is a fantasy shōjo manga written and illustrated by Yuri Narushima

Yuri Narushima

is a female Japanese manga artist best known for her series Planet Ladder, licensed in English by Tokyopop, and The Young Magician, licensed in English by CMX.- Manga :*Replica Master...

.

Plot

Incorporating multiple sub-plots, The Young Magician focuses on two young men—Carno Guino, a magician whose soul fuses with demons, and Ibuki Shikishima, who practices Shinto

Shinto

or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

—who find themselves entangled in a complex war between various factions.

Development

Yuri Narushima

Yuri Narushima

is a female Japanese manga artist best known for her series Planet Ladder, licensed in English by Tokyopop, and The Young Magician, licensed in English by CMX.- Manga :*Replica Master...

 collected references books about magic for The Young Magician; in the afterword

Afterword

An afterword is a literary device that is often found at the end of a piece of literature. It generally covers the story of how the book came into being, or of how the idea for the book was developed....

 of the first volume, she comments that "[her] bookcase is totally over-flowing with reference material!" She also planned to take a research trip to Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 in September.
For the section of the first volume in which the characters discuss genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

, she consulted The Meaning of Immunity by Tomio Tada and Understanding Genetics by Hironori Kodama. Because of the content in the first volume, she often received letters asking if the manga was horror—which she does not consider it to be.

Release

Written and illustrated by Yuri Narushima, the chapters of The Young Magician have been serialized

Serial (literature)

In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...

 in the Japanese manga magazine Wings by Shinshokan

Shinshokan

is a Japanese publishing company. It was established on June 14, 1961. In April 2009, the US publisher Digital Manga Publishing announced a co-branding operation with Shinshokan, to license yaoi and shōjo manga from Shinshokan's Wings, Dear and Dear+ anthologies under the DokiDoki imprint .-Manga...

 since November 1995. Shinshokan collects the chapters into tankōbon

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

volumes; fourteen volumes have been published so far.

In 2005, the manga imprint

Imprint

In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...

 of DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

, CMX

CMX (comics)

CMX was a division of Wildstorm Productions, an imprint of DC Comics which in turn is owned by Time Warner. It was DC's line of manga translations....

, announced that it had licensed The Young Magician for an English-language release in North America. CMX put together an eighty-page sampler of manga for mature readers—The Young Magician, Sword of the Dark Ones

Sword of the Dark Ones

Sword of the Dark Ones is a manga by Tsukasa Kotobuki, and it is based on a story by Kentaro Yasui. This series is also known in Japan by the title . In North America the story is published by CMX.- Plot :...

, Monster Collection: The Girl Who Can Deal With Magic Monsters, Testarotho

Testarotho

is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Kei Sanbe. The manga is licensed in English by CMX Manga. The manga is licensed for a French-language release by Vegetal Soleil.-Characters:*Garrincha is the feared inquisitor of Neo Arsen...

and Madara—and distributed it to retailers on June 8, 2005. CMX published thirteen volumes of The Young Magician from September 1, 2005, to April 21, 2009. Scheduled for publication on May 11, 2010, the fourteen volume remained unreleased as DC Comics announced on May 18 that the CMX imprint would end on July 1.

Reception

The Young Magician has received generally positive reviews. Reviewers at Mania Entertainment ranked Young Magician sixth on their list of "20 Must Have CMX Manga", describing it as "[b]rutal and heavy" with "a rich world of characters and plots" and a challenging, nonlinear plot. Dan Polley of Manga Life considered the artwork "fairly innocuous" and occasionally helpful in accentuating the tone and plot, but sometimes detracted from the plot's appeal. Polley praised Narushima's skillful handling of the relationships between the characters and the growing suspense towards the ninth volume, but felt that the suspense in the eighth volume was uneven. Jason Thompson

Jason Thompson (writer)

Jason Thompson is a manga critic, journalist, writer and comics artist.-Life and career:...

, in Manga: The Complete Guide

Manga: The Complete Guide

Manga: The Complete Guide is a 2007 encyclopedia written by Jason Thompson and published by Del Rey which provides basic details and short reviews of over 1000 Japanese manga titles that have been translated and released in English in North America...

, gave The Young Magician three and a half out of four stars, and praised it as "a powerful work of modern fantasy" with Narushima's writing and page layout

Page layout

Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...

s being an asset.

External links

• The Young Magician (archived) at CMX's site