Thanks to being the only "out" Magical Girl band in the world Magica Riot's fame has skyrocketed so much so that will be headlining a show at a venue that hold 20,000! This is a huge step for the girls, and especially for Claire but she's dedicated to showing up for her friends and bandmembers. Riding on the high and the anxiety of this information Claire is taken by complete surprise to find Bloom on her front step, while still the same prickly girl she was as Menagerie Bloom, Claire finds she's changed quite a bit over the last several weeks. And that her timing couldn't be better as a few days later the girls discover that Thaumatite* is being rendered for weapons production and Magica Riot will need all the help they can get even if it comes from a former enemy!
To say I loved this would be the understatement of the century! Per usual Buchanan has brought us a wonderfully trans Magical Girl story for our time and I'm not even going to wait till the end to say if you haven't read this series, yet you need too!
Bloom is by far my favorite character in this volume. Hell, she is actually my new favorite character in the series, yup she even edged out Hikari just a tiny bit by the end of this. But c'mon if you look at what I read there was just no way that was not going to happen. Claire as the MC and the "I just came out as trans" MC had and continues to have a lot of growth as a character, it's just not the growth that I am drawn to the most. Blooms is, it's not just that she is learning how to not be an evil construct it's that she's learning how to be human period and that's such difficult character to not just read and fully understand but to write. When I realized that's where this was going with the introduction of Bloom I'll admit I was a little worried that Buchanan had bit off more than she could chew, but she omigoodness does she nail this character type so well! Moreover, Bloom learning empathy as kind of this base human emotion is an overreaching theme in the book so she not only created this wonderfully smart ass character who is learning how to deal with these things called emotions, she expertly made it a part of the plot itself. I bow down to Buchanan's ability to write. I truly do.
Claire is of course still amazing and is making strides as a well human too. Claire's anxiety plays no small role in this volume and I am glad it did. It would have been easy just to kind of shut that off or make it something she didn't still struggle with as much as she does but that's not how anxiety works and it's not how it worked here. And I appreciate that beyond all belief. Is it a nitpicky call out for continuity? Probably, but one that I believe needed to be said. Because this little nitpicky personality stuff is core to Magical Girl stories.
Now, here is where we are heading into spoiler territory but I couldn't write this review without discussing Makula and the big evil corporation. Now, Makula is the Villainess (yes that is meant to a villainess with a capital V) is your standard almost amusing villain. She's got an ego the size of well Portland and to be fair she has the credentials to back it up as we find out at the end of the book. At first I was very confused as to why we had Makula in this when we had Allison Webb and the big actually evil tech company and before this I want to say this is what I took away from this not necessarily Buchanan's purpose, but Makula is there to show how easily intentions can be corrupted. I'm going to have to explain the big evil tech company real quick for this to make sense so we are backing up a little bit. Big Evil Tech (BET from here on out) has created AI controlled robots that run off of Thaumtite, which of course attracts Makula because Magica being misused is one way to piss her off. Now, Makula may be a Villainess but Makula would never hurt an innocent, I think we figured that all out in the novella. The problem is every time she tries to stop BET, they highjack her spells causing them to hurt people. And that folks is why no matter what your intention is with AI, there is no way for it to not be corruptible. Period end of story. You may have good intentions, but those intentions do not matter because AI is a soulless code that couldn't possibly understand empathy if it hit in its face. Which btw I'm not going to delve too deep into this here but the fact that BET's AI robots sound a lot like ICE should not be overlooked and you could write a whole damn paper on that and this whole conversation I just had and where those things intersect with each other because they do, often. Circling back; Makula proves that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. She had to be there.
Finally, I want to hit on just how well this done is in terms of a Magical Girl Story. I think people think that they are just these kinds of girl versions of Power Rangers (to an extent that wouldn't be completely wrong) however what defines a true Magical Girl story is that it is about a group of girls coming together in friendships that are formed from a unshakeable bond of trust, respect, and acceptance. I will never not quote Takeuchi when discussing Magical Girl stories as she defined them perfectly when she said that she wrote the "Sailor Scouts with the types of girls she wanted to be friends with." Claire discusses this over and over again and as the Guardian of Harmony telling the story specifically from Claire's viewpoint really reminds the reader what these stories should always be about. It doesn't matter what Magical Girl story you choose to read if you don't walk away from it thinking "those are the type of women I want in my life" then you haven't read a Magical Girls story. And yeah, I've walked away from now all three of these books thinking that these are the type of women I want in my life.
So, I reiterate if you haven't picked up this series, especially if you love Magical Girl stories, put down what you are doing hop on to your favorite bookseller's page and get them ordered. Get a couple of copies so you can give one to the Magical Girl in your life.
*I probably did not spell this correctly, honestly I usually do try to go back and grab spellings from the book but the weather is starting to change again and my head is starting to hurt. I may come back later and correct it but honestly it's a tiny thing that I most likely will forget in twenty minutes.
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