スペクトラルウィザード

SPECTRAL WIZARD

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
1
RELEASE
August 11, 2017
CHAPTERS
5

DESCRIPTION

The Sorcerers' Guild, in possession of many dangerous grimoires, was condemned as a terrorist organization.
To combat it, a chivalric order supported by cutting-edge science and technology was formed.
One after another, the sorcerers were captured and executed, leaving the survivors to live on the run.

Among them is Spectral Wizard, a sorcerer with the ability to turn immaterial...

A collection of three short stories.

CAST

Spectra
Chaos Wizard
Kinetica
Misaki

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO SPECTRAL WIZARD

Cover Art for Spectral Wizard: Saikyou no Mahou wo Meguru Bouken

MANGA ComedySpectral Wizard: Saikyou no Mahou wo Meguru Bouken

REVIEWS

Mangosex
90/100
A melancholic, moe masterpiece that will make you feel like crawling under the covers and hiding from the world.
Flavor: Story is 80% Welcome to the NHK-style slice-of-life and 20% battle manga.
The slice of life parts are character-centric with a minimalist cast. Similar to Bakemonogatari, Spectral Wizard relishes with the interplay between the protagonist and that chapter's spotlight character.
Like Crystal's second-best work, Game-Bu, Characters come in three flavors: Depressive, Manic and Normie.

Depressive characters, like Spectral Wizard herself, cope with the world by being sad most of the time. It's fun to explore their psychological problems and the culmination of their various neuroses can lead to hilarious moments of black comedy, or a battle scene.

Manic characters cope with their problems by acting in a hyper-exaggerated clownish manner. They serve as a contrast to the depressive characters and can cushion cynical jokes with loads of sugary moe flavor.

Normie characters are sane enough to manipulate the others into doing what they want until those others get crazy enough to turn against them.

Summary: After surviving this book's version of the Wizard Holocaust, Spectral Wizard is kept on a loose leash by the science knights so she can fight other wizards. The story explores Spectral's relationships with the corporate science knights and with surviving wizards who may or may not be evil.

Art: Powerpuff Girls art style that sometimes feels like Mogeko Castle or Waganohara Under the Sea. Nothing will blow you away but it's cute enough to be melancholy-moe.

Story: Sometimes Spectral Wizard fights for the knights, sometimes she fights against them. It's fascinating to explore Spectral's, and the author's, complicated relationship with authority.

Each chapter is a self-contained story of 50-100 pages when other books would divide a single chapter into 5, so you're getting a real mouthful.

Spectral Wizard's critiques on society are subtle, the author trusts you to understand. Chapter 1 of book 1 is an excellent critique of how buying stuff can't help you solve all your problems and may even create more of them. A second read can put into perspective how the knights, and society, have trapped Spectral into a Consoomer/Capitalist loop that makes her dependant on them.

Read Spectral Wizard if you like:
- melancholic-moe slice of life with climax battles
- Bakemonogatari-style minimalist cast
- depressive, manic and normie characters
- Powerpuff Girls art style
- gap-moe of cute characters with mental health issues
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