Under the threat of death, Maria openly defies Archangel Michael’s command not to use magic in hopes of ending the war between England and France.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Masayuki Ishikawa
Translation/Adaptation: Stephen Paul
What They Say
A WAR TO END WAR
After an intervention brought about by the archangel Michael, Maria must stop interfering in the lives of humans or face harsh punishment. But as the battle between England and France continues along its seemingly endless path of destruction, Maria isn’t going to let a stern warning and Michael’s puny dove familiar prevent her from stopping the thing she hates most in this world. With her powerful magic and a few dirty tricks she’ll do all that she can to stop the madness, but is one witch enough to bring peace to the world?
Content: (please note that content portions of this review contains spoilers):
After Maria was threatened by Archangel Michael in the last volume, I would have thought Maria would back off from her quest to stop the war between England and France and instead focus on just healing people. But Maria is a stubborn witch, even under the threat of death and the watchful eye of Angel Ezekiel, she continues to do everything in her power to stop the war. This is interesting considering both sides use witches to battle the other. Typically, an army pays a witch to send their succubus into the opposing camp to sleep with them and wear them out. Maria ignores the norm and goes without pay, instead sending her succubus into both army camps to wear out the men and sap their desire for battle.
At a deeper level, where this series shines is the push and pull between Maria and Heaven. People pray to heaven for protection from evil men and pestilence, Heaven seemingly ignores them. When people ask Maria for protection from evil men and pestilence, she steps in with monsters to scare away evil men or herbs to heal their ailments. As Heaven’s ambassador, Ezekiel accuses Maria of having a god complex whereas Maria accuses Heaven of ignoring its worshippers. Ezekiel counters with the idea that Heaven is too busy to help everyone and Maria asks when Heaven ever helps. This leaves Ezekiel speechless and plants a seed of doubt within her.
This doubt rears its ugly head when Maria flaunts Archangel Michael’s order and Ezekiel transforms into a spear to kill Maria. But will Ezekiel blindly follow Heaven’s orders and kill Maria, or will all the good deeds that Maria does cause Ezekiel to revolt against her masters?
In Summary
With witches, knights, succubi, and incubi, Maria the Virgin Witch has plenty of supernatural medieval warfare and crass humor to entertain most fans. This manga series is only three volumes long and was adapted into a 12 episode anime. Because of this, the manga is short and concise versus the extra “filler” material found in the anime, although both are good. However, the popularity of Ishikawa’s manga series did warrant the release of short stories about the characters in Maria the Virgin Witch: Exhibition, also released by Kodansha Comics.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: April 28th, 2015
MSRP: $10.99
