So I’m actually not reading too much into that. I feel like the author is playing with us a bit, in the first chapter when Koko was using the forbidden magic, they made it look like he would grab her and strangle her or something? When of course he just grabbed her to pull her away from the situation.
Not saying it’s not possible that he has dark intentions, just saying I’m not completely trusting the mangaka…
And for the name, I was totally going for Agathe too!
Finished my scan, need to go over again with lookups… But couldn’t stop reading…
I understood the explanation of forbidden magic such that the application of any magic to the human body is forbidden and the things given like healing or mind-control are just specific examples.
Probably not a perfect rule but it sure cuts down on the “magic lawyering”, for example: “Oh I’m not hurting you, just healing you by making your body regenerate faster (i.e. magical cancer)”. That passage from page 81:
おぞましい魔法がいくつも描かれた
Makes me think there was a lot of body horror-esque magic going on in the before times. But as you said we’ll have to see if/how this is addressed later in the story. Maybe even the magic needed to save Koko’s mother will be deemed forbidden…
I mean, either
Is that a bit extreme? Yeah. Is it more extreme than generally forbidding the use of healing magic though?
But maybe there are special rules for reversals or for saving the victims of forbidden magic.
On the contrary, I find it quite cute. …But that’s just me trying to heal my daddy issues via fictional teacher/student relationships…
Koko caused the accident, so she needs to be the one to fix it. That’s how I see it at least.
Anyway, gonna go draw some pretty circles now and see if I can’t turn my house into cotton candy.
On one of the last pages we have this text:
物心ついた時から指先が染まるまで魔法陣を描いてる
I’m looking at the 物心ついた and trying to figure out which is the best fit:
The second one is the actual expression. The first just seems derived from the second.
The first one seems to fit better because ～時から is taking the place of 以来.
ahhh same 
I’ve been viewing it as a cute found-family sort of situation though i can see how it’d be a bit sus from another perspective.
However, I love a “suddenly dad!” figure in a story so I grant Kifuri this:
I love that interpretation, I’m going to go with that and feel a lot less weirded out by it, thanks 
It could also be a female dominated field! Although considering that magician is presumably one of the most prestigious jobs and they presumably live in a patriarchal society (I think the girls with the horse carriage talked about their father?) it might just be that Kefir is the only magician accepting female students 
looking at the next few chapters however that theory doesn’t seem all that likely
I just assumed that it’s completely normal for kids that age to be live-in apprentices in magical ateliers in their society, and the gender constellation doesn’t matter to anyone because tradition or whatever.
I’m trying to read your point but just getting so distracted by yet another version of his name 
Thank you
I know it’s not phonetically accurate, but every time I read his katakana, it makes me think of kefir, and since we’re already allowing alternative spellings, that’s his name now in my world.
This chapter was one of the first times ever that I’ve been able to consistently sound out kanji-only words by knowing the on-readings of each kanji! So many in a row too, once Qifrir™(?) got on a roll explaining the history of their world.
Speaking of which,
That’s pretty effed. Essentially, the magicians are regularly performing a really terrible form of forbidden magic in order to maintain their position of power. (Like, they are so against performing magic on a person that they won’t allow healing, but then they look the other way when it comes to manipulating a person’s mind and memories, just so they can keep their monopoly on magic.) And their excuse, that the before times were full of horror? I’m guessing that is some pretty selective/twisted history there. Because otherwise some fair-minded person would be like, “you know, the pleebs should be able to fix their own stuff and turn on their own magical lights!”
So I’m wondering if the story is partly going to be about challenging/changing the current world order? (I hope so.)
This is perfect, I love it, and I hope Kirfrir lives up to it! 
And now two different spellings in one post (and a third one in the quote), poor @mitrac 
I propose that we compromise and use “K-dog”.
You mean “Q-dog”
Can we also discuss Coco vs Koko? 
Coko it is.
