Manga 75749 Katsute Mahou Shoujo To Aku Wa Tekitai Shiteita

This manga gives a very heartwarming description of the interactions between Miller, an evil genius in charge of an evil organization that does evil things, and Byakuya, a young magical girl who Miller falls for at first sight. As both sides are extremely new to the field of romance, they continuously work to get closer to each other while maintaining their positions as enemies, and the manga does a great job of highlighting their struggle between their personal emotions and work.

The characters themselves have a very strong and likeable identity, and the author does a good job of balancing the side characters so they add ... to the plot without overdoing their interference in the main romance. The art is also well done, and while there isn't much actual plot per se (it's a slice of life manga, after all), the chapters are extremely satisfying and heartwarming, making this a great relaxant from all the other high-intensity mangas out there.

While I don't normally read shoujo, I picked this up after seeing the nice cover art and hearing about the mangaka's untimely death. "Katsute..." is technically about a magical girl trying to stop an evil organization from destroying the world, but that's all a backdrop to the true story: a meet-cute between the naive magical girl Byakuya and the tsundere evil officer Miller.

If you're not here for fluff, you'll probably be bored. If you're looking for a story in which things actually happen, you won't find that here 95% of the time. What you will find are cute moments between the very-in-love Miller and the ... naive Byakuya, who's too dense to understand his (very obvious) true intentions. Miller is awkward at expressing himself, and overprotective of Byakuya despite them theoretically being enemies; Byakuya, in turn, seems like she's in a daze most of the time, taking everything in stride with resignation.

The other characters — especially Miller's subordinates — are fine enough, though Belatrix is introduced as emotionally suppressed on one page and spends the rest of her time acting (quite obviously) the complete opposite of it. I did enjoy the other magical girl, Hibana, who comes across as if Krauser from Detroit Metal City were yanked from his story and turned into a cute magical girl.

"Katsute..." has a weird structure: the first volume is 98% fluff, after which the second is plot-heavy enough to feel like it's trying to make up for lost time, and the third is yet again fluff. After struggling through the cavity-inducingly sweet first volume (almost dropping the series entirely), I welcomed the new characters — for me, things are more interesting when the focus isn't on Byakuya and Miller flirting, and I can't help but feel that there was too much of them, too soon. There are some subversions of mahou shoujo tropes, like the Kyuubey expy, but they aren't that interesting or new. And while descriptions state that the story is incomplete because of the mangaka's passing...there really isn't a story here to complete; it's the kind of manga that could run for 20 volumes and just end.

For me, the story was at its best in the parts where the paneling reverts to a more traditional structure rather than the regular 4-koma that requires a punchline at the end. A lot of the humor comes from Byakuya and Miller misunderstanding each other, through double entendres. The character design is serviceable on its own, though the lack of nose on Byakuya was distracting, and there wasn't any background art to speak of 95% of the time.

If I were to describe this shortly, it'd be "cute but meh". The plot is just an excuse for the cute moments, so if you don't like those you'll probably be bored like I was. It's very much an inoffensive "turn off your brain and enjoy the fluff" story, so if that sounds like something you're down for, give this manga a shot.