Maburaho
Maburaho is a romantic school comedy light novel series written by Toshihiko Tsukiji, illustrated by Eiji Komatsu and serialized in Gekkan Dragon Magazine. The light novel was adapted into a manga illustrated by Miki Miyashita and later developed into a 24 episode anime series produced by J.C.Staff and broadcast by WOWOW in Japan.
The series is about the story of Kazuki Shikimori, a second year student of the prestigious magic school, Aoi Academy. Unlike ordinary people who can use magic fewer than a hundred times and several of his classmates, who can use magic several thousand times, Kazuki can only use his magic eight times before he turns to ash. His life changes when it is revealed that Kazuki is descended from a line of world-famous magicians and he has the potential to father the most powerful magician in the world. Suddenly three girls, Yuna Miyama, Kuriko Kazetsubaki and Rin Kamishiro, enter Kazuki's life in order to obtain his valuable genes.
A.D. Vision acquired the English language distribution rights of the anime series in March 2004 and released it under its ADV Films division. Later the same year, ADV acquired the English language rights to the manga, which is released under the ADV Manga division.
Plot
Maburaho is set in a world where every character has the ability to use magic, however everyone's magic is not equal. Each person in the story has a different degree of magic and a set number of times that they can use their magic. The average person is able to use magic fewer than a hundred times, however some people are able to use magic several thousand times. Because of this, a person's social standing is determined by the number of times that he or she can perform magic. If someone uses up all of their magic, his or her body turns to ash and is scattered into the winds.The series first introduces us to Kazuki Shikimori, a second year student from an elite magic school, Aoi Academy. However, unlike his classmates, Kazuki can only use his magic eight times before he turns to dust. As a result, he is at the bottom of the school's social pecking order. However things change one day when Yuna Miyama shows up in his dorm room and declares that she is his wife. Moments later, Kuriko Kazetsubaki and Rin Kamishiro appear at Kazuki's dorm, the former in order to obtain his genes and the latter to kill him to escape her obligation to marry him. Kazuki learns that he is a descendant of most of the world's greatest magicians from both the eastern and western worlds. Even though he has a feeble spell count, his offspring has the potential of becoming a powerful magician.
Despite his weak spell count, each spell he performs is treated as an epic event. Kazuki's magic is referred to as the most powerful magic in the world able to achieve miracles. Due to Kazuki's kindness, his spell count begins to drop as he uses his magic on behalf of each girl. First by making it snow in the middle of summer to cheer up Yuna. Second by pulling Yuna out of a vortex that also merges the boy's and girl's dorms together. Kazuki uses his magic again to destroy two Behemoths in order to save Kuriko, who was unable to defeat them. And then, Kazuki reverses time to save Rin's homemade box lunch. He also uses it to save his childhood friend Chihaya Yamase after a monster summoned by Kazuki's classmates appeared at the school festival. Not long after, Yuna accidentally releases an incurable retrovirus on herself which also creates a doppelganger of her with the opposite of all her qualities. Kazuki uses his sixth spell to obliterate the clone. Finally, Kazuki uses his last two charges in order to save Yuna's life from the virus.
Each event leaves an impression on the girls and they attempt to keep Kazuki from using any more of his magic and eventually search for ways to increase his spell count. However, their attempts fail when halfway through the series Kazuki uses the last of his magic to save Yuna from the magical retrovirus. However, while Kazuki turned to ash and the ashes scattered, his ghost remains.
At this point in the story, Shino Akai appears in order to capture Kazuki and add him to her ghost collection. The girls try to protect Kazuki from Shino and eventually learn that Kazuki's ashes had been scattered into each of their own hearts. But before Kazuki's ashes were completely returned to him, Shino informs Rin and later the rest of the girls that this is not the first time someone's ashes have been scattered and later restored. However, when Kazuki's ashes are returned to him and his body restored, he will lose all of his memories. Knowing this, the girls still return Kazuki's ashes to him. At the very end of the anime series, it is shown that instead of losing his memories as a side effect of restoring his body, Kazuki has now split into ten different bodies.
In the novel, the side effect of Kazuki's restoration was gaining a special magical body that can cause disaster to the whole world if he lets out his magic powers. Another side effect of Kazuki's restoration is the overflowing of his magical powers every now and then causing minor mishaps and sometimes great chaos.
Characters
Primary characters
; Kazuki Shikimori; Yuna Miyama
; Kuriko Kazetsubaki
; Rin Kamishiro
Supporting characters
; Chihaya Yamase; Dr. Haruaki Akai
; Shino Akai
; Elizabeth
; Karei Hirosaki
; Kaori Iba
; Class 2-B
; Maiho Kurioka
Novel characters
; Kentaro Miyama; Yukari Miyama
; Liera Scharnhorst
; Kamiyo Yamase
Development
Maburaho was Toshihiko Tsukiji's first attempt at writing a romantic school comedy. Tsukiji inspired to write Maburaho after losing a previous novel competition hosted by Gekkan Dragon Magazine, the Dragon Cup. Tsukiji won the competition and Maburaho received high acclaim from Gekkan Dragon readers. In an interview in Newtype USA, Tsukiji states, "I kept two key words in mind, two things that are common to every teenage boy—school and girls." Tsukiji wanted to create three characters that were different from each other in every way.Tsukiji originally conceived of ending the series after six installments with the death of Kazuki after using all of his magic, however the publisher asked him to extend the series. Instead of manipulating Kazuki's magic count, Tsukiji decided to continue the story with Kazuki as a ghost. "I figured it'd probably be most interesting if I made him a ghost," states Tsukiji.
When discussing the anime adaptation, Tsukiji states, "I was actually very inspired by a scene from Episode 1, the one where Yuna introduces herself." Tsukiji was amazed with how skillfully anime director Shinichiro Kimura and the voice actors were able to express each of the girls' personalities.
Media
Novels
The novel series Maburaho is written by Toshihiko Tsukiji and illustrated by Eeji Komatsu. The novel is serialized in Gekkan Dragon Magazine and 30 volumes of Maburaho have been published as of February 2011.The anime series had adapted the storyline until "The Volume of being a Spirit – part 3".
| # | Title | ISBN | Publication date |
Anime
In 2003, an anime series was produced by J.C.Staff and was broadcast on the Japanese network, WOWOW. Consisting of 24 episodes, the series first aired on October 14, 2003 with the episode "They Came..." and concluded on April 6, 2004 with the episode "It Was Over...".On March 8, 2004, ADV Films announced that it had acquired the license to the animated series. The first DVD volume, also available with an artbox, was released on April 19, 2005 and concluded nearly a year later with volume 7. ADV Films later released a Thinpack of the entire series on April 3, 2007.
Theme music
; Opening- Magic of Love by Ichiko
- We'd Get There Someday by Ichiko
- We'd Get There Someday by Hitomi Nabatame, Yuki Matsuoka, and Yuka Inokuchi
Reception
Jason Thompson gave the manga series a half-of-one-star review in his , saying "The characters and situations are stock, the girls are identical except for their hair, and the fanservice is tame."