Garossu, AKA Magical Girl Tenta-Cool Blue
Magical Heroines?!
is a Magical Girl webcomic written and illustrated by Handspike (formerly illustrated by Yukimaru).
When misanthropic Japanese high schooler Dokidoki Garossu gets force-fed a fifty-year-old squid, she of course develops squid-themed magic powers. Soon she's conscripted into her school's magical girl club, with madcap and horrifying results.
This is what would happen if Medaka Box watched Pretty Cure before passing out on the couch during [adult swim].
You can read it on Tapas and Webtoons.
Magical Heroines?! provides examples of the following tropes:
- Art Shift: The "Little Bites" segments at the end of each chapter (drawn by Joi Massat) are done in a pop'n music-inspired style.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Ojou's castle leaves Garossu in awe...for a moment.
- Axe-Crazy: The more power a magical girl accepts from their mascot, the more usual is that they start behaving like this. Fuka Anzu and later Garossu end up being prime examples.
- Badass Normal: Yamadakun. It's not just the hair, it's also his cool demeanor in the face of danger, despite the whole "not having powers" thing.
- Big Damn Heroes: The end of Chapter 1.
- Bilingual Bonus: Sound effects are almost always in Japanese...and often are Unsound Effects (a character for "love" for love powers, a character for "ki" around ki powers) or nonsense.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Saki reveals her cruel streak reeeal early.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: With the possibly-sole exception of BANCHO..
- Bloody Hilarious:Panday: "Shaolong-taitai! Slow down! You're going to run into that boy!"
- Butt-Monkey: Meganeko. Her name and presence are routinely forgotten, even by her friends. She follows them doggedly despite this.
- Captain Obvious: BANCHO.BANCHO.: "...you appear to have been stabbed. I'm unsure if you have noticed."
- Clueless Boss: Also BANCHO.
- Comedic Sociopathy
- Comical Translation: All the time. Special shout-out to when a character shouts "Outta the way! Doke doke doke!!" and a translation note says helpfully, "*Outta the way!"
- Creepy Good: Dokurotoko. (If you can call him "good.")
- Cute Bruiser: Even when Saki is smacking you around, she's always got a smile on her face.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Shaolong usually ends up in the receiving end of these, while BANCHO. is usually the one delivering the curbstomp to any antagonistic magical girls. Both him and Mobo are killed by Nikiya in an instant.
- D-Cup Distress: Shaolong.
- Deadpan Snarker: Garossu.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome:Flowery: "D'ya tink she made huh way up ta da second floow, Ojou-tama?"
- Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The mascots. They appear to be psychic manifestations of the Power Crystals that power magical girls.
- Fetishized Abuser: Saki toward Meganeko, and everyone is uncomfortable about it. (But Meganeko says she's okay with it.)
- For Your Own Good: When it comes to Dokurotoko's relationship with his mother Hahaoya, this pretty much sums it up.
- Foreign Exchange Student: Ojou, who clearly comes from Eagleland.
- Good is Not Nice: Garossu has this to say about her teammates:"I've seen one kill kids, I've been sexually approached by another, and the new one after me's insaner than them...
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Oh so much.
- Honor Thy Abuser: Dokurotoko doesn't see his mother as a bad person...he sees himself as eternally deserving of punishment.
- Hot-Blooded: Garossu. Everybody might be out here calling their attacks with great gusto, but she goes above and beyond by combining snark with volume.
- Inherent in the System: The dystopian nature of the setting is caused by several versions of this, all imperfectly balancing each other out, and all bad in themselves.
- Becoming a magical girl generally means letting a spirit inside your head, with the entry warrantied as somewhat destructive. (By the time the spirit could tell what it's hollowing out to make room for itself, the damage is over with.) And the spirits provide an internal narrative which seems designed to make their occupants interesting to watch above any other considerations. Becoming a stronger magical girl generally means amping this influence up.
- There are powers capable of counseling magical girls and stopping the constant infighting the condition seems to generate; unfortunately, at best none of those much value magical girls' welfare and at worst actively enjoy their suffering enough it's the main reason any are permitted to live.
- The world, in a very basic sense, is probably broken and has traumas echoing through its infrastructure. Not surprising, given it was recreated by the exact individual whose fragmented spirit is the one infecting magical girls, and who is likely either a Troubled Abuser or worse - possibly a Big Bad from the start.
- Idea Bulb: One that doubles as a character (Bulby).
- Japanese Delinquents: Strange, Magical Girl-flavored versions of them.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: This is a prime locale for magical girls to commune with their mascots. And you can fight there, too.
- Lemony Narrator: Quite a lot of it, between the translation notes and the remarks that bookend every chapter."Next time: Hurry up and stop being such a virgin, everybody!!"
- Me's a Crowd: Mayaka's magical girl power. No two Mayakas are exactly alike (ex. there's a "girl Mayaka").
- Mind Hive: Technically, all magical girls are two minds, one body, on account of their mascots. Anzu takes this up to eleven with six mascots. Grand Theft Me is, of course, inevitable.
- Mood Whiplash
- Non-Standard Character Design: Seeing BANCHO. next to Garossu is a lot like seeing Jotaro Kujo next to Sailor Moon.
- Noodle Incident:Octoy: "No, Garossu-sama, being a magical girl doesn't give you rashes."Garossu: "But then how come..."
- Older Than They Look: Loliko (if she is to be believed). Also, Saki is both a teenage-looking robot girl and a 56-year-old computer (she runs on tape).
- Only Sane Man: Garossu. When you get stabbed in front of your friends and the best they can do is remark that you're "such an actress," you have to conclude that you're Surrounded by Idiots.
- Rich Bitch: Ojou.
- Robot Girl: Saki is described as a "computer possessed by magic."
- Semantic Superpower: Mobonosuke can cut "things that can't be cut" (yes, the quotation marks are always there).
- Shrinking Violet: Meganeko.
- Slasher Smile: When Dokurotoko transforms, one of these is inevitable.
- The Power of Creation: How Mamoru Nikiya's ability actually works. He doesn't cut people, he instantly creates spaces inside of them.
- Unreliable Narrator: While we do have backstory for how the world came to be the way it is, and the broad strokes are probably accurate, we don't have any especially sane source whose word to take for a lot of the important details. Most especially, the character of the "first magical girl", either at her introduction or at various stages of her life, is never reliably stated.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist:Meganeko: "I may not know very much...but as of today, I do believe...in magic. The magic of peace love and understanding!"
