Puella Magi Tart Magica, Vol. 2: The Legend of Jeanne d'Arc

Puella Magi Tart Magica #2

by Magica Quartet, Kawazu-ku (Visual Art), Masugitsune (Visual Art)

Tart presses onward in her quest to reach the Dauphin, the disinherited heir of France, and help restore him to the throne and, thus, her country to a state of peace. Her reputation as a fearless warrior and bringer of light has drawn loyal supporters who would stand and fight against England and the Duke of Burgundy. Tart's power grows, both as a beacon of hope and as a magical girl, but a country girl cannot hope to wield such power without facing opposition and consequences...

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Historical, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Seinen, Graphic Novels

160 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2015

About the author

A group collaboration consisting of director Akiyuki Shinbou, writer Gen Urobuchi, the original character designer Ume Aoki, and the producer Atsuhiro Iwakami.

Reviews

[nana ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

espero que esse homem MORRA

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continued from my review of the previous volume, this series gets points for the efforts at historical accuracy to the events of Jeanne's involvement in the hundred-years war, though the clusters and chunks of infodumps can and do wear on you after a while. The eye just tends to skip over them, I find.

I do have some additional appreciation for the inclusion of Gilles de Rais, though I found the way he was handled a little weird to begin with the first time I read these volumes and it's still a little weird even now. He seems vaguely predatory towards Jeanne once she has impressed him, but he's played as such a dramatic fop that this seems to function more as comic relief than it should.

While the enemy magical girls are interesting and I can appreciate Riz and Melissa as allies, it feels like it comes at the cost of Jeanne herself feeling like a strong character in any capacity, which bothers me. We'll see how I feel as I continue with the remaining volumes.

[Rachel Duvall · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I finished this book months ago, it took me a while to sort out my thoughts on it. Few manga have left me so muddy on my feelings. But after much delay, I feel I am finally able to cohesively speak about my impression of the second volume. Also as a warning, there will be some graphic information near the end, so continue at your own risk after the warning. I did also put it under a spoiler and you can get skip it while losing little other than a more in depth historical context aside.

Story wise, I feel it has not improved much since the first volume. Jeanne is still rather bland and naive as a character. It grates a bit more now though as everyone around her reacts as if she has this amazing charisma. If this is what the artist and writers intended, it does not seem to have translated onto the page. She is seeming to come into her own strength a bit, but honestly I still find her lacking in this. I feel like I'm being told to find her charismatic as if lit from within, and honestly, I would rather see this on the page.

My gripe with the extra girls is both less pronounced and more. Less because for the most part, Jeanne's group is just her and Riz. So Gatling Gun Girl is not around to drive me into an anachronistic rage. We do get to see how Melissa becomes a magical girl though and honestly, I could care less. I know they want to develop her as a side character, but my complaint from the first volume remains: the side characters detract from Jeanne. We also get to see our English dark magical girls again and quite frankly, I find them far more fascinating. Their psychopathic and playful natures make them pop off the page. I want to know more about them. However, they stand out to such an extent that I no longer care what happens to our heroine. Strong villains are not a problem. But when they are more compelling than our hero due to said protagonist's dullness, it does begin to become a fault. In this, I would compare it to Disney's Hercules. One of the major problems with that movie is that our heroes are so dull they are nearly insufferable, while the villain is more compelling, charismatic, and fun. When your villain has eclipsed your protagonist to the point you no longer care about said hero, you need to work on the characters more to balance things out.

On the upside, there are far less information dumps in this volume. This does help the story progress better as there are fewer facts to grind the momentum to a halt. Sadly though, the ones that are in the story still contain far too much information in too small of a font. They're tedious to slog through and honestly need much tighter editing to make them palatable. I can read very dry material, but even I find these mini-essays tedious and difficult to read.

However, with this particular spinoff series, I seem to find a new thing in each volume that makes me livid. I present for your pleasure this time Baron Gilles de Rais. Now, I will warn you right now, that I had actually heard of and looked into this real life figure before ever reading this manga. To put it as nicely as possible, this man was a horrific person. But let's focus on just how the manga portrays him for a moment before I begin on the actual historical figure. The manga portrays Gilles as haughty and cruel to the point of having little conscience. Creepy enough when they first show him, after his plan to trick Jeanne in the court fails, Gilles becomes infatuated to the point of obsession with Jeanne. Yes, Japan went there in this one. I don't know if we're supposed to root for his crush to get somewhere despite the unrequited nature and the pedophilia (for the record he was around 25 or so at the time to her 16), and quite frankly, I suspect I don't want to know. I do find it disgusting though and I am hoping they do not continue to build on this idea.

***Graphic material ahead. Continue at your own discretion***

Back to the actual person Baron Gilles de Rais though. As you can read at the back of the manga, he was very wealthy and powerful. They also have a sentence about him being the possible inspiration of the fairy tale Bluebeard. For those unfamiliar with the tale, Bluebeard is about a girl who marries a wealthy man who has had poor luck with his previous brides. All his previous wives have mysteriously vanished, and this understandably worries the girl. But she marries him and goes to live with him and her sister comes too. Bluebeard leaves on a trip and gives his new bride his keys to the house. However, he leaves her with instructions not to open one room. Despite warnings, the bride gives into her curiosity and opens the forbidden room. Upon opening the door, she discovers it is covered in blood and the bodies of Bluebeard's previous wives. The girl drops the key and runs away. After consulting with her sister, the girls resolve to flee in the morning. Bluebeard returns prematurely though and finds the bloody key. He flies into a rage and threatens to kill his new bride. She begs for time to pray one last time, and just before Bluebeard strikes, her brothers arrive and save the two sisters while killing the murderous husband. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Now, you are probably wondering how this fairy tale ties into the Baron. The character of Bluebeard himself seems to be drawn from actual real life killers from the area of Brittany and England. One of the most likely influences being Gilles de Rais. After his time serving with Jeanne, he retired from military life and became even more depraved (records indicate he was not the best person while serving either). He was linked to a series of child murders eventually. The victims quite possibly number in the hundreds and he did in fact confess to them in court. He also attested that he frequently sodomized the victims and even cut them apart while they were still alive among other tortures. At his trial, his accomplices upheld said testimony and the worst details were actually stricken from the record due to the heinous nature of them. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Gilles de Rais was pretty much human scum of the worst kind. Knowing this history just adds another shade of disgust and genuine fear to all his interactions with Jeanne in the manga. Add in the fact that he speaks of cutting her apart before even meeting her, the age of his victims (6 to 18), and the naïveté of Tart and the whole of the manga becomes colored by this until it overpowers any good. Why they thought they needed to include him, I do not care to know. This is a case where I would have preferred that they bend history a bit to gloss over him more and make him less of a key player in the story.

I didn't speak much on the art before, but the art in this series is very clean. Done in a moe style, the lines are thin but expressive. The best art seems to be for the dark magical girls, but this may be because of the stark contrasts in their outfits and the amount of energy they bring to their scenes. It sadly outshines our heroes, who seem much more stiff and awkward most times, even in fight scenes instead of fluid.

The cutesy nature of the art style is also a hinderance at times as the fight scenes seem either too clean or too violent for the subject matter. I feel much of the bloodshed is done for shock value rather than out of necessity, a problem that has plagued all the Madoka stories from the start. Sadly, the shock value ran out long ago after diminishing returns and now is tedious. We get it. Look at the stark contrast of the cute against the horrible violence. Find a new dead horse to beat, please.

Another downfall of the art is that the age of characters is not conveyed well. I mentioned earlier that Gilles de Rais is around 25 at the time, but I pegged him at more like 18 due to the extreme moe style. This holds true with other characters as well, causing all them too look too alike and just blend together. I put down the book and half the key secondary characters were already forgotten, faded into a mush of moe. With such a wide range of ages and violence portrayed, this series probably would have worked better with a much more realistic style rather than the moe. I know it's magical girl and moe is the style everyone is stuck on in manga lately, but I'm finding the style to be more hinderance than help.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 stars. I will likely read the next volume just because I find the villains so very intriguing, but other than that, I am wholly unsatisfied.

[Isabelle Ma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting better... I'm currently reading the third volume now. Finally the story is getting more interesting. The beginning was practically a super long backstory, I think the backstory will continue until the end of volume four or so. I predict that the last volume will be the final battle between the enemy magical girls or something like that. I don't think this will be one of my favorite manga series, but it'll be a different read. I like how the setting is medieval france. Most of the manga i've read, takes place in a modern day country, most of the time, Japan.

[Lee Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another well-researched volume. My biggest complaint is that a lot of the male characters look similar to one another and the more they add, the harder it is for me to tell them apart. But overall I’m enjoying this story and I’m looking forward to eventually reading the rest of the Joan of Arc spin-off, especially so that I can find out Kyubey’s role. Unfortunately that might be a while for me, because I have to save up the money to buy them!

4/5 stars for this one.

[Jennica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Corbeau’s mask really bothers me. It’s a personal thing, but it is difficult for me to look at and so lessened my enjoyment a bit.

[Doc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puella Magi Tart Magica is rated Older Teen and deals with a war between England and France (Hundred Years' War) during the time of Joan d'Arc. In this series Joan who is also known as Tart and is granted the power of a magical girl to help defend France. With the help of another magical girl and friend Riz by her side Tart continues her quest to meet the king and offer her services.

However an opposing force of three girls have been dominating French forces and although it takes time Tart is finally able to assist but who are these three girls and where did they get the amazing power that they so gleefully strike others down with? Could the "angel" Kyubey be giving the enemy the strength to strike down others? Only time will tell as the Hundred Years' War picks up steam and seemingly impossible conflicts come to a boil.

My favorite part of the book would have to be Tart starting to explain to Riz what a crab is. It was a pretty funny part considering how dark the story can get. :)

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had been tossing around for a long time "what if you wish for your soul gem to always be pure" then the magical girl had that and I was, like, HELL YAH! Quartet Magica shows exactly what she is doing.

[Rachel (Sfogs) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm still wondering what cube is, and why he would bother about humans

[Jeana Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always loved the Magical Girl Mangas. This that’s the genre and turns it on it’s head. Be careful what you wish for you might just get it and there’s a high price to pay.