Magic Touch is a shōjo romance-comedy centered around the high school romance of Chiaki Togu, a cute and shy girl and member of a club, the Massage Research Society, who falls in love with Yosuke, the hottest guy in school, after seeing his back and wanting to massage it. Volume 4 continues to develop the romance between Chiaki and Yosuke, add some more comedic chapters as well as develop some of the side characters.

Highlights:

The two best chapters in this volume would have to be the two that deal with the shared backstory of Chitose Harumi and Natsue Abe and how they met. Harumi is heir to the Harumi Cooperation and has been brought up in a very sheltered and prestigious life. He has been forced to never fall in love because he will one day have an arranged marriage and his father doesn't want feelings for another to interfere with that. Abe, who is now the manager of the Massage Research Society, has a past that remains very secret. She was a delinquent before hooking up with Harumi. Her knowledge of Harumi's address and the attachment the maids have to her are kept under wraps with the line “That's a company secret.” The interaction, which is shown from Harumi's perspective, brings some very comedic moments as their personalities were polar opposites; Harumi keeps learning about ordinary life through through the amusing antics Abe puts him through, sometimes deliberately. While I don't care for those two characters that much, the writing quality seemed to be a lot more engaging compared to other chapters.

Overiview:

This volume has very little to do with massage. Only two chapters dealt in anyway directly with the main basis Izumi Tsubaki originally had for the story. Due to the connotations of massaging and sex, the ability to write an ongoing manga about such a series without it becoming a sex story is quite tough; more so for Magic Touch as this is one of Tsubaki's first attempts. This is something she readily shares in side-notes with the readers.. Keeping the line between a romance-comedy for younger readers in the atmosphere of such a story is quite difficult. Earlier manga had to constantly remind the readers that high-school students couldn't become licensed massagers. The very fact that this is volume 4 of such a series and still rated for older teens rather than adults is a feat of accomplishment in and of itself for a young mangaka.

Despite the schlocky premise, something Tsubaki has previously acknowledged, the story has started to pick up; characters are becoming less flat, there is movement in the story for reasons beyond pure comedy, though comedy is still the driving force. It's doubtful Magic Touch will even be as good at surrealism as School Rumble, but it has its moments and the absurd premise of a story has managed to defy the odds to not only survive, but be licensed in English.

One of the few aspects the manga does excel at beyond the sexually connotative jokes is the artwork. Izumi is capable of doing quality artwork. While much of the more detailed work is on the covers, most of which are more female fan service, her artwork inside the chapters is still quite good when it needs to be. Since this is a comedy series, a lot of the panels can be made to be a lot simpler than those with the romantic tension and the quality often reflects such importance. One of the few notable things is that this is one of the few shōjo series where the main character is the kawaii type you might expect as the main love interest in a shōnen title. While both genres have attractive members of both sexes, those tend to be males for shōjo and females for shōnen for the main leads and mostly secondary characters tend to have the more deliberately moé or bishi types in those genres respectively while the main character tends to be more average or below-average in appearance and quality, such as being a delinquent or outcast for males, such as in Bleach. Of course this is just a generalization and there are, like Magic Touch, exceptions to these rules.

While I found Volume 4 of Magic Touch slow at times, several of the chapters make up for it. The series is quite good for the mangaka's, Izumi Tsubaki, first major title, and is worth checking out.

ComicsOnline gives Magic Touch Volume 4 4 out of 5 back massages.