Magic: The Gathering. Destroy all Humankind. They Can’t Be Regenerated, Vol. 1

すべての人類を破壊する。それらは再生できない。[Subete no jinrui wo hakai suru. Sorera wa saisei dekinai.] #1

by Takuma Yokota (Illustrator), Katsura Ise, Wizards of the Coast

Luglio 1999: secondo Nostradamus la fine del mondo è ormai prossima. Hajime Kano sfrutta ogni momento libero per giocare a Magic The Gathering. Questo, immancabilmente, scatena i rimproveri di Emi Sawatari, l’unica studentessa della scuola con un rendimento migliore del suo. Un giorno, però, cambiando negozio specializzato il ragazzo incontra proprio la sua storica rivale. Che anche lei sia un’amante dei GCC?

Genres: Manga, Romance, Comics, Comics Manga, Graphic Novels, Slice Of Life, Graphic Novels Manga

Kindle Edition

Published September 12, 2024

Reviews

[Jason Pollard · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

Slightly embarrassing to special order this at the bookstore where I work, causing my coworker to have to look me in the eye and say, "Your magic book came in today." Truly humiliating to go home, read it in one sitting, and have a pretty good time. The characters play Magic, just like me! How fun!

I'll continue with the series as long as they don't waste more time on the romance subplot (too much kissing will lead to not enough playing Magic: The Gathering, which, as stated before, is kind of the whole thing for me).

[Em · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has promise! But I don’t like how much it sexualises Emi considering the main characters are in middle school.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is 1998 and Magic: The Gathering is big amongst middle schoolers like Kano. This doesn’t sit well with his rival for top marks, Sawatari, who thinks he’s a nerd and his hobby is lame. Well, she half thinks that, anyway.

This immediately put me in mind of another nostalgia bomb: My Lovesick Life As A 90’s Otaku. That story used a very similar setting to tell a tale of young love and missed opportunities amidst popular manga and anime of the day.

Here, well, there are certainly some real ancient tropes scattered throughout this entire story. You can count down the seconds until Sawatari is revealed to have a hidden gamer side and it doesn’t take long at all.

So, immediately there’s a huge dollop of typical manga nerd fantasy, where the dorky male lead attracts the super hot girl who is into his hobbies and slowly the two of them get closer and it’s clearly just a matter of time. My Dress-Up Darling this is not.

Oh, but I adored this story to pieces and much more than My Lovesick Life, which was pretty good. No, it’s not original in its characters, not in the slightest, but it won me over with very little effort once it got going.

And the reason for that is pretty simple - I lived this nostalgia. Oh, you’d never catch any of the girls at my high school dead playing MTG, but I sure did. And that was an addiction and bonding experience that saw me through some rough points of university too.

So I was the absolute perfect target for this story and it lands hit after hit as it targets the things that meant something to me growing up. From asides about Square’s PlayStation 1 output to Kano singing along to ‘Just Communication’, this is like watching a more sociable Japanese doppelgänger.

And I don’t, in the end, dislike these two characters. Kano is a brash nerd, but the story knows how chuuni he’s being and I had a good laugh at the narrative calling him out on it before it was even an actual term.

He also sees Sawatari as a rival and isn’t being a misogynist about it, which sadly makes him better than a lot of real life nerds would be in a similar situation. Yeah, this is all following a formula, but I liked the formula. Especially his desire to help her find her real self amidst the two personas she presents.

Sawatari is mostly relegated to the prim and proper student who has a secret side to her, but there’s definitely a hidden melancholy beneath even that which we haven’t been privy to. There’s also a strange prophetic endpoint hanging over this that gives it a little mystery. Yes, she’s there to look hot, but there’s at least an attempt to be a bit more than that.

The incorporation of MTG proper is well done and, since it’s endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, it’s got a great handle on how to play the game. The explanations are both quietly kept in sidebars and sprinkled amidst the flashy art, which has that chunky style I tend to really enjoy in manga. I really enjoyed the detail of the various cards too. Recognizing some of the ones in Sawatari’s white deck was a fun little extra.

As a bonus, this has a wonderfully robust set of translation notes that give some fascinating background on the writer’s choices and also help flesh out the numerous pop culture references, both obvious and obscure.

If you’ve had it with these types of stories or don’t see any appeal in MTG, this will not suddenly wow you with some fantastic content that wins you over. It knows exactly what it wants to be and that will not be for everybody.

4 stars - it’s definitely for me, however! Stock story aside, I enjoyed the characters and I loved the context of having the whole thing set in a time I lived through doing things I loved back then. The nostalgia here is poignant, so keep in mind it’s absolutely affecting my take.

[Anna Quilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

in the 1990s middle school Hajime Kano has one rival....she gets better grades...is a honor student...but Emi Sawatari has a secret.

She's really into Magic The Gathering Card Game just like Hajime.

Nice era type love letter to MtG.

[Christine Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a cute sports manga but with MTG! Thank gos I got into it recently so I was able to understand all of the plays. Getting that $10 bonus card of Diabolical Edict is also great too

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5 stars rounded up)

Destroy All Humans volume 1 is a book that is going to hit different depending on your familiarity with Magic: The Gathering and what age you were when it first came out. This is very much a nostalgia trip, but that doesn't mean it isn't good in its own right. The characters are fun, and they feel realistic for their age. There were moments where the art felt a bit simplistic, but otherwise it works well. The backgrounds are especially nice. Sometimes it was difficult to read the MTG cards throughout the story. It isn't super important to know what the cards say on them, but it just felt like if the print is there, it should be easier to read at times. I did really enjoy seeing the way the card expressions or actions were shown on the characters playing them. It was clever and added a layer to what was happening. Mostly, it was cool to see this budding friendship over a shared interest, something we can all relate to. I am excited to see where it all goes.

[Joey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I’ve been getting into Magic the Gathering lately and a manga based on it sounded fun. And it is a good time! Not only because it’s fun to see Magic matches play out in a comic but also because it’s a little snapshot of the hobby in the late 90s, which is when the story takes place.

The romance plot isn’t super interesting and I doubt it would be even people that go into it for that, but if you want a low-stakes, slice of life manga based around Magic, you’ll probably dig this.

[Audet Maxime · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a pretty by-the-book rom-com style plot, but the characters are likable, and everything related to the MTG aspect is taken from the real game.

[Alex Richey · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can take any Magic: the Gathering fanfiction, put art to it, and it's probably the same story quality. The art is mostly good, but in an effort to provide some modicum of fan service they do some impossible things with the main girl's back and legs.

My favorite part is the appreciation for an era of Magic that was pretty fun. It's great for 1998 nostalgia, just with a really dorky story.

[Samuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm… on one hand, this makes me want to play MTG, a game I’ve never even played before, so I suppose as a marketing tool this manga has done its job. Watching the characters play matches is fun, especially since I know nothing about MTG at all. But story-wise… man, the FMC is just so damn unlikeable.

The MC’s personality is okay, and he’s charismatic enough to be entertaining despite him losing at his MTG matches pretty often. But I think it was how the FMC was presented that threw me off… she’s lowkey a bitch to the MC for no reason (both in the past and the present), and flips out when the MC finds her playing MTG and proceeds to be even more rude to him - and we’re expected to suddenly be cool with the two of them being ‘friends’ and having romantic tension in these same chapters, with no real resolution or acknowledgement of her behaviour? What bro😭

And when he does acknowledge the FMC’s behaviour towards the end of the volume, he says ‘oh but she’s my friend so it’s okay’… like huh? Like she didn’t even apologise or really explain to him why she shit-talked him so much for playing a game that SHE HERSELF plays. All we get is ‘oh well i’m a perfect student from a strict family so i can’t show my hobbies off like you can’. Which could have even worked, if it was elaborated on or even if she just apologised, but nope.

The art’s good and I like the MTG matches, but half this volume seemed to focus on the relationship between the MC and FMC which just didn’t work for me. Imma still read volume 2, but I hope to god the FMC’s attitude gets better soon, because it’s not even annoyingly charming, it just comes across as annoying.

Anyway despite the rant, the volume overall was okay. It’s just the FMC’s personality getting on my nerves ig haha. And I think it’s frustrating to me bc if there was just a bit of explanation or difference in storytelling, I could easily see myself enjoying this more. But oh well…

[Wolky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny stuff.
Like the idea that this kid is ahead of his time in being an over dramatic emo machine, and the adults just appreciate and make space.
All these characters are very familiar to manga readers, but the way they make a broadly welcoming game shop come to life a little was cool to me.
Also as an MTG player, it's cool to read a hobby narrative that doesn't feel too much like YuGiOh or anything.

[Nina Luca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute and cozy read.

The creators of this manga did a fantastic job with MTG Easter eggs and nostalgia! Even though the relationship between the two main characters is cute, the manga’s style isn’t my usual preference, so I won’t continue the series.

However, I highly recommend it to all MTG fans looking for a cozy slice-of-life read!

[DW]

I absolutely fell in love. The nerddom didn't feel forced at all. I'm 100x more invested in the next book than I ever thought I'd be.

[Katie❄️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga about middle schoolers playing the card game Magic: The Gathering in the late 90’s.

[Bryce]

This book genuinely rage baiting me with one of the main characters playing boardwipe mass land destruction tribal

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is so cute, gotta love the characters and the nostalgia for a culture I was present for in time but in a different place. Magic rules!

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slice of life
Somehow feels both timeless and steeped in 90's culture
Slight romance suggested, though the game definitely takes precendence

[Michael Mcmaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nostalgic.

[An A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and Viz Media for an advanced digital copy of Destroy All Humans: They Can't Be Regenerated.

One of my coworkers let me know about this book and I just had to read it. I have never played Magic: The Gathering, but I do have a ton of family and friends who play the game (I do play other TCGs though). I also work at a library and primarily work at our Teen Library. We have several groups of teen patrons that love MTG and come in almost weekly to play, as well as we have done a few programs for MTG drafts for all ages.

This is a book that I will be getting for our teen manga collection and I will be recommending it to all of our patrons. Even if you don't play MTG this is still a fun read for those that may play other TCGs, or even if you don't play.

For the MTG enthusiast, with this book it's fun to see a throwback to early MTG days. From playing the game, making new friends, trading cards, and playing in tournaments. For those that don't play MTG and may not have much knowledge of the game, this book does a great job of explaining what is happening when the card are being played.

Over all if you are fan of MTG or other TCGs, this is a fantastic read. Even if you aren't it is still a great read because of the characters and story.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright, so there's a lot to say here. First, I'm familiar with the author/artist duo through their doujin manga Onanie Master Kurosawa, which I consider to be one of my favorite manga. I happened to re-read it... uh, sometime in the past five years, by which time they'd started work on DESTROY ALL HUMANS. THEY CAN'T BE REGENERATED, which interested me pretty much only because I like OMK. I was largely unfamiliar with Magic the Gathering by this time.

So, that's kind of incorrect; I've been aware of MtG for almost as long as I've been aware of Yu-Gi-Oh!, as the cards were always located near each other in stores. I essentially grew up with YGO, among other "toy/game advertisement" anime localized in America in that era (the late '90s to mid '00s). MtG never appealed to me. The big thing, which I was telling a friend at work a year or so ago (he's into Magic), is that there was no, like, "Saturday morning cartoon" to advertise the game, and I was an easy-going enough kid that I could have easily had the game shilled to me with a cool show, like aforementioned YGO, or like Beyblade also. In fact, I am aware of another Magic manga: Duel Masters, which I understand began life in Japan as a manga about MtG, but which Wizards of the Coast eventually developed into a somewhat unique game (with similar elements like the five colors and "tapping" cards, &c.), and which came stateside with the dub of the promotional anime (which, incidentally, was given a gag-dub so as not to step on YGO's toes too much...). I did not at the time realize Duel Masters was basically anime-Magic, and, if I did, I might have been more interested in "graduating" to Magic after Duel Masters kind of... just fucking died in the West.

I mentioned a work buddy above, and he's kind of significant for my kinda-sorta knowledge of Magic today. He mentioned early in our time at the job that he was into card games, so I asked him what kind(s) because I kind of wanted someone to help nudge me back into YGO (I dropped out when Synchros came up and got back into the anime over a decade later with VRAINS). My friend was instead only into Magic, and the Commander format specifically. He helped me to learn the game, and we would play mock-duels by posting screenshots of our boards on Teams during work, when possible. But we weren't using physical cards, and he was testing fantasy decks he might not be able to afford, while I was testing digital versions of preconstructed Commander decks that might be easier for me to purchase. My cards, naturally, kind of sucked. And my main lesson was that the real game is "pay to win." No one buys booster packs to build decks; that's what the singles market is for, but the best cards will cost an arm and a leg.

Due to... poverty, I guess... I started losing interest in Magic, before ever actually physically playing the game (besides, like, Solitaire-esque duels against myself using Jumpstart packs...). I did meanwhile buy a booster box of the then-latest YGO set, but only pulled trash. I started getting more into a trio of Bandai card games (Dragon Ball Super, Digimon, and One Piece) as well as occasionally buying the stray Pokemon booster, and eventually moving on to Japanese Pokemon booster boxes (which have superior pull rates compared to the dogshit in American product). I'd always kept an idea in mind that Magic's Sealed Draft format might be extremely interesting, forcing you to use the chaff available from random boosters, but my friend exclusively played Commander and I... simply didn't want to go to my LGS as a total newbie and fuckin' lose.

I got back into (the idea of) Magic with the Final Fantasy set, despite thinking the Universe Beyond stuff is stupid in general - actually, another reason I couldn't hold interest in Magic was the apparent lack of aesthetic cohesion with its multiverse stuff; the first set I bought was WOE, followed by LCI, then MKM and OTJ, which was the last set I bought from until Foundations, then I took another hiatus until FIN. I decided to view FIN as its own thing, and I was buying product as a fan of Final Fantasy first and foremost. But I opened a Play Booster Box between yesterday and today and didn't pull anything especially rare (though I did like a lot of cards I got, as it seemed WotC honored the franchise's flavor way better than they did Tolkien...).

Final Fantasy is important to note because of the setting of this manga: it follows otaku in the late '90s, and protagonist Hajime explicitly references FFVII and FFVIII (as well as other Squaresoft RPGs like Trials of Mana, Xenogears, and Bahamut Lagoon). I'm sure the protagonist would love the FIN set, though I'm a little upset to learn the manga ended in Japan last month, before this set dropped.

So far, I cannot imagine this manga will follow the span of emotional beats I might expect of Onanie Master Kurosawa, but there are at least similar feelings of adolescent angst, naivety, innocence, and joie de vivre that weigh heavily on the Nostalgic portion of my heart, even if I don't quite feel all the direct references to Magic. In a way, the manga reinforces my desire to get more into the game. But I also feel it would be impossible to simulate what Hajime and Emi feel here. The game seems different now. I think more people play Commander than Standard. I'm 31 instead of 13. My age and occupation allow the possibility of just fucking buying singles to build decks instead of facing the randomness of cracking packs, so there will never naturally be any feeling of improving a deck or collection unless my willfully crippling myself (either by forcing myself to stick with boosters instead of singles, or just assfucking my finances by buying better single cards). I also just kind of have this "thing" where I feel uncomfortable having "nerd" friends who are too passionate about their "nerd" interests without balancing them with (for deliberate avoidance of a better word) "hipster" interests (e.g. avant-garde literature or cinema).

The first time I read Onanie Master Kurosawa, it made me want to love and cherish more the friends I had at the time. The second time I read the manga, it made me value my self-imposed solitude, like I'll never really be able to value connections with other people again, if I'd ever truly done so before. This manga kind of makes me feel the same way as the latter experience; it's "too late" for me to get into Magic the way Hajime is, and I wouldn't be able to trust the Sincerity of anyone emulating Emi.

EDIT: This is kind of important to include, but I forgot about it because of how long it took to write the review: I got distracted by getting back into Arena between finishing this book and reviewing it. Turns out, I am just not good at this game.

[Steffany .O (coffee over apples) · Rating 5 out of 5]

AAAAAH first of all, I'm biased AF because hello? My favorite game and favorite hobby in one thing? Yes I will read about mtg with adorable characters who's banter is wholesome all day, thank you!

I loved these characters so much. The plot in the background involving the end of days is ominous and currently I wonder if it really needs it. I would just read it for the shenanigans. The random insertion of cards for context and added flavor was cool. The battle drama? Ridiculous! So cheesey battle anime. It's perfect! 😍

Im a sucker for anything with 80s & 90s nostalgia. If you aren't familiar with the game, there maybe be a curve getting into it but as a fan I was laughing the whole time at the old meta. I NEED MORE!!

[CaptainCassidy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The m/c reminds me too much of the delusional “I’m definitely the protagonist of life” MTG players I’ve known. One in particular… they could be brothers, lol.

Bought by mistake, but will buy the second volume if they release a card with that one too.

[Logolepsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come diamine sono finita a leggere un manga sul Magic?!

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

Set in 1998, this Wizards of the Coast sanctioned story follows most of the typical shounen/sports manga tropes: tsundere female love interest, power ups, steadily growing list of more and more important tournaments, and enemies to lovers. There is a weird bit of y2k-ends-the-world subplot that fortunately hasn't been developed too very far in this first volume.

Story: Middle schooler Kano loves the card game Magic: The Gathering (MTG) as well as video gaming. In elementary school, he was top of his class - until transfer student Sawatari joins the class and he'll henceforth be relegated to second. She makes fun of his gaming and he's tired of it; until the day he bikes a long distance to a small gaming cafe and finds Sawatari there defeating all the adult regulars with her MTG skills. Is the rude and aloof Sawatari actually an MTG player? He'll soon discover that there is lot more to understanding MTG (and Sawatari) than he thought.

Most of the volume establishes Sawatari as the typical Tsundere who is rude to everyone, a perfectionist, and pretending to be the model student. Kano is always second to her in grades - and then proceeds to lose to her (and everyone else) in the small cafe's 'unsanctioned DCI tournaments.' It starts with Kano not understanding mono deck strengths and weaknesses while also having to learn land/resource distribution. All the while, he and Sawatari come to understand each other better as he is forced to bike her home often from the cafe.

It's a fun throw back to the time of MTG's Exodus expansion release in 1998. The cards are pulled with aplomb during gaming scenes with players taking physical hits to the chest when they take damage. The author loved MTG at that age and draws upon his own memories for the manga. All cards and MTG art is faithfully recreated since this is an authorized piece (the author worked with WoTC for this manga).

For MTG enthusiasts, it is kind of fun to see this throwback to earlier MTG. From figuring out what cards are worth the most to trading, tournaments and playing with friends. It's a time when MTG was big in Japan: I can remember talking to Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) employees in that era and them having a joke that every morning the president of WoTC would look to the East and bow in thanks for all the money Japan was sending them for the game. So yes, it really was a big thing in Japan and spawned Pokemon, Yugioh, and many other collectible card games.

For non MTG players, everything is carefully explained so you really don't need to know how to play the game.

In all, I found the whole 'armageddon is coming in a year with year 2K' subplot a bit odd. The characters were prototypical - think a less subtle Hikaru No Go. But it is also a fun, if mindless, Twinkie of a manga with a bit of romance and nostalgia for the 1990s thrown in. Too bad the manga can't capture the 'nostalgic' smell of old pizza and unwashed bodies from the typical big MTG tournament of the era. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Joshua Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is your typical nerdy-boy-meets-popular-girl school romance, except that despite the girl (Emi Sawatari) being smart and attractive, the boy (Hajime Kano) only has eyes for Magic: The Gathering. His interest in Emi is driven purely by her being better than him at everything—including Magic. Because of this setup, I was worried that this would veer into him voicing the cringey belief that gaming is for boys and not for girls, but thankfully that's not the case. What does happen, though, is that Emi feels forced to hide her love of Magic, not because it's a "boy hobby," but because it's a nerd hobby and clashes with the image she's trying to present to her schoolmates.

As a fan of Magic: The Gathering and '90s culture in general, I felt a lot of nostalgia reading this. Starting in 1998, the dark title of Destroy All Humans refers to the fear of an impending calamity foretold by Nostradamus: "The year 1999, seventh month. From the sky will come a great king of terror." Players of Magic will identify this as the date Hasbro entered talks to purchase Magic's publisher, Wizards of the Coast, the consequences of which we're still dealing with almost 30 years later. And so, in a very real way, the protagonists' world will end in about a year's time, and this drives them to enjoy every moment to the fullest. You can tell that the writer, Katsura Ise, is well-informed about what Magic was like during this time, as it's packed with accurate references to cards and deck strategies that were popular back then. Readers who are less knowledgeable about Magic will find helpful footnotes in the margins between panels, but for the most part the reader's enjoyment requires about as much knowledge about the game as Yu-Gi-Oh! requires knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh! Though I would say that this manga will shine best to those who enjoy Magic, as I do.

The story, the pacing, and the artwork are all excellent, and it's so fun seeing familiar summons and spells from Magic taking physical shape as in your typical card-gaming manga. My main reason for "only" rating this as a 4 out of 5 is that I just can't stand Hajime's attitude so far. He's arrogant, a sore winner and a sorer loser, and sneers at his friends' well-intentioned deckbuilding advice. Apart from him thankfully *not* discriminating against Emi for being a girl spellslinger as I mentioned earlier, he's just a miserable POV to read from. I know that this is a journey and that he's destined to shape up the more he spends time with Emi, but it doesn't make these early chapters any easier to read. When it comes to portraying the negative stereotype of Magic players during its early years, Ise did not hold back. Despite this one gripe, it's indeed my interest in seeing Hajime grow as a person and as a Magic player that have me immediately diving into the second volume as I conclude this review.

[Eu]

Thank you to NetGalley and VIZ Media LLC for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Destroy All Humans, They Can't Be Regenerated by Katsura Ise and Takuma Yokota is 100% a nostalgia manga. Set in the late 1990s and overseen by Wizards of the Coast, this manga series is a silly ode to Magic: The Gathering, as well as a nod to Japanese pop culture of the time period. The official plotline is a rivals-to-friends (to probably eventually lovers) relationship between two middle school Magic players, with a healthy dose of self-aware humor regarding the silly, chaotic antics of the characters and their dedication to the game.

Full disclosure: I know little to nothing about Magic: The Gathering, but there were enough side notes and context provided that I could follow along and enjoy the other tropes present in the story--there was a healthy balance of gameplay and plot, and one didn't overshadow the other. I also appreciated the fact that Emi Sawatari, the female lead/future love interest, is a strong gamer girl; while she feels pressured to keep her hobby a secret outside of the game shop, the protagonist, a pre-chūnibyō chūnibyō named Hajime Kano, respects her skill and supports it--his frustration at his losses stems from competitiveness rather than misogyny. One question I am left with is whether there will be a genre shift in later volumes due to some dialogue in Volume 1 that could just be about Y2K (or is it...?), but that remains to be seen. For now, this is a fun read for gamers and fans of gaming stories, and is well suited for tween and teen readers.

Other titles of interest may include: Yu-Gi-Oh! by Kazuki Takahashi, Pokémon Adventures by Hidenori Kusaka, Critical Role (podcast, show, graphic novels, etc.), and The Adventure Zone (podcast, graphic novels) by the McElroy family and Carey Pietsch.

[Joseph R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hajime Kano is a nerdy middle-school student in 1998 Japan. The new, hot craze is Magic: The Gathering (MTG), a trading card game set in a fantasy realm. Players fight one-on-one with constructed decks. Kano is the star player in his grade and wishes he was the star student. The real academic star is Emi Sawatari, his rival since she transferred into his elementary school. She always comes out ahead and is completely aloof to his competitive and nerdy nature. She complains that he's cluttering up a school room with "non-essentials" like MTG cards. The next weekend, he goes to a neighboring city where a shop hosts MTG tournaments. It's his first time there, so he's both awkward and amazed. The shop's star player hasn't been beat that day so he decides to try his "all black" deck against her. He wins the first round but she comes back in the second round. Before it's finished, he drops his D20 (a 20-sided die used to track health). They both go to the floor to pick it up. He knocks his hat off and she recognizes him after he's already realized who she is...Emi Sawatari! They strike up a friendship based on their fascination with the card game.

This book provides a nice twist on the usual school-based manga. Typically the school is weird or overly specific or the interest is in the school's sports team. Here, the school is just a social setting that creates a contrast between Kano and Sawatari that is countered by their afterschool hobby. I don't have nostalgia for MTG (I've never played it). Even so, this story is charming.

Recommended.

[Luke Muench · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I grew up where I was actively playing Magic the Gathering in its hey-day, I could see this being a fantastic love letter and nostalgia trip to a special era of a game that largely struggles to treat its audience with any respect these days. As it stands, I don't play Magic, nor have I ever been particularly invested in the game system. I've certainly played it and briefly collected it, but it's never grabbed me in the way it has my friends.

I likely wouldn't have picked up this book if it wasn't handed to me with a hearty recommendation. It's a perfectly passable card-battler manga with an awkward high school romance aspect to it which never feels particularly unique or well framed. Neither of the lead characters are likable, and the story feels very by-the-books. The only real stand-out aspect of the book are the Magic references being made; I certainly was able to follow along with and even appreciate a lot of the references being made because of how the book is framed, making it beginner friendly, but I can't say that it's a particularly enjoyable read without that context. The best parts are when the characters make exaggerated facial expressions that mimics card art from the original Magic cards, which again is just references for the sake of it.

Can't say I would recommend this, but I may end up reading more of it if my friend decides to lend them to me anyway.

[James Idsardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes the well-worn card battle manga and provides a couple of interesting twists. While this is still in part a vehicle attempting to serve as an entry point to a collectable physical product, it instead opts to be a period piece for a specific era of the game rather than something more contemporary, allowing it to better operate within a known metagame state that provides enough stability to allow it to function even more like a sports manga than the genre usually does. As with most sports manga, the authors clearly recognize that the struggles of the individual participants trump the simple binaries of who wins or loses individual matches, and the male lead appears to be set up in a Meguru-like position to showcase the struggles of a player on the lower end of the talent ladder, while the female lead occupies the more traditional protagonist position. Lastly, the main emotional fulcrum here seems to rest on the romance arc, and while that followed relatively generic beats so far, it’s an interesting change of pace compared to similar entries that are almost laser focused on the game itself. A promising start overall, and hopefully the rest of the series manages to dig into the period piece aspect to a satisfying degree.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh man. The nostalgia 😅 Somehow I missed the “Magic the Gathering” part of the title, so I was quite startled when I saw the familiar cards 😆 I didn’t play MTG myself, but my family owned a card shop and I was allowed to open packs and collect whatever I wanted. Naturally I kept all the “pretty” cards - of course it had nothing to do with them being powerful cards that my brother wanted for his deck 🤭

It’s funny because now i know so many people that are playing MTG again (not to mention D&D and Yugioh…). I guess great games never die!

Naturally it’s got some wish fulfillment - MC is a dorky, unpopular guy, and he ends up hanging out with a female classmate that happens to be super popular, gorgeous, the top student AND into anime and games…It was pretty hilarious when all the other store patrons immediately pegged him as a middle schooler, thanks to his overly dramatic introduction. “My name? Let’s go with…Cloud.” 😆 ok, Final Fantasy nerd.

Chock full of popular cultural references from my youth, it was very fun. I’m just sad to realize it was released so recently and I have to wait months for the next one.