A Magical Girl Retires is a short, read-in-one-go kind of novella that comes from a very soft, vulnerable place where nostalgia and longing a clear-eyed, fierce magical girl narratives meets a tired disillusioned woman in her thirties trying to find a place in her world. The Last Unicorn for a mahou shoujo generation, if you will.

The novella is narrated in a mostly level-headed tone, which is on brand for the narrator who is pushing thirty and is used to being sidelined quite a bit, and somber at times when it contemplates the origin of each magical girl (always the trauma, always the universe flipping the scales to that the weakest person can turn to a champion in their darkest hour) but at the same time has levity -- the kind that comes with acknowledging the hilarity of magical girl set-up when experienced from an adult's perspective and with adult world complications (trade union of magical girls! job fairs! burocratic comedy in your cherished fantasy settings, what's not to like). I think it was a testament to the excellent translation job done, too -- I am now looking forward to more Korean fiction translated by Anton Hur, too.

Many thanks to HarperVia and Netgalley for an arc of A Magical Girl Retires.

A really fun and unique book. If you love Sailor Moon and other magical girls I would recommend this for sure. A quick read that is worth it.

"A Magical Girl Retires" is a very fast-paced narrative that follows a young woman in her late 20s after she is discovered to have magic abilities. The narrative is heavily focused on her struggles with daily life, and her struggle to find her place in the world. With heavy themes of hope, sacrifice, and care for others, this novella was a good, quick read worth picking up.

3 stars

“The Magical Girl who pays the price…”

Magical Girls are real, and they all have special powers. The lead of the story is 29 years old, unemployed, in debt and desperate. She tried to jump off a bridge to end her suffering but she’s found by the Clairvoyant Magical Girl Ah Roa, who tells her she’s destined for greatness.

Being a magical girl isn’t easy especially when the threat against the world is climate change… and another magical girl?

This story is short and sweet. Each chapter has a beautiful illustration to go with it. It did seem to hit the mark for me somehow.

I did study for Korean, albeit only 3 years in college, and it is written a lot like this. However when it’s translated to English it sometimes feels like it’s missing information? While I like that the translate did keep it clearly close to translation it does feel empty in some places? Like it’s confusing what’s actually happening?

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

★ ★ ★ • 3

Was drawn to this by the cute cover artwork, and enjoyed in the interior illustrations. Overall, extremely short story but it makes a nice change of pace if you’re on a reading burnout. The plot is pretty straightforward enough, the main character becomes disillusioned with life while struggling with financial debt… Eventually deciding she is tired of it all and no longer wants to be alive, until she gets unexpectedly turned into a magical girl.

The book itself is very shoujo manga meets contemporary Kdrama, so it would be great for anyone who likes Madoka Magica and Card Captor Sakura, or enjoys Sailor Moon nostalgia-vibes. The book is YA, but mild TW for the suicidal ideation at the beginning.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with an ARC to review!

This was a super cute, fun little read. It’s very short and can be read quickly. I actually think the story would be amazing as a graphic novel, I found myself wishing I was experiencing the story in a more visual format as I was reading it. I loved our main character and the “magical girl-meets-girl trying to get it together” type. It felt a little vague and rushed sometimes but I still enjoyed it!

ARC provided by NetGalley.

At first I was scared I wouldn't get into this one, but that quickly was no longer a worry as I really ended up loving this story! Very short, it could definitely be read in a day. I enjoyed the humor of it, seeing a society where magical girls really exist and what that actually means. I was really just sold when I read "magical girl unions." I definitely recommend to anyone who loved sailor moon growing up!

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc
I will be honest: what got me was the book's cover. I know that we are all told not to judge a book by its cover, but in this case, I recommend it. I was one of the girls growing up who adored the magical girl genre, growing up watching Sailor Moon, Card Capture Sakura, and Winx Club; the central theme of the genre is the hope found within the hearts of teen girls. A Magical Girl Retires takes this hope and looks at it from the point of view of being an adult, all the things that crush you as a woman in the world, and how it contradicts the teen girl you once were. Park also delves into the failure of being a young woman who isn't anyone special and at the end of the day being human is a part of being a magical girl; just as much as it is filled with magic wands and cute costumes.

A Magical Girl Retires is a bold reconsideration of destiny and power. I'm a huge fan of the Magical Girl genre, but also of the Millennial Women in Existential Crisis genre. This novella rides the line between the two, adding in twists and turns that keep it engaging. How do you deal with the weight of being special, or worse, the weight of finding out you're not as special as you thought you were? This book asks interesting questions and does it in a way that I haven't read many other books in the genre doing. Novellas often feel awkward to me as a reader, with either too little content or too much for the format. This fell on the side of too much content for too few pages, and as a reader the length felt insufficient for telling the full story. The art, both on the cover and the interior pages, is stand out phenomenal, capturing the surreal and wistful tone of the story really well.

Very cute! It was a quick read, at less than 100 pages, Still does need the rest of the edits for it, but nothing too terrible. Fun, sweet read. The art that was in it matched up super well, and our main character is a charm. :D

Despite being so short, A Magical Girl Retires packs a lot into its pages. The beautiful cover and chapter illustrations really set the scene for the near-future fantasy, a world where while magic exists, it's still up to us to fix our own problems.

As someone who grew up with magical girls as some of my favorite characters and stories, I loved seeing the concept expanded and carried through like this. It's a fascinating concept of magic balancing the scales of power in the world, and taking on the ladder of society that often leaves girls powerless and at the bottom of it. The flip side of that is, of course, that magic can't solve everything - there is no quick fix to the non-magical problems we've created, like climate change, or late-stage capitalism. But maybe we all deserve a reminder that even a spark of hope and knowing we all have some sort of power to enact change.

“Oh, I see… so if magical girls are bicycles, are the talismans training wheels?”
“More like a magical girl is a bike rider and her ability is the bike itself,”

Huge thanks to Harpervia giving me access to this arc.

As a long time self-proclaimed magical girl fan, I was so excited to get an arc of this. This chronicles the experience of a young Korean woman in her late 20s who is on the verge of committing suicide but is interrupted because she finds out that she’s a magical girl…sort of!

I felt like I needed to read this as a young woman in my late 20s. While this book is fantastical, it also deals with the experiences of Korean women and the reality of them, like the violence that occurs and the lack of protections they have. Something that stuck out to me from the book was “magical girls exist because Justice does not” and it’s so true. However, the book does end on a hopeful note. Encouraging us, that we are all capable of being the magical girls that we need to be to not only help ourselves but to help our world. Despite dealing with the ever-present danger of drowning in credit card debt, climate change, and societies that aren’t safe for women, there’s a glimmer of hope because there always is.