Hibiki’s Magic

A few weeks ago while I was on Spring Break, I came across a manga called Hibiki’s Magic while I was browsing through manga at a book store.  I pulled it out of the shelf and lo and behold, it turns out the manga was illustrated by none other than Rei Idumi, one of my favorite manga artists.  She is known for illustrating the .hack manga series as well, which is how I first became a fan of her work.

That aside, Hibiki’s Magic is a fairly decent manga.  It seems like it is aimed for a younger audience judging by the fact that the main character is quite young and the general overall cute feel to the artwork but I felt compelled to stick it out just to see what it was like.  The premise is actually quite interesting.  Basically a young girl named Hibiki works as an apprentice to Shirotsuki, a master sorcerer.  She has some magical abilities but usually ends up caring for Shirotsuki by performing other, non-magical tasks such as preparing tea, which she is quite proficient at.  However one day, thieves come in while they are performing a magic experiment involving the transfer of souls and are interrupted in the process.  As a result, Shirotsuki’s soul is transplanted into the body of an animal used in the experiment.  Hibiki travels to the city to become more proficient at magic and to hopefully find a way to restore Shirotsuki back to his body.  The bonus story at the end though really tugged at those heartstrings though…

Overall, I enjoyed it very much, most likely because I’m a fan of the artwork and kind of cute magical stories with some depressing stuff in there as well.  Two volumes are out in the U.S. so far so I’ll probably go pick up the second volume when I get the chance

~ by finaltriggerx on April 14, 2008.