True Magic Comes From Within!

For our third series pick up of 2018, it is our pleasure to present the first one that's actually a gender bender. This is chapter 1 of Bokura wa Mahou Shounen (We're Magical Boys) by Teppei Fukushima (or Bokumaho for short), and it also has a subtitle and/or alternate title, Puer Magus Nobis, which is literally "we are magical boys" in Latin. The story is as follows:

Kaito Odagiri is a normal fifth grade boy who can hold his own in a fight and loves to show off. This attracts the attention of Makoto Kaibara, a boy at Kaito's school who reveals to him that he can use magic, but he needs Kaito's help to protect the peace of their town. Kaito jumps at the chance of being a magic-wielding superhero, but his excitement turns to horror when he realizes that he'll be protecting the town dressed as a typical magical girl under the name Thrilling Pink. Although initially reluctant, Kaito soon discovers that there’s more to being a magical boy than simply looking cute in a skirt.

This is actually a very new manga that only just premiered in Weekly Young Jump last month, although despite that being a weekly magazine, this series is serialized monthly, so right now, only 2 chapters of it have been released. That means that its first volume won't even be released until later on this year, probably sometime around October, but we didn't want to wait that long to start it, so we decided to do chapter 1 right now.

The series itself garnered a certain amount of attention upon its release, and fanart has already started popping up on pixiv. Overall, it's a great series, although the art style may be a bit off-putting for some, but it's fitting for a cutesy series like this. It's also interesting that although it's serialized in a seinen manga magazine, it has young characters typical of shounen manga, and of course, a lot of frills and sparkles that would be right at home in a shoujo manga, so perhaps its ability to cross over demographics has helped it gained some early appeal.

So if you think that's something you want to read, please check it out.

Bokura wa Mahou Shounen ch. 1: Mediafire, Dropbox