Volume 2 of the Magical Girl Incident Manga Explains Magical Beings

Pacing is important in manga, and volume 2 of Magical Girl Incident shows Zero Akabane is tackling it well. Much of it focuses on answering questions about how magic and magical boys and girls work in this world, while still advancing character storylines and the main plot in a satisfying way.

Because so much of the first volume of the Magical Girl Incident manga involved introducing Hiromi Sakura and him discovering his ability to transform into a magical girl dubbed Sakura, there wasn’t much time to get into the “why.” Rather, it got into how it happened and he intended to use that power. The second volume remedies that by offering insight into other people with magical capabilities, how the government handles it, and how they handle it among themselves. It sets up the whole “world” in a fascinating way that looks at the duality of human nature and a way in which magic could function.

The end of the first volume featured a fight between Sakura, another unnamed magical girl who appeared and seemed to be using nefarious, dangerous forces to hurt and influence others. During that fight, a male magical being known as The White Knight appeared. Following the assault, Sakura realizes this is someone known from work, and the Tokyo MPD Magic Bureau Counter-Magic Division appears for cleanup duty, to register Sakura, and to help introduce Sakura to the Witch. 

It’s there that things start to come into focus. People such as Sakura and The White Knight are known as a Waltz. They can utilize magic, and tend to belong to certain elements. The Waltz is a complete being tied to magic. This means they also are unaging and can’t die via normal means, with each one possessing a lifebox that essentially houses their souls. A Waltz only dies when that is destroyed. 

While the explanations are great, it also means an opportunity for more questions to arise. Since we learn that someone displaying female attributes when transformed is a man in their non-magical life and vice-versa, it helps pin down the continuing search for the rogue Waltz introduced in the first volume. It also presents us with several mysteries about Sakura. His lifebox is missing in action, though there are hints about where it could be. There’s also the matter of his strength, typing, and how he even ended up being able to transform. That isn’t even getting into the major cliffhanger that closes out this volume.

Which all shows again that Zero Akabane is fantastic at setting up a world and characters, then providing just enough information to move the story along and captivate the reader. We learn more about Sakura’s new “professional” life, as well as get some insights into his personal one. We learn more about The White Knight and how magic ends up integrated into this society. Not to mention the main antagonist of the whole series gets enough face time to make them and their story compelling as well. It’s building in a fascinating way, one that makes it difficult for me to imagine it all being tied up and ended in the third volume.

Magical Girl Incident volume 2 is now available via Yen Press. There’s no release window yet for the third installment. A total of three volumes appeared in Japan, with the last one debuting there in September 2023.