Mahou Josei Chimaka Embodies Me As An Adult Magical Girl Fan

By Latonya Pennington

Published on the digital comics magazine Sparkler Monthly, Mahou Josei Chimaka is a magical woman webcomic and graphic novel created by cartoonist Kate Rhodes and animator Jennifer Xu (known together as Kaiju), edited by Lillan Diaz-Przbyl, copy edited by Lianne Sentar and Rebecca Scoble, and digital toning assistant Lillana Diaz. Starring an adult ex-magical girl named Chimaka Shi, the book is a queer slice-of-life fantasy novel that is both satirical and original.  Fifteen years ago, Chimaka was Shimmer Shimmer Sky Patcher, a magical girl who failed to defeat her greatest enemy and marry her destined boyfriend. Now a jaded adult, Chimaka discovers that her nemesis has returned and she can no longer transform. Now, Chimaka must turn to her best friend Pippa to relearn what magic means and regain the power to defeat her ancient enemy for good.

In fact, Chimaka is so notable because she is a complete contrast to the magical girl stories that I personally grew up on, especially Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon's heroine, Usagi Tsukino, is ditzy and happy go lucky about junk food and boys, and isn't that great at schoolwork. More importantly, her future is pretty much locked in: she's destined to become Neo Queen Serenity, marrying the love of her life Prince Endymion and ruling 30th century Crystal Tokyo while raising her daughter Chibiusa. Since Usagi knows exactly what her future is and that it is guaranteed no matter what, she can continue being her same cheerful self despite the strife and battles she endures. Unlike Usagi, Chimaka isn't afforded the same luxury because she has nothing to fall back on after failing to defeat her greatest enemy, breaking up with her destined boyfriend, and retiring as a magical girl.

Another way that Usagi Tsukino and Chimaka Shi differ as characters is that Usagi has an entire group of female friends to be with as a magical girl and as an everyday girl, whereas Chimaka Shi just had her "destined boyfriend" and her magical mascot Snakey. Sailor Moon, the Precure franchise, and other magical girl manga and anime tend to rely on "the power of love and friendship" to make their magical girl abilities strong enough to defeat whatever enemy they need to. They rarely fight completely alone, with Sailor Venus (aka Mina Aino) being the exception.  In the manga Codename Sailor V, Mina Aino fought crime as Sailor V with her magical mascot cat Artemis before discovering her true identity as Sailor Venus and seeking out the other Sailor Guardians.

Yet even Sailor V has better company as a magical girl than Chimaka does. While Artemis gives her useful items in the manga series Codename Sailor V and assists in fights in Sailor Moon, Chimaka's unnamed destined boyfriend and her magical mascot Snakey don't have much use in battle. Flashbacks to Chimaka's teen years show the destined prince doing nothing but cheering Chimaka on, while Snakey just seems to be there to flap around. Doing all the preparation for the final battle by herself and then fail so spectacularly probably dealt Chimaka a devastating blow. To her, her failure to defeat her enemy and marry her destined boyfriend means that she isn't magical and that magic doesn't really exist.  When you consider this and her lack of a plan for a future, you can understand why Chimaka grew up to be an indifferent adult who settles for a career she doesn't care for and doesn't believe in magic.

As a complete opposite to Sailor Moon, Chimaka is a more down to earth magical girl heroine because her magical girl shenanigans have real consequences that affect her life. In the very first chapter of the comic, she states that her magical girl activities left her no time to study as a teen. As a result, she fails her college entrance exams and eventually winds up working at Squid Petrolum as an adult, a geology job she hates. After breaking up with her, her destined prince moves on and eventually starts a family with someone else. Not to mention, her anti-climatic battle with her enemy left a giant crater in the middle of the city that no one could fix. Finally, when her greatest enemy reappears as a giant hole in ozone, news reports state that if nothing is done about it, it could result in permanent damage to the ecosystem. The only positive change is Chimaka now has Pippa, her co-worker, best friend, and eventual love interest.

In order for Chimaka to gain the power to transform again and defeat her archenemy for good, she must reconcile her expectations as a teen magical girl with her current reality as an adult and redefine magic in a different way. In one page, she tells Pippa, "Back then, I was young, starry-eyed. I expected the world to take care of me. I expected that love, some invisible power would help me out, but not everything works out. You can't just wave a magic wand and expect everything to fix itself." This dialogue provides some insight as to why she put so faith into being a magical girl, as a teenager. Sometimes, everyday teens do expect the world to hand them everything by believing they are meant for great things. On top of that, a magical girl usually represents someone all-powerful, someone who can instantly make bad things go away with the power of friendship and love. All things considered, it is clear that Chimaka's naviete as a teen magical girl caused her to have unrealistic expectations.

One of the most unrealistic expectations that Chimaka has as a teen magical girl is the notion of a "destined prince", which is the result of heteronormativity As a whole, magical girl comic books and cartoons are some of the queerest media out there. Canonically, Sailor Moon has lesbian characters, and fans have also interpreted characters like Haruka Tenoh and Seiya Kou as transgender and non-binary. When it comes to its main heroine Usagi, the fact that she has her "destined prince" Mamoru Chiba makes her and him seem straight to the casual reader. However, a closer examination reveals that Usagi and Mamoru's manga and animated counterparts have been shown to be attracted to more than one gender. While there is nothing wrong with Usagi and Mamoru as a pairing, the notion that the two must be straight and were fated to be together because they loved each other in a previous life is just heteronormative bullshit.

Through Mahou Josei Chimaka's sweet and tender "friends to lovers" subplot, heteronormativity and the notion of a "destined prince" is told "fuck you" as Chimaka finally gains an ally worthy of attention. Pippa could've easily been written as a a ditzy blonde, but instead she is shown to be a thoughtful, imaginative girl who just happens to be crushing on her best friend. By doing things with Chimaka such as creating bubbles underwater at the beach, Pippa shows Chimaka that magic can be found in everyday life and made out of the smallest moments. It is this realization and Pippa's confession of her romantic feelings that allows Chimaka to transform again, not only into Shimmer Shimmer Sky Patcher, but also into her goddess form, Nuwa. As Nuwa, Chimaka can finally defeat her greatest enemy for good and return happily to her new girlfriend Pippa. Afterwards, Chimaka and Pippa are shown to have quit Squid Petrolum, embarking on an unknown new career and backpacking together.

As a whole, Mahou Josei Chimaka represents my experience as an adult magical girl fan, especially when it comes to queerness and adulthood. As a kid and teen into Sailor Moon, I was a starry-eyed, nerdy writer. I thought that someday, I'd be a rich, highly praised writer that lived in the big city. Everyone expected that I would go to a four year college immediately since I had a high GPA. I also thought that I was cis and straight and would eventually marry a husband as I was expected to.  On top of all these expectations, I was dealing with trauma and depression by myself even as I desperately wanted to be as magical and successful as others told me I would be. As a result of trauma, depression, and the failure to meet these expectations, I became a jaded adult.

When adulthood came along, I stopped believing that I could be magical. For a while,  I thought that magic could only exist for white cishet people that weren't traumatized and mentally ill. Despite experiencing unexpected tragedy, I got an associate's degree and then a bachelor's. After graduating from a four year college, I realized that I was queer and 

non-binary after rediscovering the magical girl genre through the manga Sailor Moon and the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. Soon afterwards,  I ended up working from home as a freelance contributor, not rich and not married. Somewhere between college and now, I learned to see magic differently,

Right before Chimaka transforms into Nuwa she says, "Fifteen years ago, I thought I lost something, but it was never about losing. It was about learning to see!" Chimaka showed and continues to remind me that magic isn't just something you have, but something you make for yourself. You don't need special powers to do it, either. When I got my review of the digital magical girl comic Adorned By Chi featured on the back of the print version, that was magical. When I figured out my own way to separate an egg, that was magical too. Adulthood can be hard, but that doesn't mean that there aren't magical moments that make it bearable.