Mazi-Magi

( (Air Comiket, 2 May 2020) ) ( (Re-Released in Mugamubiru 8, 7 May 2023) )

This book was originally drawn for Comic Market 98, meant to be held during Golden Week. Alas, that event too was canceled due to the coronavirus... And so, it ended up being released at "Air Comiket" instead, the online event organized by the planners as a replacement. It really was a tiresome time in more ways than one...

As for the title... as explained in the afterword at the time, it's just a pun on maji ("serious") and "magic". It may be kind of a counter-reaction to all the rather poetic monologues in the book itself, or should I say, an attempt to hide my embarrassment with irony... But looking back on it now (nah, I already thought so at the time), maybe I should've come up with something more serious?

I've made a conscious choice to never really involve PC-98 elements in my fanworks all the way until now (since I've never played the games...), but decided to make a limited exception for this book. The wing shapes and the design of the doll at the end are based on Shinki, but it's ultimately just a bit of flavor, nothing else. Personally, I have no plans to wade into PC-98 territory any more than this. Though plans can always change, of course!

The story was based on the fact touched upon in the official works (sometimes discussed by fans) that Marisa's natural element is water, which is nothing like the magic she uses. Well, her family name is Kirisame ("drizzle") and everything. The established fact that Alice refuses to use her full power (because if she did, she'd have nothing else left) also hit the spot perfectly in my mind, so I decided to combine these two ideas. Marisa says in the Grimoire of Marisa that "The Phantom of the Grand Guignol" is what it looks like when Alice gets serious, but I imagined she might be hiding a power Marisa can't even measure... so I decided to also bring PC-98 elements into it.