re becoming selfish only to see themselves. But I believe, the phenomenon is natural, caused by the world itself, which is going to the direction where anyone loses their share if the one doesn’t take things for their own. I thought it would be amusing if we show a 12th grader, who is desperate to take her own things, becoming a magical girl, to break the cliché of the genre.

Yeo-rum the protagonist says: ‘what could be bad in wishing for a reward’. She’s not a good girl. She’s rather a broken girl who once wanted to be a good girl, broken from the environment. This work doesn’t validate her. It doesn’t deny it, too, but it clearly states that’s not the answer. And it turns its eyes to somewhere else. It’s not about why a magical girl wants a reward, but about how she came to want a reward.

The pain, envy and suffering of the duration of 12th grade in the work targets our society at this point. The tragicomic jokes that made the readers laugh on it also makes them empathize with it. How come she want a reward? Because she’s all too busy 12th grader. Because she’s a student who never had a chance to take a rest. On top of the jolly character, her family matters naturally come in, and the criticism of the work works efficiently. It regulates the tempo with its jokes to make its dark settings to be easily swallowed, then it emphasizes the setting to make the readers empathize with it.

Magical 12th Graders is a black comedy. It’s made a splendid black comedy by dragging a magical girl into the reality. It’s an excellent work, getting success on both of excellent regulation of tempo and the cleaned-up story.