Magus of the Library Vol I By Mitsu Izumi

Magus of the Library Vol I 

By Mitsu Izumi

Ms. Izumi was born on February 7th in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan, which is a coastal prefecture just south of Tokyo. She is the writer and artist of today's graphic novel and is the author of another series, called 7th Garden. She's also the illustrator of the manga series for Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day. Beyond that, I couldn't find much about her and what web presence she does have seems to be locked to private so I figured this was a woman who valued her privacy and as such, I stopped digging (Good man). 

Magus of the Library first began as a manga series running in the serialized magazine Good Afternoon, on November 17th, 2017. Good Afternoon has been running since November 7th, 2008, and is published by Kodansha. Kodansha was founded in 1909 and is privately owned by members of the founder's family and the Noma Cultural Foundation, which uses profits from the publishing to fund literary awards, scholarships, and other nonprofit works throughout Japan (That’s pretty freaking cool, I’ll admit.). Let's turn to the graphic novel itself though shall we? 

Magus of the Library is set in an isolated village, where our main character is struggling through his life. He is disdained by most of the village for a couple of reasons, first of all, is that he stands out. Which is a bad idea in a small town.  He's of a different race than most of the villagers, who seem to be humans with tan skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. He has light skin, blond hair, and green eyes. Now, this might be forgivable to most but he also has pointed ears.  This tells everyone that at least one of his parents was nonhuman and everyone dislikes that (Damned Xenophobia.). Those ears have also earned him the nickname long ears from the cruel village youth. It doesn't help that his only surviving family is his sister who looks nothing like him and neither one is native-born to the village (How in the hell?  That does not happen often in a society where, probably, people live and die less than five miles from where they were born.{It strongly suggests that whatever she was running from it was bad}). So you know they ain't even from around here. I won't name him, because he doesn't provide his name until the end of the book, and it's honestly kind of a fun moment so I won't steal it from you. 

His sister and he are also rather poor (which is to be expected of an outsider of dubious parentage, in this sort of place…), she works several part-time jobs to afford to send him to school. Because she wants him to be more than a manual laborer and believes that if he can learn how to read, write and do math, he might have a shot at a better life (This is Next Level Big Sistering.). The boy definitely has the work ethic and ambition for it, as we see him put off playing to do his homework and sneaking into the village library to read books on the sly(Sounds like my kind of kid.). He is plagued by the desire to have a hero come by and lift him out of his isolated miserable life, where he has perhaps two friends and three people who care about him. 

One of those friends is Sakiya Menes, the daughter of the villain of this story. Not only does she stand up for him and help him out but she also sneaks him into the library. He shouldn't have to sneak, as the official policy of the library organization is that the libraries are open to everyone, no one is to be turned away for reasons of race, gender, or social-economic status. I have a feeling that the policy that our villain Ossei displays: keeping out the village poor and only allowing the affluent and their families in, all while complaining about allowing any children at all in, is more common though. Ossei's stance is that books and the information therein aren't for the plebeian masses, who should be focusing on working hard and being thankful. They're meant for refined, educated men who can properly understand and appreciate them. (But how are people to become educated and refined if you don’t let them read?  {By being born to refined and educated parents who teach them, duh} Of course, I’ve never accused elitist shits like this guy of having an ounce of sense.  Take it from this commie… Books are for the proletarian masses.  Knowledge is for you.  You are in fact probably pretty smart and can understand more than you give yourself credit for.  A lack of education is no bar on learning, whatsoever.)

I loathe that attitude. Intensely. Look, I'll admit I maintain a pretty decent size collection but I loan out books fairly freely. Do I expect the books back? Absolutely! But I give them out to people who I hope will read them and either learn or be entertained. While some knowledge, like say the US nuclear launch codes, shouldn't be public knowledge.  My stance is that hoarding knowledge, in general, is at best offensive and at worst outright sinful. Knowledge is meant to be shared. I don't mean gossip by this, people have a right to keep their lives private but knowledge of how the world works, the history of the world or the fact that entire groups actually exist should not be hidden away. To do so is vastly more shameful than anything in that body of knowledge and more harmful than any visual or thought could be. People who try to hide knowledge, to dictate what can and cannot be known about the world around us, and who get to know it are simply not good people and are grasping for power no one has a right to have. An attack on the freedom of the library to lend any book to any person is an attack on all of our freedoms because if your mind isn't free to learn what you would, how can you be free in any other way? (Yes.  All of that.)

But I should get back to the actual book. Luckily for our protagonist, a group of four young women is coming to his village on both an inspection tour and to retrieve a dangerous grimoire. Grimoires are magical books that hold spells created as weapons during a very destructive war in the past. The library is one of the few places where such things can be stored and maintained safely, otherwise, there is a risk that damage to the books (say wrought by mold or pests) will break down the containment allowing the magic to rampage uncontrolled. These ladies not only have to address the issues in the local library but track down the grimoire before someone gets killed. This might be a problem because all sorts of elitist and unscrupulous people will pop out of the woodwork to get their hands on such a thing.  Most of them won't know how to fix the damn thing either or might even damage it further as well.  So extra risk for everyone!

One of them, Sedona Blue is also a magic-user.  She has been brought along in case the worst happens but until then, she’d rather be as dramatic as possible to inspire the children around her to read more and reach for greater things (I like this person.). She also takes it upon herself to teach people that they're not as helpless as they think they are. Honestly, she's clearly having a blast in her role and she's fun to watch doing it.  It's also fun to watch the other three librarians take any chance they can to take the piss out of her.  The four characters have good chemistry and interplay going on, which adds to the fun.  So what happens when she and our main character meet? What does he have to do with the grimoire and why do I feel Ossei got off lightly? Well, that's all things you'll have to read the book to find out! 

This is not a great epic that will determine the fate of the world, there are no earth-shattering magics and the stakes are honestly maybe a few hundred people but it is an interesting story with well-written and fun characters. Our main character is a very earnest and determined young lad but one who struggles with a feeling of helplessness and low self-esteem due to the fact that he is constantly being dumped on. That said every time he is knocked down, he gets back up determined to get it right this time and I admire that. It's also a story about how important libraries are to communities. Now some might say that with the internet the time of the library has passed but I disagree (As do I.  Libraries are amazing community spaces.  It isn’t just the books, though those are important; but the learning resources, meeting spaces for groups, public programs, and everything else a library runs.  They’ll have de-stress days with therapy dogs after school finals, stuff like that.  But they are also one of the only indoor public spaces where you’re not expected to spend money you don’t have.). I'll save those comments for a sidebar, however. Magus of the Library is a fun book about a boy coming to terms with himself and learning that he's stronger than he thinks he is. Magus of the Library gets an A- from me and a recommendation. I hope you'll read it. 

I hope you enjoyed this week’s review.  If you’d like a voice in upcoming reviews join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where a dollar a month gets you a voice among our ever-wise patrons. Next week, the patron selected Heroic Legend of Arslan!  Hope to see you there.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading.  

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders