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There was once a time when the Magical Girl genre ruled, and it could do no wrong.
Of course that was a long time ago, these days finding a runaway Magical Girl title hit is a rarity, it’s just not the old days anymore. Sadly Mink is just another title that fails to bring back the good old days (no matter how much we would like it to be otherwise)

Part Corrector Yui, part Fancy Lala, Mink is your typical Magical Girl candidate in training. She oversleeps, she likes to eat, she is fascinated (scary fascinated) with celebrities or males of a popular status (like the male star who is her focus in this book), and when highly emotional she tends to repeat key phrases like a broken record (which may seem like an endearing trait, but isn’t). She has a close nit small pack of friends, each with their own quirk (yet who do not seem to stand out too much as secondary characters, a sad failing of this title but not the only one). And she has dreams to stand out and be something (or someone) special.

So it is no coincidence that she rushes off to the local music store (a dying breed in this age of downloadable Imusic) to get the latest CD of her favorite singer, only to end up with a strange CDRom called WannaBe which was made in the year 2099… Huh? You’d think that if it’s from the FUTURE it’d be a download off the internet or something!! For a product of THE FUTURE it sure doesn’t seem very futuristic, especially since it seems to work well with old grade tech (isn’t Windows up to Windows Galactic or Windows Stellar or something by 2099?!?)

Anyway this whole use of the CDRom in her friend’s laptop brings up the little holographic “Magical Girl mascot” (one of the weakest I’ve seen character wise as far as mascots go) who helps Mink before Cyber Idol Mink… then promptly gets a look at what year it’s in and freaks out. Apparently it should have done it’s homework about WHO was using it before it created Cyber Idol Mink (who suddenly appears on this huge TV Screen during a live taping for this female idol who will soon become Mink’s rival) because it seems using programs like WannaBe in the past is considered a temporal crime and the punishment is deletion of all those messing up the timeline… which is rather odd because shouldn’t they be deleting the criminal who brought the disc back in time, not the innocent people duped into using said tech? Also doesn’t the timeline just write itself around minor hiccups like easily forgettable pop stars like Mink? Where’s the linear harm in her anyway?

Once Mink is known to the public it’s off to the Fancy Lala races as she becomes a Cyber Idol by first getting an agent in the brother of her best friend (who works in a small family talent agency that is about the same size as the Wright Talent Agency from Apollo Justice for the Nintendo DS, then she begins to make a name for herself as a singer (ironically she was just supposed to be a spokes model but after she’s challenged by her new rival to sing she suddenly finds herself talented in singing)—and yes, if this all sounds vaguely familiar it’s because we saw this all in Fancy Lala!!

Which brings me to the point of my average score, because this is an average title at best (AT BEST)! If the title went into new directions I would be happy with it, but I vaguely remember seeing elements of this in other Magical Girl series (and better done Magical Girl series to boot)! If this title was fresh and innovative with the setup, cast, and the Magical Girl element I’d be happy with it as well, but this is about as original as a Politician trying to be President. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before (and better).
If this title was at least endearing somehow that too would be nice, but it’s not even that.

In the end Mink is kinda like a so-so wedding without the something new (though it does have a little old, a lot borrowed and a little bright hair color that we’ve seen on Magical Girls more times than I can count).

Average is as average does as average Magical Girl rethread Mink Volume 1 gets an average score of 3 underwhelming expectations out of 5.

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