This was.... an interesting book. It had some funny moments between the characters, but it all seemed very frenetic and a little forced. I picked it up because of the premise, but there wasn't enough in this book to make me want to continue reading the series.

**ARC provided by NetGalley for honest review**

Jackie and the Magical Guys by Amy Linsamouth sounded like a pretty funny premise for a graphic novel. It's about a girl who has to go into the past to save the world by turning four guys into magical girls. Silly and fun, yeah? Unfortunately, I could only get about halfway through before I gave up on it. The art was lackluster and clunky, and the writing was almost all very inane puns and very little explanation for the story. It was a cringe-fest for me and not worth my time. It may be that there is an audience for this out there, but sadly I was not it.

The premise of the story is interesting and I like the concept and characters a lot. The art is also nice and the character design is awesome. The only critic I have is that the interactions between characters feels a bit stilted and not very natural.

Jackie and the Magical Guys

🦄 Jackie and the Magical Guys
💘 Comedy / Fantasy
📚 Ongoing
📺 No anime, but a full-color comic 👀

The concept for this comic really pulled me in! I loved the art style; it was absolutely stunning, and the characters were fantastic.

There’s a sassy sports guy, an awkward nerd, a strong female lead—need I go on??

I went into this expecting it to be semi-Shonen with a feminist kick. What I got was a strong female lead, four male supporting characters, and 108 dad jokes. Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration, but I could count on a new dad joke or pun every time I turned the page.

Jackie is sent back in time to prevent something terrible, but in order to do so, she has to find the right people to help her. She turns four guys into magical girls (hence the title), and let’s just say, they are not happy about it.

Will I read Volume 2? Yeah, for sure. I’ll also be recommending this to all my friends whose favorite ride at WDW is Jungle Cruise.

Thanks to #netgalley for the chance to read #JackieAndTheMagicalGuys for free.

A cute and fun take on the magical girl genre! It was a fun read, and I am interested to see where it goes!

Weirdly fun. I'm excited to read the next installment. The artwork is excellent and the story is pretty unique.

What a fun adventure. I really enjoyed this one, can't wait for the next volume.

I think the idea is a fun concept, and the "I'm here to make magical girls but all I've got are these guys" was pretty fun. I also appreciate that "man in dress" was not the center of the joke. The characters, both personality and design, were interesting, and I can't wait to learn more about them as the story continues.

Jackie and the Magical Guys is a fun spin on the magical girl genre, but instead of girls, it is gender bent with men being the magical beings. Jackie is from the future and has the incredible responsibility of recruiting magical warriors to save the planet from aliens invading earth. Using a super soldier serum, Jackie turns unwitting young men into magical "girls".

This graphic novel was action packed, but there didn't leave much room for character development. Each character has a brief introductory page and then they are thrown into the action. The graphic novel is also half the length of a Japanese manga, at only 120 pages. This leaves very little room for anything to happen in terms of plot.

The art does not match the cover in terms of quality, which was a disappointment and the humor in the novel seemed rather juvenile. I also didn't understand the motivations of the characters and why the would willingly trust a stranger and take the serum.

All in all, I loved the idea but the execution wasn't there, and it didn't feel long enough to be a full graphic novel. I have high hopes for this author though and will anticipate future releases.

Jackie is sent back from the future to prevent an end-of-the-world creature. Jackie needs a little help. Enter Our 4 Magical Girls/Guys. This is a good reminder to always ask questions before just jabbing yourself with an unknown injection. It leads to some laugh-out-loud moments and some cringe-worthy dialogue. This is a fun take on a Magical Girl story. It's a fast read that ends in a cliffhanger. I will be reading more.

Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy with an honest review.

This was really bad. The art, dialogue, pacing, and plot were poorly done. Multiple bad puns on every page were unfunny and distracting, and not much even happened. Only one character of the promised "Magical Guys" even transformed.

I wasn’t sure about this book, but I ended up loving it. I have already recommended it to several coworkers as well as made certain we would be getting it into our store. I am very much looking forward to the next volume.

Jackie isn't ready to be a hero, but then again, who is? Forced to travel back in time, Jackie is charged with a serious mission: change the past so the future can survive. She'll need help, though, and she'll find it in the most unexpected places.

The first volume sets up the group, and gives the reader some basic information about the plot, but I felt like there were more questions than answers. In fact, a number of things didn't line up or make sense to me. For example, Reid's grandmother is completely unbothered by the gargoyle-like creature who tears open her car and carries her away. After the battle she just hops up, and moves along, chill as her favorite frozen drink. (She was, however, a delightful character I would've liked to see more.)

Jackie and the Magical Guys was a book I really, really, really wanted to like, and I'm sad to say I didn't. Do I love fun quips? Yup. Do I love a group of unexpected heroes? Absolutely. Do I love magical transformations? You betcha. But this book didn't do it for me. The characters were thrown into a terrifying and dangerous situation, and instead of dealing with it like normal people they kept making jokes. It felt really forced. It's one thing for Buffy to snap a funny comeback to a vamp - she's been doing this for awhile, but these guys haven't. Jackie, maybe, but not them. Jackie also failed to explain why the guys have to shift to women in their magical persona, and I felt like that could've been useful in the first volume.

I will preface this review with: I knew better going in. I want to love graphic novels. I love the idea of graphic novels but whenever I read them, I'm disappointed. I always end up wanting more. I want more background on the characters, more thoughts, more story. I want more and Jackie and the Magical Guys is no different. I wanted more. More on the guys. More on what was going on. Just more overall. But that's on me.

The graphic novel itself was good; there was action, I was pulled in by the characters, I want the next story. I read it quickly (probably too quickly) and I enjoyed it.

This was a goofy, action-packed read. I sat down and read it before bed, and it had me cracking up—and rolling my eyes at the puns!

When Jackie is sent back in time to save the world, she recruits four guys (unbeknownst to them) to assist her in her mission. Also unbeknownst to them—they will be turned into women during the process!

I absolutely adored the use of color in this story—each Magical Guy has their own color representation and it was a striking and pleasurable visual experience to read through with the color motifs throughout.

Also, the grandma and her little matcha boba tea is such a vibe—such a cute and darling addition to the story that I had to be sure to mention!

If you are looking for a quick, silly read that is not lacking in action nor in (sometimes cringey) humor, this is for you!

Oh I wanted to like this one! I got about 50% in and realized I was only in it for the puns. I have no idea what is going on or who any of these people are.

Review to come late September on blog/other places.

I received this graphic novel from Netgalley/the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

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I LOVE LOVE a good Mahou Shounen, but this was sadly not it. *sighs* It looked and sounded so cool, but sadly it was not.

So much potential, but this was just so rushed and apparently not even a completed volume as I had expected. Maybe next time put that somewhere? On the cover for instance? It just went from one thing from another. There weren't many moments that you could just relax and get your bearings. At times I had a hard time keeping up and found myself going back because I lost things and it just went by too fast. I feel with about 50 pages more and things just a bit less rushed it would have been much better.

I could imagine the guys being pissed though it was also kinda their own fault for just jabbing in those injections without care. I get it was the heat of the moment, but seriously, maybe next time don't just go for it?

Also eww to the mermaid guy just peeing????

Why WHY is the art inside totally different from the fun and fab cover? Why does our MC's ponytail keep growing back and forth in length? Magic??

But sorry, that was just bad. Maybe if the scythe wasn't there and some more adjustments to the outfit, but now when I saw one of the guys transform I was like, HEY Ruby Rose! RWBY! And that is not a good look. Not at all.I get that he is supposed to be Red Riding Hood, but this was just wayyyyy to copy/paste for me. And also others I asked, like my hubby who is a big fan of RWBY.

All in all, this didn't work and I won't be continuing this series. I am giving 2 stars, for grandma, for the mahou shounen theme, I liked how the time travel worked, the cover, and that I could see the potential.

Before I begin my review, this book is supposedly for 13-18 year olds. This information will be used later on.

Honestly, this was a wild ride- and not the good kind. The art itself may not be amazing
but the fact it varies so much between literal panels was not the most pleasant.
Theres some character profiles at the end for our female MC as well as the males. This would be great except.. 1. The profiles were not worth a read- and 2. The art on these pages evoked the Uncanny Valley response.. very unsettling!

The story was boring which was really disappointing as I'm really into the whole magical girl thing so was excited for this concept with a comedy take on the whole thing. The problem is, it was just not well written. It seemed so pointless and bland. Though only being 20, I thought 'maybe I'm just too old for this'. So I gave it to my comic and graphic novel obsessed 13 year old sister with no context... Surprisingly enough, she said it was one of the most boring graphic novels she's read.

But wait! There's more!

Let's talk about the constant puns- and when I say constant, I mean there were 3+ on a page at any given time...
Aside from them just being terrible, this took away from the main story and really broke it up. You can write a good comedy without it following *this* lazy structure.

Remember that 13-18 year target audience I mentioned at the start? Now let's take a look at some of the jokes.

In reference to a monster one character describes it as "Hot Topic on steroids"
Regarding one of the characters abilities snd I quote "Just because I like to motorboat boobs doesn't mean I want to use them as personal floatation devices!" This is so painfully inappropriate as well as being completely unfunny to all ages, especially the target audience.
There's definitely more but I couldn't find the patience with this book to note them all down.

All in all! I would not recommend this to kids in the officially stated age range... Actually... I wouldn't recommend this to anyone...

Thanks (?) to NetGalley, the author and illustrator for the ARC.

This book advertises itself as heavy on puns and dad jokes and I will definitely agree it is filled with them. If you're interested in a possible parody on the trope of a small group of people being granted magical transformation powers, you very well may enjoy this. My major issues were the art quality/character designs, the jokes did not feel inventive and were all ones I'd expect to find commonly on social media sites turned into the majority of the dialogue, and the pacing of the plot felt rushed and confusing. It was a quick read, so there's no harm in checking it out if the premise makes you curious like it did for me. I definitely think there's an audience for pretty much every book and this one would not take much time to make your own decision on. I was heavily interested in the gender bending aspect, but we did not get much of it at all in this first volume and the execution left me very unclear on how it would actually factor in to the story. Unfortunately, this is not a series I will be continuing.

This book has some great moments that make you laugh at times, this is such a new spin on transforming girls. The girl who is supposed to find a group of girls to take some powers, she gives them to some guys instead. And they aren't happy about it. Can't wait to read the rest of this series.

I loved the cover of this book and thought the concept sounded really interesting!

The art style on the inside of the book isn’t the same style as the cover, and makes you think it’s going to be a lot cuter and more lighthearted than it is. The art style in the book isn’t bad at all, just not what I would have expected.

The plot sounded interesting and there was a lot of unique things to this story I think could have been done really well. The story starts without giving you really any information and it can feel like things are being skipped over. Hopefully the next volumes even out the pacing and storyline a bit.

Overall this is an interesting premise and has promise, but I don’t know if I will continue with it.