This review includes major spoilers.
Review:
The main character (who I believe is unnamed throughout) is a 29-year-old jobless Korean woman slowly drowning in debt. She's depressed and considering suicide. In fact, this story begins at 3am, when the MC is considering jumping off a bridge. Before she's able to finally psych herself into it, a stranger approaches her, introduces herself as Ah Roa, the Clairvoyant Magical Girl, and tells the MC that she's destined to be the most powerful magical girl ever, the Magical Girl of Time.
The MC spends most of this story feeling bewildered and awkward - she certainly doesn't feel like a magical girl, much less the most powerful one ever, but Ah Roa's belief in her is so strong and earnest that she can't help but try to figure out how she might live up to it.
This reminded me of Gengen Kusano's Last and First Idol, although considerably less weird. I was intrigued by the way magical girls worked in Park's world. I enjoyed thinking over the details of the MC's past and the things and people that were important to her, in order to try and figure out what her seemingly useless talisman might be able to do.
When the details of her powers were finally revealed, I was both fascinated and confused. I'm not sure that Park was very consistent in how the MC's powers were applied. The initial explanation implied that it was the MC who personally paid the price for whatever she wanted accomplished, but readers had literally just seen an example in which she'd paid the price with portions of others' powers.
Overall, despite my issues with and questions about how things worked out in the end, I found this to be an interesting read that made me wish for more.
Extras:
This English-language edition includes beautiful black-and-white illustrations by Kim Sanho.
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