20. Magical Girl Magical Mari - Appearance! (R)
20. Magical Girl Magical Mari - Appearance! (R)
It had been two months since Ceres became a magical girl.
Magical Mari had aired smoothly through episode 8.
She became as famous as she had hoped.
Not just on the island, but beyond it. The name of Magical Girl Magical Mari spread far and wide.
Along with it, Celestia Claudius—the actress who played Mari's civilian identity—also became famous.
The problem was what came after.
Despite its visuals, which seemed aimed at girls, Magical Mari was also popular with men.
This much, he could understand.
Even from the production team's perspective, the monsters that appeared in Mari were the sort men would enjoy.
But the real problem was that it began attracting viewers regardless of gender or age.
This was a part neither Allen nor Nikolai had predicted.
It had originally been made with academy students as the target audience, yet a demographic they'd never aimed for was going wild for it.
This stemmed from the particularities of this world's races.
In a world where long-lived and short-lived races lived side by side, years lived and mental age did not necessarily match.
For humans, seventy was an age of wisdom and equanimity, but for elves, seventy was still young enough to carry a schoolbag to class.
So, in mental terms, short-lived races were often far more mature than long-lived ones.
You could think of it like this: a human and an elf who met at age 10—by the time they hit 70, the elf would look comparatively immature.
This was where the unexpected situation arose.
A seventy-year-old member of a long-lived race would recommend Magical Mari to a short-lived friend of the same age.
The short-lived friend would try Magical Mari on a whim, then end up raving about it alongside their long-lived friend.
*
"See, Boss, I told you to go easy on the action scenes."
As Nikolai said, the cause lay with Allen.
The person involved in filming Mari happened to be Allen Price, a master of hand-to-hand combat.
- Tsk, tsk. You think that'd actually hurt? I'll show you how it's done.
It began with Allen's teaching.
At first, he'd taught punches and kicks befitting a magical girl, but at some point, he'd started seriously instructing them in the martial arts from his past life.
Mari, radically reworked by Allen, became a mixed martial artist who used kicks as finishing moves.
"I mean, Boss, I get that Taekwondo was something the military made you do. But where did you learn capoeira?"
"I couldn't do it in my previous life. I'd seen it a few times, but my body wouldn't cooperate. After I reincarnated, I tried it—and it worked."
Ultimately, the essence of martial arts was beating people up with two hands and two legs.
Even if it wasn't his own school, as long as his body could handle it and he understood the human body well enough, he could reproduce most martial arts to some degree.
"I found I could reproduce most martial arts I'd seen at least once in my previous life."
His body moved exactly as he imagined, and he'd realized it while reproducing different techniques.
Of course, he'd modified the parts he couldn't remember to suit his tastes, but the point was that Magical Mari had become a monster that wouldn't look out of place in a UFC ring, by past-life standards.
"Conveniently, Ceres had the basics of martial arts down since she'd been a spirit guardian. She absorbs whatever I teach her really well."
"Are you sure this is okay? I feel like we've strayed way too far from magical girl territory already."
"Eh, what does it matter? I asked some of the older folks at the inn if they knew Mari, and they thought it was a martial arts film. It's too late now, so let's brazen it out."
Allen handed Nikolai a rough outline of the direction.
"In your worldline, did magical girls not use martial arts?"
"There was something similar..."
"Then ours is a legitimate magical girl show too. Obviously."
Was that really how it worked?
Taking Allen's outline, Nikolai mulled it over briefly.
Well, in a sense, since they were becoming the originators of the genre in this world, did it really matter what was "legitimate"?
Putting the brief hesitation aside, the two of them went back to brainstorming the next episode's filming.
The episode currently airing was episode 8.
And the episode they were now planning was roughly episode 10.
The main plot so far had been Mari going about her daily life, slowly growing through defeating monsters.
(Primarily in a martial-arts sense.)
But from a story perspective, Mari was only growing, while the plot progress was slow beyond measure.
If this repeated for just a few more episodes, viewers were bound to get bored quickly.
So Allen and Nikolai were just thinking it was about time to start advancing the story.
"It is about time we introduced one of the councilors."
"But a big name you know is appearing this time. Isn't he too strong for a councilor?"
The wrestlers who had appeared so far were newcomers even within Wrestle Kingdom.
But the problem was that the person making this appearance was a named wrestler on par with King Lion or Big Evil Wolf.
What worried Allen was whether the executive-level enemies who'd appear later could keep up with the power creep.
"What do you mean? If they're one of the ten councilors, they should be strong."
"You know that cliché. The first executive that shows up is the weakest, that sort of thing."
"There's also the cliché of delivering a fresh shock. Like an overwhelmingly powerful executive suddenly bursting onto the scene."
"Well, you're better at creating stories than I am. I'll trust you."
The reason Allen had chosen the John Armstrong Series as his first work was because he could just throw the story together.
He was a man far removed from delicate story design.
"For now, the story outline is pretty much wrapped up. Why the councilor happens to come meet Mari, and why they leave her alive. But a shocking presentation and fight scenes worthy of that combat power are hard for me, so—could you handle that part, Boss?"
"For now, write down the foreshadowing and the councilor's abilities for this episode."
This time, Nikolai handed a memo to Allen.
Taking the memo, Allen closed his eyes and envisioned the fight between Mari and the executive.
About five minutes later.
His hand began moving, and he completed the fight scene.
"It's amazing every time I see it. Usually, combat is said to be the hardest part of directing, but with you, Boss, the moment you close your eyes, it just pops out like a vending machine."
"Maybe it's because I'd seen things explode all around me in my previous life. It gave me an overactive imagination."
"Ah..."
Nikolai's eyes darted around.
This was how he reacted whenever Allen talked about his past life.
He was clearly curious, but Allen was a soldier who'd survived two world wars and died in a bombing. As a former civilian, Nikolai hesitated to ask.
It wasn't mere pity. Beneath it lay respect for a soldier who'd died protecting civilians like him, and Nikolai had never once misspoken because of it.
"Why're you so flustered. It was just a joke."
With a wry smile, Allen handed the completed directing plan to Nikolai.
As if to smooth over the awkwardness, Nikolai's reaction was more exaggerated than usual.
"Wow. With this, I think we might hit the highest viewership ratings. I should contact the magic tower in advance and have them run plenty of reruns."
"Ah, don't lay it on so thick. It's not that good."
"I mean it. Don't you know you have to row when the tide comes in? If we run this a few times as a rerun, it'll reach Wrestle Kingdom levels... okay, that's probably over the top, but still, it'll get pretty famous."
"If you say so. Thanks for the compliment."
Perhaps it wasn't an exaggeration.
Once the script was complete, the two men headed for the set.
The words <Prison Break> were even underlined in the draft the two had left behind.
=============<Magical Mari Begins>=============
Before she knew it, Celestia had grown accustomed to her magical girl duties.
In everyday life, she was the academy honor student Celestia Claudius, and whenever a monster appeared, she became Magical Mari.
Contrary to the name "Magical Girl," it seemed physical strikes took precedence over magic, but anyway, the transformation itself was magic, so she was a magical girl.
At the point where she preferred straight punches and roundhouse kicks to taking the time to cast attack magic, the title of magical girl had already become beside the point.
There was a saying that the route did not matter as long as one reached the destination. By that logic, all she had to do was defeat the monsters.
And so the girl (aged 89)—somewhere between magic and physics—protected the peace of Hetairo Island.
In the process, she also learned about Lirpin's past.
First, she learned that the Heart Gems had been jewels at the center of a meteorite that flew in from beyond this world thousands of years ago.
Ceres had already suspected as much.
But the main point came next.
There was more than one such gem—ten in all—and the Heart Gem Ceres used belonged to the Council.
In other words, the magical power used by the monsters and the magical girl was not so different.