Enchanter (manga)

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Enchanter
Japanese manga cover of Kikou Majutsushi -enchanter- Vol.1
機工魔術士-enchanter- (Kikou Majutsushi -enchanter-)
Genre	Action, Fantasy, Romance
Manga
Author	Izumi Kawachi
Publisher	Square Enix DMP
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Monthly Gangan WING
Original run	October 2002
Volumes	16 (current)

Enchanter (機工魔術士-enchanter-, Kikō majutsushi enchanter^?) is an ongoing Japanese manga series created by Japanese mangaka Izumi Kawachi. The manga was serialized in October 2002 in the Japanese manga magazine Monthly Gangan WING, published by Enix (now Square-Enix).

[edit] Introduction

The story revolves around "Enchanters" or Kikō majutsushi ("machinist-magicians"), people who can build enchanted items with the power gained from their contracted demon. The enchanted items can then carry special effects like "hardened", "water resistance", or effects like "evil repelling".

The protagonist, Haruhiko Kanou, is a regular high school student with the gift of fixing and building mechanical and electrical appliances. His motivation comes from his childhood friend and secret love towards her, his next door neighbour, Yuka Fujikawa, who is a few years older than he and is now his teacher.

An Enchanter, Fulcanelli, and his beloved contract demon Eukanaria roams the secretive world of magic and sorcery with Fulcanelli being the top. Fulcanelli, however, died a little before the start of the story, and Eukanaria wanted to revive him with the stone that contains his soul. But Fulcanelli had no wish to be revived, but didn't want to hurt Eukanaria and kept silent.

Eukanaria found the perfect body for Fulcanelli, which is the protagonist Haruhiko. To Haruhiko's surprise, Eukanaria looks exactly like Yuka, and he himself looks exactly like Fulcanelli. Eukanaria tried to seduce him into giving her his soul so she can place Fulcanelli's soul into Haruhiko's body using four different procedures. Haruhiko either has to sign a contract, die, have sex (there is a moment when the soul becomes unstable) or when he loses the will to live.

[edit] Reception

Enchanter received some attention before the official release in North America, the author was invited to an Anime Expo in North America before the official release date, and found out that a lot of fans obtained copies of the Japanese version to read and for her to sign. While she is surprised that in contrary to its popularity among males in Japan, the North American fan community consists of a larger portion of females. The favourite character is different than in Japan as well; Paracelsus (a.k.a. the skeleton man in Enchanter, modeled after the real world Alchemist Paracelsus) is the most popular character in North America, but in Japan, the most popular character is Haruhiko. She is also a little confused that the humour in the plot is seen differently by Americans.^[1]