Magico

As soon as 16-year old country girl Emma arrives at the city of Hawk Eye, every man in the city falls madly in love with her. The king in particular tries to force her into marriage... and then a sorceror kidnaps her.

The sorcerer introduces himself as Shion, one of the youngest and most talented in the nation. He explains to Emma that she is cursed with the Echidna, a mysterious magic that happens every 500 years where a girl is born with her heart packed with such powerful dark magic that it has the potential to destroy the world. With the Echidna, one could rule the world, and Shion explains that people are going to try and hunt her down to get her heart.

However, just when Emma has given up on living a normal life, she is told that there exists a ritual that might rid her of the Echidna curse: the ritual Magico, which consists of many difficult trials... the first of which requires Emma and Shion to marry each other.

Do note that the official spelling of this manga's name is with a lower-case M as "Magico". That is not a typo.

Tropes used in Magico include:
  • Abusive Parents: Shion. His mother couldn't accept her son wasn't "perfect" and forced him to go through a forbidden ritual designed to improve his abilities at the cost of the lives of ten children. And when that ritual failed and ended up doing the exact opposite, his mother abandoned him. She apparently made Faust go through it, and it turned him into a monster.
  • The Ace: Raven, headmaster of a magical school, brilliant scholar, powerful mage, kind hearted, and in love with Emma just from reading about her and what she had to endure.
  • A Magic Contract Comes with a Kiss: One of the rituals for Magico requires that the married couple kiss each other.
    • In all fairness, it is a wedding ritual.
    • There are many rituals that use kissing in the series. Rosetta is said to be the master of these techniques.
  • An Ice Person: One of the Magi uses ice magic, but he can freeze a lot more than just water. Like your senses. Or time.
  • The Atoner: Shion for the sacrificed lives of ten innocent children used to increase his power by order of his mother.
  • Attack Reflector: The priest who abducted Lilly could use tentacles that transferred all the damage they received to their current captive.
  • Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Tomp and Alice of the Lover's competition. Despite her violent out bursts, they love each other and want to win so their marriage will be accepted by his family.
  • Ax Crazy: The Magi. They're after the Echidna so they can kill everyone in the world, and one of them kills a guy by twisting the guy's head all the way around.
    • The chapter after that the first of the Magi to fight Shion have no qualms about using a Human Shield... or several.
    • The eldest of the Magi, Gaspar, takes the cake though. He kills both of his brothers to "nourish" himself, and it's revealed that the reason they wanted to slaughter everyone was so Gaspar could, in his own words, "to cheer myself up".
  • Badass: Gaspar, the oldest of the Magi. Yes he's a Jerkass, Axe Crazy, Complete Monster, but what else do you call a guy that's covered in scars and can sprout blades from those very scars, even newly formed ones.
  • Badass Adorable: Luu.
  • Berserk Button: Don't harm Emma in front of Shion. Also, don't degrade Luu's family. Neither will repay you kindly.
  • BFS: Gaspar has many swords from his scars, but from a new wound can produce a an even larger sword.
  • Big Eater: Luu, as well as a Sweet Tooth.
  • Big Brother Attraction/Worship/Mentor: This is either Faust's previous relationship with Shion or just his own perverted memories of those times.
  • Big Brother Bully: This is his current relationship with Shion.
  • Big No: Emmas reaction to another girl kissing Shion.
  • Big Screwed-Up Family: The people Shion comes from. First we have his mother who sacrificed ten children to turn Shion into an archmage but only made her son a degraded human whose every attribute was dropped a few levels. And now we have his brother Faust who wants to achieve a great power through a risky ritual and is willing to use anyone as a test subject, including Shion. He plans on getting Shion's help by threatening to tell Emma about Shion's past. Oh, and he got freedom from his and Shion's overbearing mother by destroying her and the home they came from.
  • Birthmark of Destiny: Emma has a heart-shaped birthmark on her chest that signifies she has the Echidna.
  • Blow You Away: Melchior of the Magi's main magic.
  • Book Dumb: Shion can't get the multiplication table right, but he's one of the most powerful mages alive.
  • Born Lucky: Emma has fantastic luck when gambling. Even when the people are cheating via magic, she WILL NOT lose.
  • Captain Ersatz: Luu bears an incredibly strong resemblance to Niche. Strikingly similar appearance, seen as cursed from birth, thrown off a cliff by superstitious villagers, grew up in the wild, obsessed with meat, ridiculously strong for her size, lack of human interaction... if not for her borderline Genki Girl personality, she'd be a complete clone.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Faust tries to approach girls with lines asking to touch their boobies, not realizing this is why every girl generally hits him.
  • Cool Big Sis / Onee-Sama: Rosetta.
  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: Emma, Shion's the only one who can stand her cooking, herself included.
  • Dark Action Girl: Ain.
  • Determinator: Shion gets to show it off the most, but a lot of the named characters in the cast qualify.
  • Dual Age Modes: CINDERELLA FEVER!
  • Eldritch Abomination: The true form of Echidna when [dead link] released from the woman host. [dead link]
  • Equivalent Exchange: Magic can only be used by people who've accomplished the accompanying Rituals, which could include kissing a person, reciting specific verses, hunting down monsters and procuring certain artifacts. And even after all that, magic still can't be used indefinitely - it will eventually "run out" and the Ritual for that magic will need to be accomplished again. And unusually, it seems that it's possible to set the conditions of the exchange, such that one can create a unique type of magic as long as he or she can invent the proper Ritual, wich is what Faust is trying to do with Ain´s help.
  • Fiery Redhead: Sva Rogue, who may be the best example of this ever, seeing as his hair is literally made of fire...or at least it looks like it. He does have fire powers, though.
  • First Kiss: The second ritual, "Kiss of Oath" is this for Shion and Emma. After Shion erases his memories to preform some powerful magic, Emma gives him another "first" kiss.
  • Five-Man Band:
  • The Gadfly: For Joshua, mocking people seems to be his standard form of social interaction.
  • Golden Snitch: The quiz show pulls this out for the final question. Played with in that Emma gets it wrong, but the judge lies and claims it was right.
  • Godzilla Threshold:
  • Half-Human Hybrid:
    • Grandpa Garlan is one of the rare bug-men, specifically being half-giant-centipede. He's also the guy who generates the bug monsters for Shion's Broom Magic Ritual.
    • Shion's family tries a ritual to turn Shion into a half demon but it fails and he became a "Degraded Human".
  • Handicapped Badass:
    • In chapter 18, Luu's sight, hearing, smell, and sense of pain are sealed by an evil Magi. She still wins by relying on her survival instinct and leads to great upset.
    • Shion too. The failed ritual he endured as a child turned him into a "degraded" human, leaving him with reduced intelligence and a far weaker body. He still managed to become an Archmage through sheer willpower.
  • Happily Married: Shion and Emma. Also, Joshua and Rosetta.
  • Heel Face Turn: Gaspar after his defeat turns himself in to the authorities.
  • Heroes Prefer Swords: Shion's next level of broom magic turns his broom into a sword.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Joshua, injured, switches places with Shion so Shion doesn't end up as an undead puppet.
  • Hero with Bad Publicity: Shion is called "The Great Criminal." His latest criminal escapade involves saving some slaves from a cruel slave trader, which in the news is called "stealing property".
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: In-universe example. The Echidna. Those who remember the destruction it caused find Emma equally terrifying. As Layla the water-spirit demonstrates. [dead link]
  • I Will Protect Her:
    • The entire reason why Shion became so damn powerful is so that he would be able to accomplish the top-level ritual Magico in order to free Emma from her curse.
    • Rogue is also this towards Lily, such that when Lily was kidnapped he didn't even stop to sleep while looking for her.
    • Luu has the same feeling towards her new family, willing to risk her life to protect them.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Emma has no qualms about stripping in front of Shion, much to his distress.
    • Justified in that they're married and Emma feels it's only natural for married couples to be comfortable with each others bodies.
      • Double justified since she was jailed for 16 years without interaction with other people except for the soldier guarding her and Shino.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Shion lives in one.
  • It's Personal: Threatening to kill Emma is something both Shion and Luu take very personally.
  • Jerkass: Joshua.
    • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He does care about some people, but won't ever show it. His attacking Faust when Faust tried getting Shion to sacrifice himself for an evil ritual shows that much.
  • Kill It with Fire: Shion's magic broom is weak to fire magic. He knows this, so he has developed plenty of counters if someone tries to exploit it.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia
    • Sephirot has a vampire that can eat memories and used him to cover-up Emma's confession she's Echidna.
    • Shion's strongest magic requires he sacrifice something incredibly precious to use it. For him his happy memories are taken.
  • Lethal Chef: Emma (at first) and Shion... but the latter is technically good at cooking, it's just that his sense of taste is horrible, so anything he thinks is good is disgusting for anyone else.
  • Light Is Good: Seig the Dragon
  • Light Is Not Good: The Holy Spring Luna will heal a lot of things, but it also hurts a lot.
    • And in chapter 14 the kidnapper turns out to be the priest.
  • Lonely at the Top: Zodia.
  • MacGuffin Girl: Emma, but technically it's her heart that's the MacGuffin.
  • Mad Love: This is the shape of Ain's feelings for Faust.
  • Magitek: There is a telecommunications branch of magic, so TV and phones run on magic.
  • Mood Whiplash: At the end of chapter 40. After the heartwarming conclusion to the fight with Juubee and Ayame, where it looks like everything is going to work out...One of the remaining couples in the competition shows up carrying the bodies of another couple, attacks Juubee, and says, "One dead."
  • My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: During the Love Festival, Luu meets up with the son of Juubee and Ayame. Musashi, their son, promptly starts saying how his mother and father are better than Emma and Shion. Luu replies by beating him up.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Shion's older brother's name is Faust.
  • Nightmare Face: First time Faust raged. He was crying, but it looked like his eyes were melting.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Ain loves Faust precisely because he is such a despicable excuse for a human being.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Going by his name, appearance, and the fact that he's the richest man in the world, Marouni Gate is probably derived from Bill Gates. That said, his personality is nothing like the real thing.
  • Not So Different: Zodia seemed to think he and Shion were this when they were children. Subverted in that Shion shoots him down as they have different motives for their actions.
    • Played straight with Rogue and Shion.
  • Not So Stoic: When Ain meets Caph when watching the last event in the couple tournament, they have a little chat and Ain begins to drool when she remembers how much she was paid for developing Faust´s forbidden ritual. Working with such forbidden magic seems to excite her as well.
  • Official Couple: Since the second chapter! (Or in the very first.)
  • Our Dragons Are Different: There are several kinds of dragons. Seig is one of the last Holy Dragons who were hunted to near extinction. Shion found him and raised him as his own son.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Sephirot has a vampire working for them who can apparently suck out people's memories.
  • Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Shion, especially when Emma kisses him.
  • People Puppets: The undead monsters used by Faust and Ain, even when revived, are still under her control.
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: In chapter 19, with Luu.
  • Powered Armor: The wedding dress and other items stolen by the Magi Shion fought for. They make a super-powered wedding dress which can go berserk.
    • Shion can make one from his broom.
    • One of the contestants in the Love Festival can use one.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child:
    • Many of the plans for the power of Echidna within Emma seem to imply this.
    • Then there's Shion's family sacrificing ten innocent children in hopes of turning Shion into an Archmage.
    • And there's Faust's plan to use Shion to fulfill his dark magic ritual.
  • The Power of Love: Emma's main power because the power of Echidna lives in her heart. She can use it to revive Shion from the brink of death.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Faust.
    • Shown to a horrifying extent during chapter 41 where he plays one of his favorite games. That game being the constant killing and reviving of someone.
  • Psychotic Smirk: We see half of one on Faust's face when discussing the ritual he wants to use Shion in. It isn't pretty. See the lowest right image. [dead link]
  • Raised by Wolves: Luu has lived alone in the wilderness for the vast majority of her life. A wilderness on the edge of a cursed spring with all sorts of man-eating plants and animals. No wonder she's so tough.
  • Really Seven Hundred Years Old: The water spirits in the Lover's Tournament are around that age, but do not show it in the slightest.
  • Rich Bastard: Marouni Gate, the richest man in the world. He actually acknowledges it while stomping on the head of a child slave (who happened to be half-transformed into a dog at the time), saying that while he thought he should be appalled he can't help but enjoy being one.
  • Ritual Magic: Actually, as it was said above, rituals are ways to achieve magic.
  • Rule of Cool: This series practically thrives off this. To serve as an example, within the first few pages we have our heroine being forced into marrying the local king only to be saved by a dragon wearing shades that interrupts the ceremony.
  • The Sages Behind the Thrones: There exists Sephirot, a group of Sages whose power runs above the rulers of any country, and monitor all mages in the world. They are strong enough to have the memories of three thousand spectators at the Lover's tournament erased to preserve the secret Echidna has returned, bribe the man running the tournament to continue like nothing had happened.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: Averted, Shion and Emma are pretty okay about saying they are husband and wife to people.
  • Shipper on Deck: Anise, Shion's black talking cat enjoys teasing Shion about his feelings for Emma.
  • Shmuck Bait: Joshua turns himself into a piggy so Alice the Werewolf would stop avoiding his and Rosette's attacks and eat him. It works and makes her an easy target.
  • Shut UP, Hannibal:
    • Shion give a spectacular one to the priest after he mocked of Rogue and Lily.
    • Joshua gives one to Faust. It also brings out his own Nightmare Face.
  • Spot the Imposter: The Lover's Tournament has one of these as the challenges. The contestants are asked to identify the one difference the mimics had in the categories of Appearance, Thoughts, and Experience.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Joshua and Rosetta start out as this. But they subvert it by running away together and getting married.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Apparently Shion's usual Plan B is "ka-boom".
  • Troubled but Cute: After Shion cures Faust and turns him human he is still slightly depressed, Ain finds it cute.
  • Tsundere: Shion, a rare male example.
  • Unholy Matrimony: Ain and Faust are married.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Zodia. To quote him: "It (the Echidna) is a secret treasure with unlimited possibilities. And all that for the price of a single mere life."
  • Villainous Breakdown: Faust doesn't take Shion's refusal to go along with his schemes very well at all.
  • We Can Rule Together: Zodia makes this offer to Shion when they were young. Subverted as Shion doesn't care about the world, he just wants to help Emma.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Othello Death Match.
  • Words Can Break My Bones: Inverted for Lily, whose words ward off disease and curses.
    • Played straight with Juubee and Ayame, who can materialize words they link with the word game shiritori.
    • The basis of Joshua's magic, which transforms his insults into weapons. Specifically, he can turn people into whatever insult he says, mostly pigs, and can summon enormously powerful monsters based on the pure malice of his insults.
  • Worf Had the Flu: Zodia was in the middle of a ritual and couldn't even use half of his full strength when he fought Shion.
  • Worthy Opponent: Juubee sees Shion as this and honors him by going all out to finish his 1000-word chant.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Joshua. He holds back more than he'll admit, though. This comes back to bite him in the ass.
  • Yamato Nadeshiko: Ayame.
  • You Are Already Dead: Well, not dead, but just when Balthazar had successfully frozen Luu's time and about to take her out, he realizes that Luu had already managed to punch him with more than enough force to take him out.
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