Manga / Magu-chan: God of Destruction

Magu-chan: God of Destruction (破壊神マグちゃん, Hakai-shin Magu-chan) is a manga by Kei Kamiki that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from June 2020 to February 2022.

Hundreds of years in the past, cultists worshiped Mag Menuek, the chaos god of destruction, in return for using his powers on their enemies. A band of holy knights interrupted one Summoning Ritual, allowing them to seal away the weakened Magu in a crystal.

In the modern era, this crystal eventually washes ashore in a sleepy Japanese beach town, where it is picked up by 2nd-year middle school student Ruru Miyanagi. Despite her hopes to sell it to ease her financial problems, Ruru accidentally breaks the crystal, releasing the god trapped inside.

However, Magu's time in the crystal has resulted in him being severely reduced in power and stature. After reflexively injuring Magu (several times), Ruru decides to take him in as a house guest. Wanting to restore his lost power, Magu decides to start by making Ruru his disciple, using his remaining strength and whatever means necessary to curry her favor. And with other deities reemerging, as well as the Holy Knighthood learning about Magu's unsealing, life in Ruru's little town is about to become much more interesting.

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Tropes:

• A Day in the Limelight: Chapter 19 focuses on Naputaaku’s army of hermit crabs as they find ingredients so their leader could cook.
• All Just a Dream: In chapter 58, a desperate Naputaaku tries to save his failing eatery by begging Uneras for help. She gives him the brilliant idea of opening up a maid cafe, and his restaurant becomes a hit that dominates the whole world...and then he wakes up, having been trapped inside one of Nosu Koshu's illusions.
• Beach Episode: Chapter 54 is the only designated one in the traditional sense, though the beach itself is a commonly visited location, seeing as how the series takes place in a rural seaside town. Unlike many others in the medium, it is not about the girls getting into swimsuits.
• Birthday Episode: In chapter 43, Magu and friends celebrate Ruru's birthday with a Surprise Party...a couple of months early.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ruru gets her dream fulfilled of never being lonely as Magu is there for all the big moments of her life. Going through high school, getting into college, getting married, having a kid, every moment until Ruru falls asleep one last time. Utterly distraught, Magu leaves and runs into the Holy Knights. With Ruru gone, he has no anchor to keep him from destroying everything so he must be sealed. Magu accepts as he doesn't care to destroy. He orders Muscar to throw the seal gem into the ocean, while Nosu Koshu grants him good dreams. While sealed, he sees a figment of Ruru as he first met her and happily enjoys his isolation. Then an undisclosed amount of time later, Magu is freed once again by Ruri, a young girl living in a small town who doesn't have many friends. Ready to go through it again, Magu demands offerings from his new disciple.
• Book Ends: The series begins with Magu being sealed in a climatic battle and then being freed many years later by Ruru after his crystal washes up on the beach, where he's more than eager to restore his lost power. In the final chapter, after staying by Ruru until she passes away, Magu lets himself be sealed away again only to be released again years later by a little girl named Ruri, who he makes his new disciple.
• City of Adventure: The characters live in the fictional city of Aikura.
• Character in the Logo: The Japanese logo◊ fills in the right half of the kanji for "god (神)" with Magu-chan's single eye. The English version◊ does the same with the "A" in "MAGU".
• Christmas Episode: Chapters 24-25 in the series's first year, and chapter 72 in its second.
• Clingy Aquatic Life: Happens to Magu when he fishes in chapter 9 by using his tentacle as a rod.
• Comic-Book Time: Subverted–it's not apparent until a number of chapters in, but unusually for a comedy series in Shonen Jump, Magu-chan not only sees time pass and the characters grow older, but it also takes place relative to whatever time of year it was in the real world when the chapters were originally published. This goes beyond simply having Holiday Episodes around the right time–virtually every chapter in the series follows this.
• Creator Thumbprint: Ruru is the third Plucky Girl protagonist Kei Kamiki has written, as two other one-shots he created before Magu-chan have similar main characters.
• Crossover: The series posthumously had a crossover with fellow Weekly Jump manga Protect Me, Shuugomaru!, which also sort of serves as this series' eulogy. In it, Magu-chan, Naputaaku, and Uneras get summoned into the Shuugomaru world. The titular character is elated since he was a huge fan of Magu-chan, and he allowed them to do their thing because he knew the series ended weeks before (both in and out of universe) and simply wanted his favorite characters to shine one last time.
• Cryptid Episode: Gu La's introductory chapter (31) is framed as this, as the characters go to investigate having been lead to believe he is a dangerous creature that appeared on the beach.
• Deadly Distant Finale: The last chapter portrays Ruru's life from high school onward, up to her dying of old age with Magu still by her side.
• Deserted Island: In chapter 55, the gods wash up on one and proceed to have a difficult time cooperating for long enough to escape.
• Diet Episode: Chapter 20 has four of the main cast going on a diet after eating lots of food days ago. It turns out that Ruru’s weight gain is just her growing.
• Dream Episode: Chapter 56 sees the cast go into Izuma’s dream world while Nosu Koshu keeps him asleep. The dream world is, of course, a Standard Fantasy Setting resembling a JRPG.
• Festival Episode: Ruru and Magu attend one in chapter 6.
• First Day of School Episode: Chapter 39, in which the central cast members begin their third year of middle school.
• Fishing Episode: Ruru, Magu and Ren go boat fishing in chapter 9.
• Graduate from the Story: The story starts when Ruru and her friends are in their second year of middle school, and they graduate shortly before the end.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Yupisusu, the last of the Six Pillars, makes their entrance by fulfilling Ruru’s wish to continue peaceful everyday life, causing the same day to repeat with only other Gods of Chaos retaining their memories of the repeated days.
• Halloween Episode: The characters celebrate it in chapter 18.
• Hero Insurance: Averted. While fighting Magu-Chan using his Cool Sword, Izuma gets arrested by the police via destruction of property.
• Hot Springs Episode: The characters visit one in chapter 35.
• Irony: Despite resembling some kind of cephalopod or sea slug, Magu doesn't live in the ocean, and can't even swim.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Ren spends quite a while needlessly worrying about Izuma getting with Ruru. Uneras, being both a Shipper on Deck and Trickster God, instigates this.
• Innocuously Important Episode:
  • Chapter 67 is mostly a heartwarming chapter about the cast trying to get Magu to smile, but Uneras mentioning how the Holy Knights don’t trust her reports about Magu getting along with humanity leads directly into the very next arc.
  • Chapter 59 sees Izuma mention wanting to become "one of the Ten Heavenly Generals of the Holy Knighthood." This is initially presented as a joke, with Ren exclaiming “I don’t think anyone knows what that means.” It turns out they’re a real group that finally show up 10-odd chapters later, also for the purpose of kicking off the aforementioned arc.
• Love Potion: In chapter 30, Uneras, for her own amusement, creates magical chocolates that cause whoever eats it to be attracted to the person who fed it to them, though the experienced effect is closer to reverence than that of serious romantic attraction.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: The narration (Yupisusu) often introduces Naputaaku as “A fearsome evil god who [x].”
• Maybe Ever After: In the original epilogue, Ruru is shown marrying a man that may be Ren, but his features are too obscured to tell. The bonus chapter is about Ren trying to confess to Ruru after Yupisusu informs him he's on a path to a future (possibly the timeline in said epilogue) where Ruru never finds out, she moves onto someone else, and Ren never moves on for the rest of his life. It ends with Ren diverging from the predicted timeline by actually confessing, causing Ruru to run away in embarrassed shock, and anywhere else this leads is up to the reader's imagination.
• Myopic Architecture: The Holy Knights designed their fortress shotgun-style because they wanted intruders to duel their five leaders in separate rooms each in a row. This just let Mag blow a hole through all five rooms at once.
• New Year Has Come: Chapter 27 sees Ruru, her mother, and Magu attending their first shrine visit of the New Year.
• "No Peeking!" Request: Ruru says this to Ren in chapter 35 (and the prototype one-shot), as well as to Magu before she goes in the shower in chapter 64…only for Muscar to end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Painting the Medium: Magu's speech bubbles are drawn with an incredibly thick, rough outline that suggests a powerful voice and makes it easier to tell he's speaking when he has No Mouth.
• Pilot: The first iteration of the series came in 2019, when Kamiki (then under the pseudonym of Keiji Kinoshita) published a one-shot of the same name in Shonen Jump GIGA. While originally not intended to be a full series, it was later re-pitched by Kamiki and his then-editor to the serialization committee and given the green light to become a full weekly series. The one-shot most closely resembles chapter 1, with details that would later be reworked into other chapters thrown in. Some of the most notable differences are as follows:
  • Early Installment Character-Design Difference: While Ruru and Ren look almost the same as their final counterparts, Magu looks quite a bit different, with slightly more grotesque hands and an overall rougher, less rounded look.
  • Ren’s surname is Fujimura rather than Fujisawa. He also plays a much more prominent role compared to the first chapter of the serialization. His crush on Ruru is implied, but not explicitly stated like it is in the serialization.
  • The climax of the one-shot sees Ruru asking Magu to stop a major storm, like in the final chapter 1, though this time it’s because it would put a stop to the summer festival otherwise (the summer festival would later be the theme of chapter 6 in the serialization). The storm is also stopping Ruru’s mother from coming home, a conflict which would be reworked into the Christmas arc from chapters 24-25.
• Please, Don't Leave Me:
  • In the final chapter, played straight when Magu begs Ruru not to go yet as he holds her hand on her deathbed.
  • In the extra chapter, when Naputaaku finds Ren on the ground supposedly dying (but not really) while bleeding out the mouth, he cries and begs him not to die since he's counting on him.
• Rescue Arc: A brief arc has the Holy Knights kidnap Ruru to force him to fight them. After the knights are easily defeated, Uneras is revealed as the mastermind, but it further turns out it was a way to prove to the Holy Knights that Magu wasn't dangerous—Ruru wasn't actually kidnapped, she was invited to the castle by Izuma's sister.
• Restaurant-Owning Episode: Chapter 58 sees Naputaaku attempt to run his own restaurant, having realized it can help him achieve all his goals. It turns out he is terrible at business.
• Santa Clausmas: Discussed; since the manga is set in Japan, Christmas is only said to have "roots as a Christian holiday, denoting the birth of their saviour". This still makes Magu see it as religious, and Santa Claus as a rival figure of worship.
  Magu: It all make sense now. Christmas is a ritual that makes use of a disciple called Santa Claus to ensnare more believers by taking advantage of lowly humans' shameful materialism!
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The holy crystal kept Magu and others (aside from Uneras) contained for hundreds of years. Even after they are freed, they are Sealed Evil in a Teddy Bear.
• Scary Amoral Religion: Magu's past followers prayed to him in secret rituals wearing strange robes, seeking to use his destructive powers on their enemies.
• Sick Episode: There’s two. In chapter 16, Ruru catches a cold and Magu and friends take care of her. In the following chapter, Magu catches her cold, and the characters must go inside his body to get rid of it.
• Shout-Out:
  • Chapter 20 has Izuma build an obstacle course in an attempt to make Magu and Naputaaku lose weight, and they all but say it's based on the ones from Ninja Warrior/Sasuke.
  • Chapter 47 sees Magu and friends playing very obvious parodies of Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. In a later chapter, Magu appears to be playing something resembling ARMS.
  • The entire series is chock full of references to the Cthulhu Mythos, from the designs of the gods to the human characters’ names being references to various place names (Ruru = R’lyeh, Ren = Leng, Izuma = Innsmouth, etc.).
  • Pokémon is name-dropped in chapter 6, when a little girl mistakes Magu for one of the titular creatures. Ruru tries to play along by telling her Magu can evolve, to which Magu responds by turning red, and a caption refers to this as “Mega Evolution.”
• Ski-Resort Episode: The characters go to one in chapters 33-34.
• Sorry to Interrupt: In chapter 66, Ruru accidentally walks into the room after Ren has fallen on top of Seira and runs off, believing to have caught them in the act. It was a misunderstanding, but Ren took it pretty hard.
• "Stuck at the Airport" Plot: In chapters 24 and 25, a sudden snowstorm which turns out to be Muscar’s doing all along almost prevents Ruru’s mom from making it home for Christmas.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Izuma tries to invoke Training from Hell by sitting in a sauna with his clothes on, and later passes out from the heat.
  • The final chapter shows us a tragic example. While the Supreme Beings of Chaos are immortal, we humans aren't. The human characters we've read and loved live their lives while Magu and the other Beings of Chaos remain the same; Ruru eventually dies from old age, while Izuma, now leader of the Holy Knighthood, is an old man. It's safe to assume the rest of the gang have also grown old or passed away.
• The End: Played with in chapter 76. The last panel of the chapter has text stating that it's the end of the series, but an additional blurb right underneath it says "There's a little bit more to go." The last chapter forms the Epilogue, showing Ruru living out her life with Magu and fulfilling her dream, his willing re-sealing after her death, and re-awakening via Ruru's decendant
• The Time of Myths: The present day is mostly the same as in reality, barring a few obscure locales, but the distant past is full of magic and gods.
• Title Drop Chapter: Chapter 76.
• Usurping Santa: On his second Christmas, Mag decides to take Santa Claus' fame for his own. Because Mag doesn't have a ton of resources (nevermind Santa Claus isn't real in this series), he just tries to find Ruru a better present.
  The messenger of God, Santa Claus, that draws the dedication of of lowly humans everywhere... If I steal his position, there is no doubt that the lowly humans will honor and revere me instead!
• Valentine's Day Episode: Chapter 30.
• Vacation Episode: The ski resort and hot springs chapters (33-35) can count as this. They are shortly interrupted partway through by the arrival of Muscar.
• The Victim Must Be Confused: Izuma initially sees Ruru as a "feeble-minded girl" indoctrinated into Magu's cult, not understanding that Ruru is the one holding authority over Magu.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Followers of Magu gave him many offerings of gold and other treasure. He has no idea of their actual worth, and ends up dumping a huge pile he'd stored up to buy a few cups of pudding.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious:
  • Magu usually refers to Ruru just as his disciple, but will occasionally use her name (most of the time her full name) during an intense or emotional moment.
  • Naputaaku never once calls any human character by their actual name throughout the entire series, until the extra chapter, where he calls Ren by name when begging him to get up.