TSF Showcase 2025-06: King’s Proposal (Manga)

To save the girl, I shall become the girl!

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TSF Showcase 2025-06
King’s Proposal by Tachibana Koushi and Nemo Kurio

Hee-ho paisanos! This month’s showcase is a bit of a special case, as I’m going to be covering the manga adaptation of King’s Proposal, a series that I gave a quick glance over back in September 2023. I ultimately enjoyed King’s Proposal back in 2023, despite some of its more muddled elements and fixation on familiar concepts or trends. While the original light novel is still ongoing, both in Japan and in English by way of Yen Press, its 24 chapter manga adaptation came to a close. I could possibly cover the light novel series some day, marking a Natalie.TF first, but for now I’m just going to cover the manga, as part of a request from my beloved friend Cassandra Wright.

At first, I wasn’t sure why she was so gung ho on having me re-cover this title, but after reaching the end of the first arc and see this comic evolve beyond a lighthearted school days affair, I completely understand. What the heck does that mean? Well, let me walk you through it and show you the story of King’s Proposal, or King Propose if you prefer.

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Part 1: That Time I Became a Magical Ojou-Sama

King’s Proposal opens up in a deliberately striking sight meant to captivate any casual page flippers. High school boy and protagonist, Mushiki Kuga, finds himself in an ethereal cityscape. One with shattering skyscrapers, their rubble floating upwards, while vintage gas lamps line stone streets, leading his eyes to young blonde woman dressed in an extravagant dress, resting in a pool of her own blood. Affection and concern grip his heart in twain before a jagged crystalline spike shatters his torso, leaving him on the brink of death. His final moment are spent looking into the eyes of this mysterious woman as she draws closer, locking her lips onto his in his first, and final, kiss.

It makes precious little sense, but this is a brilliant little opening for any story. One with violence, romantic overtones, and oodles of intrigue abound… and then the story proper starts.

After that confusing sight, Mushiki wakes up in an ornate and western-style mansion bedroom, dazed, confused, and unable to remember what happened. He tries to leave, but rather than enter the illustrious halls of the manor, he finds himself outside a school, right as students begin filtering in. Confusion compounds as the students react to him, calling him ‘Witch-Sama,’ a name that leads Mushiki to suddenly become aware of his body. Hearing a high pitched voice escape his mouth, seeing smaller hands enter his vision, hair drape across his back, and ample boobs that greet him as he looks down, all before stumbling a fountain, allowing him to bask at the face of a woman. The very same woman he found covered in blood.

I want to pause and comment on this ‘realization’ or ‘waking up’ scene. Ordinarily, I am annoyed when a character wakes up and walks around, blissfully unaware of their body. But here, I am willing to look past that, as the protagonist just died. He’s groggy, confused, and propelled by a desire to get out of this bedroom. Upon doing so, he only to find himself teleported elsewhere. The presentation represents Mushiki as a dark outline of a person, only assigning him physical features as students come up to greet him, only revealing his face once he looks into the fountain. A nifty concept, but one that kind of ruins the surprise to a savvy reader— really, any reader paying attention. I’m guessing this scene was lifted from the light novel, as you can avoid details like this when writing, but not when drawing a third-person perspective. Still, I cannot say I’ve seen anything quite like this.

As Mushiki freaks out over the fact that he has the body of a blonde cutie, he is approached by Kuroe Karasuma. A dark-haired maid with a serious demeanor who spends the rest of the first chapter explaining the series’ central premise to Mushiki.

Mushiki is currently sharing the body of Saika Kuozaki, the strongest mage in the world. After their shared near death in the introduction, Saika used her magical powers to fuse the two together. Except instead of a traditional mix and match sort of fusion, they are in a two bodies and two minds existing in a single form, with Saika’s mind MIA for reasons unknown, and Mushiki currently piloting around in her form. Kuroe claims to not know where Saika’s mind has gone, while Mushiki’s body is presumed to be part of their shared form, just not the ‘main’ form of their fusion.

Kuroe is not entirely sure how things work, but she is sure of one thing. That with Saika unavailable to defend the world, the entire world is in grave danger. Kuroe shows him that the contemporary world he has known is not so ordinary. That the world is not only home too oodles of magic, but is routinely under threat by monsters, or rather Annihilation Factors. Beings who appear from nowhere around the school— named Void Garden— and cause untold destruction onto the nearby city. Toppling buildings, attacking civilians, et cetera. In order for this “Outcome” to be avoided, a mage, or group of mages, must defeat these monsters in a vaguely defined amount of time. If they are successful, the world returns to normal and civilians are none the wiser. If they fail, then the world’s stuck like that.

To better explain the stakes, Kuroe then drops some hard numbers. That this has happened 15,165 times in history, occurs every 300 hours on average, and in the past, there were 12 Annihilation Factors that only Saika could handle. Meaning that unless Mushiki can step up to the occasion and master the power he has been given, humanity’s straight up doomed. All of which… is one of the most light novel ass plots I have ever heard, not that I’m one to judge.

Naturally, Mushiki is not the most eager to take on this world-saving level of responsibility, but from the way he reacts to things throughout this chapter, we can pretty much gauge what type of person he is. A dorky everyman who carries with him a particularly potent portion of shonen hero optimism. He’s not gung ho about the opportunity to save the world from such terrifying threats, but he recognizes the duty thrust upon him and is willing to do what it takes. …In part because he loves Saika so much, and will shatter mountains in order to protect her.

Mushiki’s love for Saika is a bit strange, as he immediately falls in deep love of Saika, and adores everything about her. Her style, her attire, her very name, and this fictionalized vibes-based idea of the person he assumes her to be. Rather than take this love in a more lurid direction though, he does just the opposite. While he is curious about her physical form, he is alarmingly chaste and reserved about any type of exploration. It’s a reverence that teeters on obsessive, yet he is ultimately a kind and respectable person, one who might lack much in the way of skills or experience, but has a good heart. …Meaning his personality is vastly different than Saika’s perceived persona as a cool and powerful ojou-sama who knows she is better than the roaches around her.

We see an example of this at the start of the second chapter, with the first member of the secondary cast, Anviet Svarner. A powerful mage who easily exterminates a dragon during Kuroe’s explanation in the first chapter, dazzling Mushiki in the process. Mushiki lavishes Anviet with praise for this display, only to ask for his name, and Anviet views this perceived insult as cause to attack Mushiki. Kuroe tries to defend him, but before Anviet’s attack can land, time stops and Mushiki hears the voice of Saika reach out to him, informing him of the strength at his disposal, and activates them, unlocking Saika’s Fourth Substantiation.

Because it’s not that important, I’m not going to go into much depth on what Substantiations are. They are basically levels of magical powers that one can unlock with enough skill, practice, and passion. Fourth is the strongest though, exclusive to the most powerful mages, allowing a mage to craft an alternate reality around them, effectively trapping their opponent in a pocket dimension that bends to their wishes. Saika’s Fourth Substantiation is a cityscape with two layers of skyscrapers, one pointing to the sky and the other to the ground, which Saika, or rather Mushiki, can manipulate in order to crush opponents under the force of several dozen tons. Anviet is one such opponent, and he is promptly squished.

After leaving Anviet with several broken bones, Kuroe promptly knocks him out and formally recruits Mushiki to defend the world from transdimensional monsters. But first, the series needs to establish even more things. Namely, that Saika doubles as the headmistress of Void Garden. An introduction of the loli professor character, Elluc Flaer, because there’s gotta be one of those. The introduction of Ruri Fuyajou, the twintail estranged little sister of the protagonist who has not seen her in years due to a divorce. Because some authors/publishers/editors think that if there is enough distance between siblings then incest is morally permissible. That Saika was attacked by someone the other day— which is technically true. And that per Kuroe’s orders, Mushiki, as Saika, will be attending Void Garden as a student starting tomorrow. Because why else would you go with a school setting? It’s not like there’s a lineage of manga, light novels, and anime about high school teachers or staff.

I kid, I kid. I understand that creators who want to make a living off of their creations often need to appeal to the lowest common denominator, do what sells, make what publishers want, and indulge in tropes for the mere sake of it. Plus, here there is a very good reason why Mushiki needs to be a student, because he is in way over his head, and the best place to learn something is in a classroom. (Admittedly, a private tutor is probably better, but that’s not fun to watch.)

While I may criticize how tropey and overly familiar the story feels so far, that is not to say it is bereft of fun moments or endearing characters. Mushiki’s overzealous nature meshes well against Kuroe’s deadpan professionalism. The supporting cast is made up of a bunch of oddballs and dorks who eccentric personas makes them more than ‘just some teacher.’ And the comic thus far does a good job of blending in small jokes, over-exaggerations, and snippets of spectacle in with its deluge of exposition. I’d say there is a bit too much talking, but this just sort of happens when adapting a piece of dialogue/explanation heavy literature. It’s why I’m only on chapter two of twenty-four right now.

On that note, chapter 3 is similarly extra stuffed with exposition, explaining Kuroe’s rationale for having Mushiki attend class, Mushiki revealing his relationship with Ruri, and a primer on magic. Basically, magic is a force that exists in the external world and within. People need to be aware of magic in order to use it, and through enough practice, can channel it through the power of will. Some people are more adept at magic than others, but the how’s and why’s of magic are not that important, as Mushiki has the body of an overpowered super mage, so magic just kind of happens.

We see this when Mushiki goes to his first class, where Mushiki, after thoroughly terrifying the instructor by asking a rudimentary question, summons a giant burst of flames that cleanly tears through a wall of the school. This would ordinarily espouse suspicion, but everybody at school had a less than charitable perception of Saika, viewing her as a mad witch with an ‘exceptionally high standards’ and one who will ‘make her displeasure known effectively and immediately.’ No matter what Saika or ‘Saika’ does, they will spin a positive perspective on their beloved Witch-sama’s actions, even if it looks like she is destroying her own damn school for no reason. Gosh, these people are so lucky that Mushiki is in her body, because if someone with malicious intent was driving around Saika’s body, they’d have to kill half the student body before anybody would get suspicious.

Chapter 3 is also where Ruri’s relationship to Saika is made explicit, with her risking her very life in order to take a picture of ‘Saika’ in a school uniform with a determined look. It’s clearly meant to be an exaggerated reaction, played for laughs, making Ruri into a massive Saika fangirl, but the extent of her fixation is something I want to touch upon a bit later.

Chapter 4 is more magical school time shenanigans as Mushiki and Ruri go to Anviet’s PE class. They do some mild exercise, use their magic to catch flying mechanical doodads, and Ruri gets to show off how she’s one of the best magic-users in the school. We also get to see Mushiki adopt his Saika demeanor, which is just that of a positively haughty ojou-sama. Someone who looks down upon others, spins every failure as someone else’s fault, and exudes so much confidence that they practically glimmer. It’s a nice touch.

While most transformation fantasy stories like this fixate on physical change, half of the fun of seeing a character become someone else is seeing them try to navigate the world with their new form. Seeing them figure out how the right personality and affect to use, find a way to avoid suspicion when they make a mistake, and watch them behave in ways that go against their usual persona. Mushiki might be a nervous dork, but that makes the shift from his usual self and his ‘Saika mode’ all the more compelling. I’d question how he can pull off this persona so well, but I view it analogous to someone roleplaying their favorite character. All things are possible through the power of LOVE!

…But despite being able to turn on his Saika persona in a pinch, Mushiki is still Mushiki, and as he wanders into a changing room after class, he has an erotic panic attack. Overstimulated, unable to look away, and as his attractive, busty, twintail little sister comes closer to him, dressed in only their lacy underwear, he gets too excited. He flees into a back room, sealing himself away as his body shifts back to normal, becoming his usual male self yet again.

Not unlike in Futaba-kun Change!, when Mushiki gets too excited, i.e., aroused, his ability to control his appearance shifts against his will, and he’s stuck in his male form until something can calm him down. Well, kind of. Mushiki becomes his usual male self if he is overstimulated while in Saika’s form. But Mushiki can only return to Saika’s form if he is exposed to an adequate amount of magical power, which is always done via a kiss with another mage. So he becomes a boy when he gets horny, and becomes a girl when he’s given a smooch, and it is easy to conflate these two as ‘getting excited’. …Also, the story sometimes just transforms Mushiki for arbitrary reasons, with no real explanation.

This loose ruleset is established when Mushiki, reasonably freaking out in this side room, is greeted by ninja maid Kuroe, pinned against a wall, and given a romantic peck on the lips. The thrill is enough to activate his girl mode, leaving him frazzled and leaving Kuroe embarrassed. I’d comment on Kuroe’s reaction showing her age here, but King’s Proposal handles the subject of age strangely. Nearly everybody could pass as a 20-something if the writer wanted them too, but we gradually learn that many characters are far older than that. Jumping ahead, we eventually learn that Saika is over 500-years-old, when her body could easily pass as 16 or 25. It makes sense that mages want to look, and feel, youthful. I’d imagine that most people would want to look 25 for their entire adult lives. But, also, why make them 500 years in the first place?

After Mushiki wraps up his two class school day, Kuroe then takes him to the girls’ dormitory, showing the lavish living arrangement and the fact that Mushiki will be next door to both Ruri and Kuroe. And… now is a good enough time to talk about Ruri. In a dual identity story like this, Ruri is a very practical character. Someone who loves both of the protagonist’s identities, but in different ways. There’s a lot you can do with someone like her, a lot of different angles this love can be spun and played off, and oodles of misunderstandings or hi-jinks that a creator can indulge in. However… I don’t really like how she’s implemented. She’s too in love with Saika for it to feel like anything less than an obsessive sapphic worship. Upon hearing that ‘Saika’ is going to her dorm neighbor, she explodes, feigns death, and is prepared to pass into the next dimension.

Similarly, her love for her brother, someone she has seemingly not seen for the better half of a decade, is… also strange. It starts out ambiguous, but it eventually becomes clear that she romantically loves Mushiki, catering to the incest crowd in a way that I do not like.

I’m actually strongly pro-incest (in fiction). However, I like it because I think it is twisted, warped, and complex. When creators play it off as something quirky and mundane, it loses the taboo factor that makes it interesting. It makes the incest angle seem unnecessary. I earnestly believe you could change Mushiki and Ruri’s relationship to childhood friends without needing to change more than a few lines of dialogue. Hell, I think it would make her character seem more well-adjusted. Mind you, she’d still be an eccentric weirdo, but a weirdo who wants to fall in love with her elementary school deskmate is the epitome of healthy compared a little sister who wants to get with her estranged onii-chan.

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Part 2: Mo’ Identities, Mo’ Problems
(or Moe Identities, Moe Problems)

Getting back to the story with chapter 6, we are treated to an obligatory fan service chapter interspersed with exposition. It’s time for Mushiki’s first bath in Saika’s body! As a more reserved person, Mushiki is conflicted by this. He wants to respect Saika, yet knows that he would get too excited that he’d do something naughty in the tub. So Kuroe decides to accommodate him by blindfolding him and bathing him by hand. Just like in 1975’s Waratte Yurushite! …Or 2009’s Japanese adult video RCT-024, if you want a more modern example. …What? I wrote two short stories inspired by that one!

After a reference like that, I cannot really criticize this decision, and it makes some sense. It’s a way for Mushiki to grow more accustomed to the feeling of his borrowed body, feeling it submerged, lathered, and touched, the sensation enhanced by the lack of sight. All while shielding him from the paralyzing sight of bare naked cuties. …And giving Kuroe to show off her playful side as she teases a wet and frazzled Mushiki.

Kuroe continues to show off this side of her the following morning, when she begins stimulating Mushiki. Taking off her top to reveal her plentiful bra-clad breasts, shoving her flowery smelling hair into Mushiki’s face, and whispering sweet Saika secrets into his ears. Like her measurements, how she loves cupcakes, and how she starts a bath by washing her butt. (Which is just a weird place to start.) This is enough to change Mushiki back to boy mode… and we learn that the transformation doesn’t apply to most clothing.

This is a slightly confusing element in the series, but the school uniforms are magic, so they shift depending on the sex and proportions of the wearer, allowing Mushiki to avoid post-TF crossdressing kerfuffles. Since he was sleeping in a nightgown though, we get to see him in a dress and… yeah, he pulls it off for the most part. Reminds me a bit of Hinata from How to use Gender-Changing Apps Properly.

Now, why did she transform Mushiki back to his boy form? So that he and Kuroe could both be enrolled in Void Garden, and in the same class as ‘Saika’ no less. Kuroe is slow to explain, literally elaborating while the two are standing in front of the classroom, how this is a mere security measure. A way to explain the sudden appearance of Mushiki in the event that he returns to his original body and avoid getting killed for infiltrating this secret academy. You probably don’t need me to say it, but this is another staple of high school dual identity TF stories. Kämpfer’s an example. It lets the creators do more, allow people to exist in more places, and extend the web of relationships.

Ruri is suspicious of this, mostly out of concern for her brother, but Mushiki’s brief time as Saika has honed him in the art of bullcrapping, and he avoids her questions with the power of compliments. She continues trying to push Mushiki away and out of Void Gardens when they begin PE class— because this school only has two classes and two teachers. However, Mushiki cannot channel his magical powers well enough to do much of anything, and as he tries, another Annihilation Factor attacks. Last time it was a lone dragon, and this time… it’s 200+ dragons, all summoned by the great almighty… Fafnir? Oh no. Do I need to get kitted out for The Mercurial Gauntlet level 90? Is it time to Enter the Kaleidoscape again?

Dragalia Lost references aside— I really should install the fan revival on my phone— the dragons tear off the roof of the gym, and hysteria ensues. Students flee, Anviet flies away to fight the head honcho, and Ruri uses her powers to slice up a dragon before it can reach her onii-chan. There is some inclination that this threat can be eliminated by these two alone, but Kuroe informs Mushiki that, while the buildings may be restored upon eliminating Annihilation Factors, mages who die don’t come back. If they die, they are dead forever. To save the Gardens from such a formidable foe and avoid casualties, they need a mage of insurmountable power.

Mushiki then takes on Saika’s form and unleashes his Fourth Substantiation, summoning a world of ice that traps these dragons. He coyly mocks them, telling them to kiss his feet, and that he will make them his brides before exterminating them in a tornado of mass destruction. A moment later, the gym and buildings are restored. A deadly war-level threat that would require the entire faculty to stop was defeated by ‘Saika’ in just a matter of seconds.

For this flawless victory, everybody praises Mushiki for saving their lives. There were some injuries in the process, but this is the area of expertise for Elluc, the aforementioned skimpy-loli-looking type, who summons a pack of wolves that heal the wounds of the injured by… licking them. It’s a unique concept, I suppose. …But it’s almost immediately taken into a different direction. Elluc drags Mushiki, still in Saika mode, to the infirmary, starts stripping him, and licks his belly to measure… something.

It’s a vaguely erotic scene that excites Mushiki so much that he turns to normal after pushing Elluc away, only for her to come back. Naturally, she treats a random student far more harshly than her beloved Saika, viewing him with suspicion before… seemingly ravishing him with her tongue off-screen. Points for the drastically different reactions and ‘status play,’ but sometimes this comic goes into directions that keep me guessing.

Kuroe gives Mushiki another exposition dose, going on about how suspicious this Annihilation Factor was, wondering if it was caused by the same person who killed Saika. But before any investigation can happen, Ruri pulls Mushiki away and tells him to GET OUT of the Gardens right now. Only for Mushiki to vaguely allude to his purpose, saying that he’s not leaving here because he fell in love (with Saika). This vague comment stuns Ruri as she takes it the wrong way, only for Mushiki to ask Ruri to meet outside of the Gardens on Saturday. She, reasonably, interprets this as a date, runs away in terror-anticipation, gets a pep talk from her roommate, and storms out of the Gardens top o’ the morning, ready to make it official with her bro! …Only for Mushiki to show up with Kuroe by his side.

Honestly, Ruri’s so far gone down the incest affection hole, I’m surprised her reaction here isn’t that Mushiki wants a harem.

This leads into chapter 10, the date chapter, and it’s mostly eaten up by cute antics between the three. Kuroe likes teasing Ruri because she’s a hyperactive dork. Ruri looks for opportunities to get closer to her brother, including indirect kisses with crêpes. And when Mushiki and Kuroe run off someplace, Ruri’s mind imagines the worst case scenario. When, in actuality, Kuroe just wanted to head out to town to examine the scene of Saika’s near-death, having Mushiki transform into Saika before using magic to investigate any remnants. Unfortunately, they cannot find any traces, as the battle took places in Saika’s Fourth Manifestation pocket dimension.

Right after writing this off as a bust, Ruri returns and uses this as an opportunity to talk to ‘Saika’ one-on-one. Asking ‘her’ about Mushiki, explaining how she thought this was a date, how she will risk her life to defend him. All good stuff that builds into the dual identity angle I keep bringing up. All before Ruri asks what’s the deal with Kuroe. …Which is a perfectly valid question.

At the start of the series, Kuroe is presented matter-of-factly as Saika’s chamberlain. She immediately follows Mushiki after he wakes up in Saika’s body, she briefs him on everything without too much concern, and rises to the occasion with no hesitation. It’s awfully convenient how she just showed up and guided Mushiki through everything, offering so much information. Sure, that might be possible for a top-of-the-line maid, but Ruri claims to have never seen Kuroe before. Not in Saika’s home, not in their regular school meetings, nowhere.

Right as doubt billows within Mushiki, another Annihilation Factor shows up, this one ushering in its own magical domain, that of a dark and dismal cityscape populated by a bunch of skeletons. Ruri quickly dispatches with her magical polearm, but from the smoke and darkness that follow, a cloaked figure appears. While their identity is obscured, Ruri catches a glance of who they are beneath their hood, only for a series of jagged crystalline spikes, much like the ones seen in the introduction, to pierce her body. Mushiki embraces her, shouts at the cloaked figure in rage, yet before he can compose himself, the figure and their manufactured world dissipates.

Mushiki takes Ruri back to Void Garden and while she will recover, this attack has filled Mushiki with a newfound determination. The threat Kuroe warned him about, Saika’s would-be killer, is no longer hypothetical and looming in the background. They are near, ready to take everything he cares about. He makes a vow to Saika as he looks in the mirror, promising to defend her body and to enact vengeance.

Later, enjoying the view of Saika’s luxurious home, Mushiki is approached by Kuroe, and he asks her who she really is. Kuroe grins sinisterly at this question, her dull expression darkening before she launches at Mushiki, sending him to the ground. As he regains his composure, Mushiki sees that Kuroe was protecting him from an inverted cathedral that was launched at him. The attack left Kuroe with a nasty gash on her back, and as she passes out from the pain and blood loss, the cloaked figure reappears.

With the world around them already morphed into the same domain he saw during their last encounter, Mushiki finds his resolve. His body becomes radiant with an excess of magical power, and he launches an attack against them, only for the figure to wave it away as if it were nothing. They claim that none can defeat them in their dimension, and as they speak, Mushiki realizes who this person is. It’s none other than Saika Kuozaki!

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Part 3: Mirror Match Finale for the World King’s Crown!

This revelation leaves Mushiki dazed, but the other Saika, conveniently dressed in black rather than white, is quick to reveal her true identity, claiming to be Saika from the future. She elaborates that, as the World King (someone who controls the world, but in a more meaningful, magical way), she sought to save her world from a cataclysmic event, but failed to do so. This left the world in a state of disarray, and the only way future Saika could fathom to save it was to venture back to the past, replace herself, and proactively stamp out the seeds of destruction. She thought she had done enough by leaving her past self for dead, but she failed to finish the job, allowing Mushiki to merge with Saika and enabling her past self to live on.

This was all a ploy to save the world… but in the midst of this burgeoning mind boggle, Future Saika also reveals that the world was actually already destroyed long again. The world known to modern people is merely a construct that was created by Saika, a Fifth Substantiation, that was created 500 years ago as an identical copy of the world. However, this world is more fragile than original world. Which… I think is meant to explain why Annihilation Factors are a thing. A magical world attracts the attention of magical creatures from the next dimension. But the comic does not spell this out, and this whole segment could honestly be cut without loosing too much.

Mushiki then asks the obvious question of why Future Saika could not just work with her past self, as twice the Saikas means twice the power. Which is where Future Saika reveals the downside of her current plan. In trying to save the world from vaguely defined “destruction”, she will need to do something that ends the lives of at least 30% of the human population. She has done the math, analyzed the situation, and coldly committed herself to this goal, concluding it is the only way she can possibly save her world, and by extension humanity.

…Which honestly does not sound too bad.

Here me out here. I’m not on team kill billions indiscriminately— I have written far too many stories about saving the world from genocidal freaks for that. While the deaths of innocents should be averted/prevented in all circumstances, sometimes people just need to die. When dealing with the long-term future of hundreds, if not thousands of years, then even 3 billion lives, and all who they would usher into this world, are an acceptable sacrifice. It’s either that or all of humanity and all future humanity, which could be infinity. And I would rather kill eight billion than kill the entire human race.

While Future Saika seems cold, cruel, and malicious, she is someone who saw the death of her world. She’s probably mortified, traumatized, and filled with immense hatred for whatever stole her happiness. She has seen things that Mushiki, this 17-year-old who only learned about magic a week ago, cannot even fathom. And if I were in his situation… I would let the maiden of despair talking about mass sacrifice have her field day. Sure, her plan might not work, she might be fibbing, but if she doesn’t do it, then who can you trust to save the world from absolute death?

As a bushy-eyed and bright-tailed protagonist, Mushiki rejects this notion, saying that what Future Saika is saying is something that Saika Kuozaki would never say, for Saika, the real Saika, loves the world, loves humanity, and would not settle for saving a mere 70%, she would save everyone!

…So, I have a problem with this logic, and it’s pretty simple. Mushiki does not know Saika. He knows about her, he has heard stories, and he has pretended to be Saika before. But he does not have her memories, has not read her dairy, has not had a conversation with her, and knows far less about her than many, many people around him. He is not operating even based on things people have said. He is operating on vibes-based logic here.

Future Saika balks at Mushiki’s optimism, asking who this true Saika is, and Mushiki points at himself, declaring that right now, he is Saika Kuozaki! …When, no, kid, you just aren’t. You cannot just claim to be The Witch of Resplendent Color when you barely understand your powers or the history of the person you are embodying at the moment.

Future Saika (rightfully) laughs at this misplaced confidence, and decides that the time for conversation is over. She will take the title of World King from Mushiki by force. She transforms into her battle attire, summons a staff of destruction, and morphs the world around her into a fiery volcano. Mushiki is left overwhelmed, but after seeing what his Future Saika is capable of, he transforms into a matching uniform, and the mirror match over the fate of the world begins!

…Unfortunately, it does not last very long. Future Saika quickly adopts the old ‘lure your enemy into a trap’ approach and crunches Mushiki under the force of two colliding skyscrapers, causing an impact so severe it sends him to… some form of purgatory, or perhaps his own consciousness? It’s an ethereal empty classroom where he is back in his original male form, and meets Saika. The Saika who he saw at the introduction of the story. She claims she’s glad that he was the one who found her before holding out her hand, willing to share her power and responsibility with him.

Things then cut away to see Mushiki, in his male form, standing before Future Saika, his face expressionless and body unmoving as Future Saika strikes him down with two buildings. …Only for the buildings to shatter, Mushiki emerging unperturbed. While he may have Saika’s form, he carries within him the same amount of power as her, yet the way it manifests, the abilities he has access to, are his own. Even though he does not know how they work, he is determined to use these new powers to, somehow, someway, use them to defeat Future Saika. Or, as he puts it, save her.

To put his words in a more… sensible manner, Mushiki believes that if he and Future Saika work together, they can prevent this future, believing that his presence, his unknown powers, and his optimism are the key to saving the future. He speaks with the determination of boldest shonen hero imaginable, with absolutely zero reason or evidence to support his claims, and Future Saika points this out. Saying that he knows nothing, because he really does not know anything, and attacking him once more, sick of his nonsense.

However, Mushiki is able to deflect this attack by using his Second Substantiation, summoning a transparent sword dubbed Hollow Edge. With this weapon, and a surprising amount of speed, Mushiki rushes toward Future Saika… and stabs her through the chest.

This single blow causes Future Saika’s body to slowly collapses and disintegrate into magical fragments, but as she dies, she places her hand on Mushiki, believing in his hope and asking him to protect her past self. While she might not know how this inexperienced kid can save the world, if he was able to kill her, using a fraction of his full power, then maybe, just maybe, this new timeline has a chance.

Mushiki then reawakens in Saika’s bedroom, still in his male form, where he is greeted by Kuroe. Or, as Mushiki calls her, Saika. Mushiki says this based on a hunch, but Kuroe is quick to confirm that, yes, she is the real Saika. After merging with Mushiki at the start of the story, her soul traveled into one of several artificial soulless human body she prepared. She subsequently possessed it, and used it as a vessel to monitor, take care of, and tease Mushiki throughout the story. Why not tell him until now? She had to make sure he was legit, and did not want to reveal anything too important when there was an assassin lurking in the shadows.

Also, Kuroe-Saika says that Mushiki should not blame himself for Future Saika’s death. She was the World King of a dying world, so she was likely on her last leg, and any good hit could have pushed her over the edge.

With doom impending and the nature of the world’s destruction unknown, Kuroe-Saika is not willing to take any chances, and rather than pursue a way to reclaim her body, she makes a proposal to Mushiki. To become her other half and take up the mantle of the World King. Mushiki accepts this former king’s proposal to become king, but adds that, when this whole this is over, he wants the right to propose to the restored Saika. His boldness stuns her, but as she looks into his eyes, she accepts his terms, the two walking off to prepare for this impending conflict. Knowing that if they work together, if they hold onto hope, they will save the world. Thus ending the first arc of King’s Proposal.

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Part 4: Post-Arc Reflections

If my flowery explanations in this section was not enough of an indication, I love the conclusion for this story arc. It’s not always the most logical, and Mushiki is too outspoken for his own good, but it is a beautiful indulgence of shonen optimism. A belief for the sake of belief and a desire to do better than what someone older and more bitter says is the best that can be done. It speaks to a desire to change and improve the world in news ways, and I love to see it.

All of which is before getting into the presentational prowess of this segment. The manga as a whole is very attractive, balancing expressiveness and composition with the deft hand of a skilled professional, and occasionally featuring some truly striking imagery. The framing and composition all rise to whatever the story needs at the time, and there is rarely a point where it feels limited or restrained by the medium. …Excluding a few text-rich info dumps, but what else can you do about that?

By eschewing the rational and reality, by existing in a realm of spectacle, the climax of the arc is able to be the most striking part of the comic. It does such an effective job at looking cool that it’s easy to overlook some of the strangeness at play here. From one perspective, this entire climax is a man telling a woman that she does not know who she is, and that he knows who she is. Despite never actually meeting her. Only for him to kill her and replace her, using his abilities to do something she, the supposedly strongest person in the world, could not do. It just stinks of a certain kind of sexism.

However, it is also possible to view this as a battle between hope and despair. New and old. Between someone who believes herself to know the nature of the world definitively, and someone who wants to try thinking outside the box. It’s a narrative that I have always appreciated and given the current sociopolitical climate of the Earth as of late, it’s something that resonates particularly strongly with me. I know I went on about how ‘Future Saika is right actually,’ but the story wants the reader to root for Mushiki here, and I understand both perspectives.

…Which is really easy to do when Future Saika is such a compelling presence throughout this arc. Relentless, foreboding, filled with despair, filled with righteous indignation, and eager to destroy anything if it means achieving her mission. She is a mad empress who believes her goals are just, and she pursues them not with hesitation, but sheer delight. She is a wonderful antagonist, a great fallen hero, a peak Cassie girl, and I wouldn’t even have been mad if she won in the end.

Seeing as how I am well on the conclusion phase, I should also touch upon the way the story handles TSF, as it will be more poignant now rather than after the second half. As I said previously, King’s Proposal is a dual identity TSF story where the protagonist needs to manage two forms in a social environment, and these identities have a high amount of contrast. Man versus woman, student versus principal, novice versus master, kindhearted and a bit sheepish versus cold and aggressive (at least in theory). There is a lot to play around with here, and I think that the story engages with some compelling concepts. Namely, seeing Mushiki balance classes from two perspectives, navigating around the same people, who treat him differently.

This works well for the first 10 chapters, staging these dynamics and illustrating this contrast of lives, but the story struggles to find the bandwidth to really explore them beyond that. What’s here is perfectly good enough for the start of an ongoing story, giving the reader a taste of what is to come and establishing fundamentals of this dual life dichotomy. Mushiki, being an overzealous dork, is a good fit for a situation like this, and watching him overreact and panic is some great fun.

I still enjoyed Mushiki’s character throughout, and I enjoy how honest the series is with what his true power is. Both literally and figuratively throughout the story, Mushiki’s strength comes from his ability to achieve balance, to be two things at the same time. A man and a woman. A Witch of Resplendent Color and a mage with a burgeoning ability set that will only expand as time goes on. He can, in theory, switch between, giving him more versatility, than Saika ever had. While being Saika is definitely a boon, this power of plurality is his true strength, what lets him defeat Future Saika, and establishes him as a force who can become something more.

This is a really cool and poignant concept that captures something that I love about TF, yet often gets overshadowed by identity erasure, mind manipulation and so forth. A fantastical transformation does not just cause someone to become something else. It gives them the opportunity to become something more while retaining their old experiences. Though their physical form may only assume a single shape at a single time, their mind is an amalgam of everything they’ve seen, done, and been. It gives them a strength that few others would possess, and an understanding of themself, of the world, that goes beyond the norm.

…Does King’s Proposal pursue this concept, let alone do much with it. Honestly, not really. Because Mushiki is such a passive, simple-headed, and chaste protagonist, he does not do much exploring or in-depth thinking. This is an instance where the core idea is there, but is likely beyond what the writer wants to do or what they are thinking while writing the story.

I should also talk about Kuroe-Saika’s character, as she is also undergoing a transformation. However, hers is far more mild. She’s effectively in a maid disguise throughout the series, adopting the calm and professional demeanor of a servant in most instances, while only showing her warmer side when in private with Mushiki, as seen during the ending. She’s also a tease and goofball based on her past actions, and this breadth of personality makes her both a versatile tool for a writer, and a fun character to watch. The physical change is something that should maybe be a bit more important, but she crafted the Kuroe body to her specifications, and who’s to say that Saika has not changed herself in the past?

…By the way, I’m going to keep calling her Kuroe-Saika, as she is presenting herself as Kuroe throughout the remainder of the manga series, and referred to as Kuroe. It just sounds right to me, and I don’t feel like enforcing my objectively correct mind(body) naming convention here, calling her Saika(Kuroe).

While I have some misgivings, I will say that I think that the first arc of King’s Proposal is a good TSF story in and of itself, and a good story overall. Though, I will say that the TSF is more on the backburner next to its magical save the world plot. It lays a lot of good foundation, but a foundation only becomes valuable when you build something on top of it. So, how does the second, and final, arc featured in this series fare? Well… let’s just say it’s questionably constructed.

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Part 5: The Far Inferior Second Arc!

Starting off the second arc, based on the second novel in the series, the first two chapters (chapters 15 and 16) are a positive deluge of sloshy exposition, not really delivered in the most recap-friendly manner. In fact, I’m half-tempted to just make a list of things that are explained, given how much these chapters feel like filling out a list of things the writer wanted to establish before the story actually begins.

About a month has past since the story has begun, and Mushiki has largely adapted to living his double life off-screen. This is something we are told rather than shown, because why do that when you can just say it happened? (Please don’t bring up the times I’ve done that.) During these times of relative peacefulness, Mushiki, or rather Kuroe-Saika, receives a letter from another magic training institute school, Shadow Tower, asking to hold an exhibition battle between their students. A factoid that is clearly meant to indicate that this is going to be a tournament arc.

Knowing that they will get involved in the fighting somehow, Kuroe-Saika begins training Mushiki. First by using her seduction techniques to turn his body from Saika back to his original male self, and then tempting him into activating his Second Substantiation… just by thinking of Saika. Considering how he’s such a Saika mark, this isn’t too surprising, and this is a way to establish him as an adequate fighter while assuming his original male form. Not quite as good as a mock battle or proper training session, but whatever.

Instead of training him more directly, Kuroe-Saika instead tells him to check his school tablet for lessons, or check out MagiTube. A mages-only video sharing platform where users can share knowledge with others and create content. Kind of like MagiNet from The Wotch, but less Web 1.0. I’d say that this seems like a silly idea, but I’m guessing only magic users can see/hear these videos properly. Or maybe they can only be accessed via magic wi-fi.

On MagiTube, the top content creator is a teenager by the name of Clara Tokishima. She’s an outrageous spunky twintail girl with big boobs who likes to do zany and lewd things for clicks. Like take a bath with slimes. It’s well-produced garbage that can double as soft-core porn. Also, slimes are not some naturally occurring phenomenon in the world. They are also a transdimensional Annihilation Factor, but I guess they are common enough to be used for erotic prank tutorials.

Immediately after watching a video of Clara, Mushiki sees Clara falling down from the sky, narrowly catching her in the process. Now, why was she falling through the sky, how did she angle herself to be just right, and what exactly is she doing here are all perfectly valid questions. But there are no good answers here, and Clara merely uses this surprise introduction as a way to get cozy with Mushiki.

Sensing that her onii-chan is in danger of being seduced, Ruri then rushes over to stop Clara’s confession, and informs Mushiki that he’s been chosen as a representative in the tournament. Mushiki, naturally, knows nothing about this, so Ruri decides to ask an AI to explain this situation. Such a Zoomer…

And no, I’m not being cute or facetious with that AI comment. Void Garden has an artificial intelligence that monitors just about everything that happens here. They adopt the form of an outrageously busty woman by the name of Silvelle. Silvelle likes it when people calls her big sister, and she has presumably been around for years, including the entirety of the first arc. Funny how nobody thought to mention her though! Realistically, the writer probably didn’t think of her then. It’s like a sitcom introducing a character who lives in the basement or attic at the start of the fourth season, gaslighting the audience into thinking that they’ve always been around.

Silvelle explains that Mushiki was selected because the “records” show that he defeated a Mythic Class Annihilation Factor, referring to when he defeated Future Saika at the end of the first arc. This raises several questions about that encounter, how Silvelle works, and how the monitoring system at Void Garden works, but before any further questions can be asked, slimes appear, merge into a super slime, and they are promptly X’d out of existence by Clara’s chainsaw. Yes, she has a chainsaw for her magical weapon, and it fits her genki girl persona nicely.

What doesn’t fit her is how, when using her magical powers, she gets a heart-shaped, succubus-style fertility tattoo. …Thanks for that detail Koushi Tachibana. I love it when a teenager’s innate magical powers draw attention to her childless womb, yearning for a virile man’s white juices.

On that note, Clara then celebrates her quick kill on her floating Rotom Phone— of course she was streaming her battle against Annihilation Factors— and caps off the stream by introducing Mushiki as her boyfriend.

The last important segment of note from the first two chapters involves Kuroe-Saika and Elluc investigating an underground bunker containing the components of various monsters, sealing them away for study and safety. A cool, albeit familiar, concept that fits in line with the strength of the Annihilation Factors, but what brings them here is one particular subject, the most dangerous one in the whole facility. The heart of Ouroboros. An immortal Annihilation Factor who Saika defeated long ago, severing its serpentine body and sealing them in ice (maybe crystal?) to prevent it from regenerating. Ouroboros remained locked in suspended animation for centuries, but their heart has inexplicably resumed beating. Kuroe-Saika believes that this is the result of the seal she placed on Ouroboros weakening after her brush with death a month ago, which makes sense.

Moving ahead with chapter 17, Kuroe-Saika apologizes for letting Mushiki get roped up into the demonstration match. She explains she had no idea that Future Saika was an Annihilation Factor, telling him to just go along with this challenge, attending an introduction conference. …But first Mushiki gets glomped by Clara, who he gingerly pushes away, saying that he’s not interested in some hyperactive energy drink guzzling e-girl, as he is holding out his heart for Saika. This should dissuade any sane person, but Clara’s a streamer, so her sanity goes without question. She is determined to win Mushiki’s heart by any means necessary and flees so she can scheme in peace.

Finally attending the event for the exhibition match, Mushiki, having transformed into Saika off-screen, is greeted by the representatives from Shadow Tower, and they are not particularly formal. With the bearded wizard leader of the group, Gyousei Shionji, flipping him off. Clearly, Saika did something beyond uncouth during their last meeting, and Shadow Tower wants to achieve victory by any means necessary this time around. Unfortunately, the Shadow Tower folks are thrown from a loop right after the Void Garden representatives are named. Consisting of two disposable jobbers, Mushiki, Ruri, and… Saika.

At first this seems like something Silvelle automatically selected, but the addition of Saika was actually something done by Kuroe-Saika, who modified Silvelle’s choices to add Saika to the list. Why do this? Because, much like Gyousei, Kuroe-Saika is determined to win by any means necessary, even if it means letting Mushiki do twice the work.

The Shadow Tower representatives are pissed about this, but Kuroe-Saika brokers a deal with them. Saika cannot participate in the fight until some of her allies have been eliminated, and the Shadow Tower team can customize their representatives. So the three adult representatives all dress up in uniforms, claiming to be first year students. The fourth member of their team is some nameless jobber, even less significant than the two space fillers on the Void Garden side. While the fifth member is, of course, Clara.

…As a writer, this is where I need to start asking questions about… why is the writer doing this? Why is he making this a 5v5 battle when neither team have five noteworthy participants? On the Void Garden side, there are Mushiki, Ruri, Saika, and two jobber. On the Shadow Tower side, three teachers, Clara, and a jobber. Why not get rid of a jobber on each aside and why not add Kuroe-Saika as a Void Garden participant? As an artificial human, she does not have full magical powers, but she has some, and it would be interesting seeing the real Saika battle without her usual overwhelming powers. I’m not saying I know how to tell a story better than the Date A Live guy, I just cannot even guess what he was thinking.

After making her bold introduction, spinning through the air like a Sonic character, Clara challenges Mushiki, guised as Saika, to a duel to determine who is worthy of being Mushiki’s girlfriend.

This is a wonderful idea for a dual identity story like this, and I know that because this plot point was used to great effect in a winner-takes-all wrestling tournament storyline from Futaba-kun Change! In King’s Proposal though, the terms here are a bit different. There are three rounds to the competition, and the sole judge for all of them will be Mushiki himself. If he wants Saika to win, he just needs to say so after every round, while also keeping up appearances to the audience, who are going to be judging Mushiki and Saika’s performance throughout. Admittedly, this approach lacks a certain edge as, Mushiki is too much of a Saika fanboy for him to not choose ‘her’ cooking. But situations like this are not fun because the outcome is unknown. They’re fun because of the competitive spirit of the participants, and the scrambles they get into in the process.

During round one, Silvelle transforms the stage into a TV cooking set and the two compete to win over Mushiki by making him a delicious meal. It’s a tied and true trope of romance anime, and one that almost always ends in one of four ways. A girl produces a mouth-watering heavenly dish. The more homely girl produces some quality home cooking, good enough to pass the housewife equivalent of the BAR exam. Another girl produces something that’s edible, but mostly a weird joke dish, or something she just bought at the konbini. Or she produces dubious food through some dark art that science still does not understand.

It’s not an original concept, and the execution here is not inspired. Despite being a guy, Mushiki makes some good meat and potatoes, and knowing they were made by ‘Saika’ is enough to cry tears of joy. While Clara somehow took the same high school cooking class recipe and turned it into a bowl of volcanic goop. One bite is enough to send him to the floor, orz-ing in despair. Honestly, the best part of this whole chapter-long affair is how Mushiki, as Saika, goes off stage with Kuroe-Saika, only to appear back as his male self a single frame later. It’s such a great gag that speaks to the absurdity of the situation and the obliviousness of everybody, including Silvelle, who’s surprised to see Mushiki appear from behind the curtain.

Round two is the seduction round, giving each contestant 5 minutes to get Mushiki all hot and wild, before he decides who got him the most riled up. Clara goes first, basically giving Mushiki a strip tease as she reveals the bikini she was inexplicably wearing under her clothes. She whispers sweet words into his ears, eases him into lowering his guard, pins him down to the couch, saying that if he chooses her, she’ll show him everything, away from the cameras. She goes as far as she can without saying ‘if you pick me, you can screw me without even having to buy me dinner first.’

Mushiki, of course, resists this harlot, but the display annoys Kuroe-Saika, because she’s a 500-year-old woman who knows what her priorities are. When Saika’s turn comes up, Kuroe-Saika opts to lure Mushiki backstage where she chews him out for daring to entertain the idea of being with Clara, before stripping for him, revealing her busy bikini-clad body. While Kuroe-Saika does not look like her original self, Mushiki sees the Saika within her, and is able to blur the lines between the black haired maid before him and the platinum blonde cutie he fell in love with. The way she acts, moves, and toys with him is enough to leave him red in the face. After Kuroe-Saika does something, he is left screaming out in pleasure before stumbling back on stage, confirming Saika’s victory.

It’s another tropey way to handle a competition, this one being full-on ecchi. I am inclined to give it a pass on the merits of at least doing something to better establish Mushiki and Kuroe-Saika’s relationship. …Except I think it progresses it in a contemptuous direction.

Saika is over 500-years-old. She is a woman who has seen a lot in her lifetime, done a lot, and been through a lot. She is one of the wisest and most experienced people on the planet by virtue of her age, and she should not be attracted to a damn minor. If a 50-year-old ‘fell in love’ with a 17-year-old, there would be reason to suspect that the 50-year-old woman may be using her position of power by virtues of age, economic stature, and experience to manipulate the teenager. Most well-adjusted people would probably not be a fan of a minor dating someone easily old enough to be their parent. Let alone their grandparents, let alone their great great great great great great great great great grandparents.

I understand Mushiki’s love for Saika. He is just a kid, he does not understand her true age or true history. I can believe that he loves her, but love is one of the least specific and most open-ended terms in English. He was so chaste leading up to this, it’s easy to assume Mushiki has a distinctly childish idea of what marriage, love, and affection are. When he he asked to propose to Saika at the end of the first arc, it’s easy to read it as similar to a 9-year-old boy asking to marry a 21-year-old woman when he becomes a man. Cute, representative of an earnest affection, but puppy love at best. As I said, Mushiki is not a pervert. So why the hell is Saika enabling this innocent little cherub of a man with her voluptuous feminine wiles? Because she has a reputation to uphold?

Moving past this half-joking half-serious tangent, the third round of this three-round contest, worth more points than both rounds put together… is the expedition match itself! …Meaning the past two chapters were just fan service filler. Thanks for that. I love it when a fifth of a major storyline is eaten up by filler.

To be fair, there is a major reveal at the end of chapter 19, as Clara explains that she is a magical influencer, and channels her magical strength based on how many viewers she gets. The more people giving her likes, subs, and views, the stronger her magic reserves are, and that’s why she challenged Mushiki to this duel in the first place. So she could amass her largest audience yet, people interested in seeing if this greenhorn had what it took to outdo the strongest magic user in the world.

…All of which could have easily been established elsewhere, so I’m still calling chapters 18 and 19 filler.

Now can we just get to the tournament arc, please?

…No, because there is no tournament arc! That was all just a ruse!

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Part 6: The Tournament Arc That Wasn’t!

I’m fully prepared to turn in my anime club card for this take, but I’m not big on tournament arcs. I appreciate them as vehicles for side characters to shine, giving them a platform and place to battle friends and foes alike. I think they are a highly practical way to stage fights in an action-focused series. I think they offer great opportunities for character and relationship development, both in-battle and out-of-battle via conversations and encounters. And a tournament arc is a perfect platform to introduce new members of the cast.

However, there are also some very common pitfalls with this concept. By staging a tournament, by giving characters an opportunity to fight in elimination-style brackets, creators often need to craft jobber filler characters who exist to be defeated. Ones whose backgrounds and techniques largely do not matter, as they will only exist for a few chapters. The structure, one that prioritizes battle after battle, can get repetitive as episodes or chapters drag on and on. The environment of a battlefield is often boring. And while there can be surprises and twists along the way it’s pretty easy to guess where exactly any tournament is going to go just by looking at the brackets. It is very possible to do a good tournament arc, but I often consider it to be a low point in a series because of the lack of progression, adventure, and fixation on fighting above most anything else.

This is not something I want to see from King’s Proposal. The first arc was built around Mushiki’s daily life balance, growing, learning, and being forced to balance two lives. I want to see him grow. I want to see the existing relationships be built upon. I do not want new characters thrown around willy-nilly as the story prioritizes action.

My frustration is compounded by how much time and effort goes into establishing this would-be tournament arc. Rather than be a standard fighting tournament, it will be a 5v5 team deathmatch affair, with a large school combat zone, where up to Second Substantiation can be used. Health is represented with magical bracelets, and when it turns black, that person is forced to withdraw from combat. ‘Saika’ cannot jump in until two members of her team have withdrawn, meaning that Mushiki will need to withdraw and return to the battle as Saika.

The Void Gardens team makes plans on how to go about this, but the Shadow Tower team then launches an ambush. They overwhelm their opponents as they make their grand entrances, bearing their signature weapons and making pretty effective introductions. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the Garden team sends Mushiki to go flee and hide, allowing Saika to merge as their savior in the event that Ruri and the two jobbers can’t beat three teachers from Shadow Tower.

It’s not original, but it is an effective beginning to a tournament arc, showing the opponents to be underhanded and relentless, while casing Mushiki on his own, possibly to engage in his own battle against Clara, or maybe the nameless jobber. And then… the tournament just does not happen. The entire set up, the battle it promises, all of that is put on hold as the content, goal, and purpose of this storyline changes mid-chapter, over 60% of the way through.

Things jump over to Anviet investigating the underground sealing facility at Shadow Tower’s campus. A high tech facility where he goes to confirm the status of the Ouroboros head being held there, saying it was the only piece that was reported as having no problems. The guards at this facility let him in to investigate, only to draw guns on him, firing bullets at him, except he’s a mage, so he’s got that bulletproof magic aura. Anviet, now fully convinced that something is very wrong, knocks these fools out and looks at the Ouroboros head… only to find an empty sheathe of ice/crystal. The head is missing, and before he can ask himself why, the guards he just dispatched attack him again, refusing to go down even as he shoots balls of fire at them.

The guards’ resilience is not because they are adept mages, but because they have been cursed by Ouroboros. They are now immortal zombies, unable to escape the cycle of life and death, fully committed to their master Ouroboros. And this runs far deeper than just the guards. The students from Shadow Tower, gathered here to watch the exhibition match, are all tainted. They are no longer humans, but Immortals who are little more than relentless pawns. We see the way this crowd coldly watches the match before them, and right as the tension starts getting hot, the auditorium screen breaks down to static. Silvelle bodies grows limp before she bursts to life, unleashing a deafening shriek. Her warm face is twisted into a dark facsimile of its former self, and her eyes become shadowy abysses. She declares that the Garden is finished, and activates the Immortals lying in wake.

It is a great sequence. Carefully hiding Silvelle in shadows before showing her true face, transforming this goofy character into a harbinger of doom. It includes all the bit players from earlier parts of the comic as terrified bystanders, understanding that something is wrong, yet unable to comprehend what is happening until they are being chased by a zombie horde. The stakes are being raised, people are absolutely going to die now, and everything we assumed is abruptly shattered in a matter of moments. Also, while it’s never explicitly stated in the comic, I’m pretty sure that the immortal zombies are just doomed, destined to walk the Earth forever, unable to reclaim their now decayed minds.

This is a good twist, but I do not think this was a good way or place to implement this. Shadow Tower is still a fresh concept, its characters have barely been characterized outside of Clara. And while Mushiki did stop a world-ending force, he is still coming to terms with his powers, and is already being sent to stop a force that gave even Saika more than a bit of trouble. This threat feels too potent, too prescient, to work as a twist the majority of the way through the second story arc, especially with such little downtime.

It also makes everything that came before feel… pointless. Why stage the exhibition battle if this was the outcome planned from the start? Why spend any time on Clara and the other characters from Shadow Tower if they are merely puppets like everyone else?

This confusion then leads back to the battlefield, where Mushiki has only gotten a few meters away from his classmates. Alarms blare, Silvelle announces that the time for a hunt has begun, and the three Shadow Tower teachers all decide to cast aside their masks and start trying to kill their opponents instead. …By three teachers though, I just mean Gyousei, as the other two are just kind of forgotten about. As the antagonist of the chapter, Gyousei summons a church-like Fourth Substantiation with overwhelming gravity. The jobbers crumple like paper bags, Ruri tries to stand tall, and the Immortal headmaster tries to dispose of her, only for Mushiki to use his Hollow Edge… to slash a hole into the Fourth Substantiation.

Now is a good time to mention something only revealed way, way later in the light novels. Mushiki’s sword lets him break the rules. If something is magical or enchanted somehow, this negates the effects. All enchantments, armors, or environments created by magic can be cut by this sword, no matter what. If that sounds overpowered, that’s because it is.

From this hole, Elluc (the loli teacher) summons her wolves to leap up and rip into Gyousei’s neck, revealing him to be an Immortal, and keeping him preoccupied as Mushiki and Ruri run away. With a text from Kuroe-Saika, the pair head to the basement of the Central Library, where all the monster parts are stored, and run into none other than Clara. With only two chapters left in this arc, Kuroe-Sakia steps in to reveal that Clara is not an Immortal like others from Shadow Tower, but something worse.

Not unlike Mushiki, Clara is a merged being, a fusion of herself and the head of Ouroboros. Her form and personality may be her own, but her greater mind, mission, and purpose are all dictated by the whims of Ouroboros. And Ouroboros wants one thing. To end the cycle of life and death. This makes for an… interesting interpretation of Ouroboros, and I don’t mean that sarcastically.

Ouroboros, while depicted in many cultures, is generally seen as a symbol of life and death, of a snake eating their own tail, representing the cycle of life and death, repeating for all eternity. But this series’ interpretation of Ouroboros is not interested in perpetuating a cycle. Instead, they want to end the concept of death, revive all who have ever died, and prevent anyone else from dying, from growing old and decrepit. In place of this cycle, they wish to create an endless loop of violence. A world where every creature in this world is engaged in constant battle, where their bodies are tattered, torn, and disfigured, but never destroyed. A world where the insatiable hunger of the reanimated leads all life on earth to consume itself. A world where there is no birth, no death, just violence.

This interpretation is close enough to sound honest to the concept of Ouroboros, if a bit transformation. It’s not just arbitrarily using a cool-sounding name. There is enough unique elements of Ourboros’s plan for it to avoid feeling like another trite desire to end humanity for teh lulz. It’s an ideological belief that life and death are a broken system, and that endless consumption, endless conflict, is preferable. Plus, this idea inevitably leads to a global zombie apocalypse. I’m not a big zombie fan, but I do like it when non-zombie things throw in zombies. It keeps me guessing!

…Also, I should answer the question I know some of you are asking right now. Is Clara’s merging with Ouroboros an example of TSF? Uh… no. Ouroboros is a monster, is not sexualized beyond being a large snake (phallus). While Clara may be under Ouroboros’s gender ambiguous (presumed male) control, Clara’s personality is implied to be virtually unchanged from before she merged with Ouroboros. They call it merging, but it’s effectively mind control.

Naturally, the trio of Mushiki, Ruri, and Kuroe-Saika cannot allow Ouroboros to end the world, and proceed to attack Clara, spurring her to adopt her Third Substantiation form. Which sees her replace her accessory-riddled school uniform for a garish pink and green hoodie, a sarashi to cover her boobs, a devil tail accessory, oodles of ribbons, and two chainsaws. …Yeah, this is peak villain design right here. Adorable, psychotic, and filled with enough little details to make an artist weep. No notes.

Through a mixture of aggressive tactics, a surprise assist from the corrupted Silvelle, and her immortality, Clara is able to fend off the three well enough to reach the heart of Ouroboros hidden in this basement. Merging with it unlocks further power, allowing her to make use of her Fourth Substantiation, Reincarnation. This summons a cemetery before the three heroes, and from the graves, she resurrects an army of skeletons. Specifically 3D skeletons, because the artist could not be bothered to draw dozens upon dozens of skeletons, and I don’t blame them. Work smarter not harder!

Clara clarifies that these skeletons are the remains of Void Garden students and faculty who have died over the centuries, filled with nothing but rage and hunger, their humanity decayed along with their flesh. It effectively makes the jobber early game level enemy of a skeleton seem imposing, if only for their numbers. But before the battle can begin, Clara gives Mushiki one last chance to join her as an ally, promising to make a special exception for him, letting him stay mortal. Mushiki naturally says no, but that’s not a problem for Clara. She can just kill him and bring her back as her mind slave.

Recognizing the state he’s in, Mushiki realizes the only way out of this mess is to turn into Saika, meaning he needs to get a smooch from someone. Kuroe-Saika is the logical choice, but she gets impaled by a skeletal spearman, dying from a common weapon. Guess artificial bodies aren’t as sturdy as real mages… Kuroe-Saika cannot transfer her remaining power to Mushiki, as it would be insufficient, but she does place a power draining spell on his lips. Meaning that, in order for Mushiki to transform into Saika, he needs to either kiss Ruri or Clara. He asks to kiss Ruri, but she gets taken away by the skeletons, and Clara rushes in to claim him as her own, via murder.

Mushiki is able to shatter both of her chainsaws with his Hollow Edge, but the impact breaks the sword (oh, so that’s how it’s balanced), depleting his magic reserves. So Mushiki acts bold, gives Clara a peck on the lips, and ka-girls into Saika in a flash of light.

The scene that follows is great, showing Mushiki capture the presence of Saika beautifully, looking down at Clara with hatred and disdain as he summons his staff and overwrites her Fourth Substantiation. He coyly declares that Mushiki cannot go out with her, and telling her to give up on him. All before summoning a series of skyscrapers and crushing Clara like the worm she is. Everything about this is great… except for the fact that it’s over and done with in less than ten pages, leaving the story with under thirty pages to wrap up the rest of the arc. …And boy does the falling action feel expediated.

Ruri is perplexed about why Mushiki wanted to kiss her, but she chooses to drop the subject, rather than indulge in her incestuous cravings. Kuroe-Saika comes back to the basement, rocking her third body in the series thus far. Elluc pops in to say that all the students from Shadow Tower were detained, not mentioning any casualties from Void Garden, which I don’t believe for a second. Also, Silvelle’s servers were disconnected while they try to remove the crazy from her system.

While Clara’s body was left lying in the corner, she released one of her eyes, allowing her to flee the scene with the help of a vile slime, and reconstitute her body via Ouroboros magic. Rather than take time to flee, build some distance, and regroup her resources, she decides to host a naked live stream. One where she announces that she is Ouroboros, her desire to claim Mushiki for herself, and how she knows that Mushiki’s secret. Because it happened right in front of her.

I’m just going to assume Clara is only doing this because of her influencer powers. She needs to post videos online to get her usual level of strength, and after rebuilding herself from an eyeball, she’s probably feeling a little weak. Otherwise, this would be an incredibly stupid thing for a villain to do. Most know to only announce their presence once they are settled into their new lair.

Ruri and Elluc mobilize to find Clara ASAP, leaving Mushiki and Kuroe-Saika alone in the basement together, where the story end this arc on a more romantic note. Mushiki feels like he betrayed Kuroe-Saika by kissing another woman, but she thinks this concern is silly, saying that a simple kiss did not change his feelings for her. He’s still hopelessly in love with her, and after seeing this dedication, Kuroe-Saika let him in on a little secret about her, as a present. That Mushiki was her first kiss.

…I am calling absolute bullcrap on that! Saika is an adult woman who has seen more and done more than anyone on Earth, yet The Witch of Resplendent Color, this mother of the Earth, has never had any human children born of her loins, never had sex with a man, or woman, and never kissed someone before? No. No, no, no, no, no. That is not how you craft a character like this. You cannot make someone so old, so wise, and write them like they are a damn teenager. It takes away from Saika’s grandeur as a character, makes her seem less authoritative and worldly, by making her so immature. I mean, even I was smoochin’ girls back in Kindergarten. (That’s not even a joke. I think my teacher thought it was funny.)

This reveal is also such a lame conclusion to this story arc. Clara escaped to fight another day, regaining her resources, gathering the parts of Ouroboros, and eventually launch a second attack on the school. So the sense of finality, of conclusion, is just gone. The characters did not achieve much, they were sloppy in allowing Clara to escape as they bickered, and they were sloppy for failing to notice that they let in a legion of zombies into the school for an exhibition match. Yeah, remember that? A complete waste of a tournament arc.

The first arc had a clear intention, clear purposes, and a nice through line, ending things on a conclusion brimming with spectacle and importance, along with the best imagery in the entire series. The second arc feels like a gaggle of cobbled together ideas, thrown together with the goal of subverting and surprising the reader over telling a compelling narrative. It does not follow through on anything it tries to do. Its construction as a comic is more than fine, regularly showcasing sections that show off the skills of its artist, but the story is just sloppy.

The character development is muted. The additional lore is clumsily shoved to catch the reader to speed. Only two (arguably three) new characters actually matter, with the rest being relegated to basic jobbers and fodder. It all ends on an unsatisfying note that is meant to be victorious, when nothing was actually achieved. I actually thought that the manga merely ended partway through the second arc, but no. This is how the second light novel ends too.

It has good ideas, good concepts, and I think Clara is a great character, with a lot of personality and zest. But as a story? No. The more I think about it, the more this feels like something a writer made without constructing a proper outline, or something a petulant editor tore to disconnected scraps before forcing the writer to release something. No matter what happened though, I give it a 4/10. Subpar. Below average. I know they can do better. See me after class.

Okay, okay, but how does this second volume fare as a TSF story? …It effectively stops being a TSF story after the seduction competition. Mushiki’s transformation into Saika at the end is so brief, so similar to his past portrayals, and so isolated I’m not going to count it as TSF. A single scene does not make something part of a genre. The whole cooking/seduction section though? That’s fun! That’s all classic TSF romcom hi-jinks. If you told me the gist of those chapters and said they were from the Ranma, manga I would believe you without question.

This mini storyline does not excel, it could have done more, but it’s a perfectly good mini storyline to give a TSF episodic series some spice and variety. …But you need more than that for a story arc in a series whose entire concept is based in the TSF genre, where the hook is that the protagonist transforms between a boy and a girl.

As should be evident by the length of this showcase, I really want to like King’s Proposal. I think that the first arc is a genuinely good, fun, if a bit tropey, comic, with a grade-A finale. It is a solid and enjoyable TSF story in isolation, and I would fully recommend it, as it really comes together in the end.

The second arc simply does not come together, either as a story or a TSF story. It’s not an extreme failure, but it is a major let down. Maybe the light novels handled this story better, but I’m not going to read a whole-ass book just to answer that question. Maybe, if this series gets an anime adaptation (highly probably considering the success of Date A Live), this arc will be handled with more grace. Though, the second arc of the manga is mediocre at best.

I don’t like ending a showcase on such a bummer note like this, but I also don’t like it when a comic ends on such a bummer storyline.

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