As promised, let's look at this with fresh eyes, one chapter at a time:
Not going to bother with noting grammatical mistakes and awkward wordings, since this is years old and that kind of stuff is beside the point for the intent of this book club.
General
This was one of the first fics I read, when I was a KS junkie fresh off the feels train and desperate for another hit. My opinion of fanfiction was the standard prejudice - bizarre smut full of purple prose written by preteens who can barely string a coherent sentence together. But, as I said, I was desperate.
This was one of several works that convinced me that there's enough competently-written fanfiction that seeking it out isn't a complete waste of time. My standards were pretty low, but looking it over a few years down the line, I'm willing to say that it's a pretty solid piece of work (as opposed to "pretty good... for a
fanfic").
Chapter 1: Mulan
Even in the context of only act 1, this Emi feels a little jarring, but that ground's already been trod rather thoroughly. And I guess we can assume that Hisao managed to not alienate Emi in this hypothetical Misha route.
Giving Misha the cat is the obvious branch, but obvious isn't inherently bad.
It doesn't look like you're even trying to replicate Misha's unique style of speech, but I'll grant that that's not an easy thing to do, and it's better to have something than to be hung up on a little detail like that.
I like the "flu shots" hook, since it's reasonably plausible and all that. A good way to ease us in to the coming weirdness.
Chapter 2: Aladdin
Just a small cultural note, but I understand that the Japanese consider "bear-like" men to be stereotypically gay. Makes me snicker when Hisao describes Kanzaki as a bear of a man.
Other than that, a little rushed, but not too terrible. Does a reasonably good job of getting "Yer a wizard, Hisao" out of the way. And, since narratives always work that way, it conveniently introduces the new major character.
Have to admit the minor logical oddity of high schoolers with fancy rings - pretty much the same issue as Madoka. Yeah, it's not too unusual for the occasional student to wear a piece of fancy jewelry, but, especially in a situation like this where several get it at the same time, and start associating with each other more and more, it would at least give perceptive individuals the sense that they were in some kind of secret club. Not impossible to justify, but enough to raise the occasional eyebrow.
Chapter 3: Beauty and the Beast
You clearly aren't comfortable writing Kenji (and I honestly fear for the sanity of those of us who are), but it seems to work out well enough. It also does a good job of presenting the idea that the discovery of a necromancer is a Big Deal™.
Savvy readers would have figured it out already, but once Emi is revealed as a wizard, it isn't exactly rocket surgery to figure out where the story's headed.
The "needs to come from somewhere" restriction on conjuration is an oldie, but a goodie. In general, "Magic doesn't follow the rules you're used to, but there
are rules" is probably the best approach for this kind of thing.
We have the first hints of Misha showing interest in Hisao, which is kind of cute. I'm not sure I'd expect Hisao to turn beet red (or be that aware of his own blushing), but I could give that a pass.
Chapter 4: Hercules
The fake-out on the nurse's name is always good for a chuckle. Especially considering that the students all know his name - it's on his plaque and everything.
After indicating that Takeshi's a Yamaku alumnus, the first question is (of course) "what's
his disability?"
After that, though, Takeshi's comment about divination being a "compensation" for blindness strikes me as a bit clueless.
Especially for an alumnus.
This is mostly exposition, but it does a good job of setting the stage for what is to come, including the setup for both major and minor conflicts.
I'll admit, as an American I'm mildly surprised that necromancers weren't blamed for the world wars (either or both), but I guess that delves into wounds that are perhaps still a bit too fresh.
Chapter 5: The Little Mermaid
I'm guessing Kenji's "magical hat" is one of those things which is less "I didn't need to know" and more "I needed to not know."
I did a double take on the "back to the dorms" for Hisao showering, but then began second guessing myself. I can't remember offhand whether they explicitly said that the auxiliary building had showers (They did say it had a pool, and I can't imagine a pool facility not having a changing room/showers). Can't really blame this detail if it wasn't explicit, though...
I've said what I have to say about cancer. I will note that this is a reasonably well-done approach; I just have (unreasonably) high expectations when a story goes in that direction.
Given the circumstances, I'd say the romance buildup works well enough. My biggest misgiving would be Hisao's level of enthusiasm.
Finally, let the record state that I heartily endorse Misha's eyes being described as brown (or hazel).
Chapter 6: The Emperor's New Groove
I'll note that there's a bit of a hand-wave regarding the ability to see the stones change. I largely stick to my comment from Chapter 2, though. Even if others don't see the fancy stones, it seems almost more unusual for a group of people to all have silver rings with plain grey stones. Admittedly, it's extremely easy to not notice those kinds of things if you aren't looking for signs of the unusual...
As has been said before, the training cubes are a nice touch, and help cover the basics of a "magicalness" sense and magic "muscles" that need exercise.
More exposition for the most part, but that needs to happen somewhere.
Chapter 7: Tarzan
A few things here and there of note - we get hints as to Hisao's special talent (at this moment appearing more as the typical "strongest in 100 years" cliche). The bit about Nomiya's outfit being enhanced with illusion is good for a chuckle.
To go into more detail on the cancer bit, I'll give credit where credit is due - most of the scenes dealing with it are very well done. It's primarily the undercurrent of "maybe we can magic this all away" that doesn't sit well with me.
Chapter 8: Mary Poppins
Gossip chains are always fun.
Also fun is the implication that the magical community can pull a few strings here and there to arrange a plausible vacancy for Kanzaki.
From my experience with historians, the better ones don't need scrying to describe a historical event as if they've seen it themselves, but I can't imagine it would hurt.
And more implications of powerful potential.
Chapter 9: Beauty and the Beast (Reprise)
Another well-written cancer scene, but, you know...
magic.
And overall more solid presentation, but this is where the real issue a lot of others have brought up becomes clear: the main character is, for the most part, the magic, not the people.
Chapter 10: Pocahontas
Having someone explicitly point out "this is seriously some weird shit going on" doesn't happen nearly often enough in these kind of stories.
Bonus points for the mental shrug.
Yet another comment about advancing extremely quickly. And with Lilly "seeing," we get the first major step toward the overarching theme that's been hinted at - magic "curing" the various disabilities.
Magical Compensation/Healing
And this is where I need to step out and really try to wrap my head around what I think of this theme, because it's actually quite complex.
On the one hand, living in a magical world where all the various disabilities and ailments are whisked away by magic is nothing more than wishful thinking, and can easily strike someone as cruel or callous, along the lines of "You know what would be cool? If your mom was not dead. Too bad she is. Sucks to be you."
On the other, we are making leaps and bounds in science. I know someone who was born without a left hand, who now has a robot hand prosthetic, which isn't even touching on the theoretical progress of nerve attachment to go full on Fullmetal Alchemist-style automail. Various technologies have been developed that enable the blind to "see." There is technology which promises to eventually allow people with Locked-In Syndrome an ability to communicate with the outside world. There's a drug I take myself that allows me to function during normal waking hours in spite of my own condition (similar to narcolepsy) with minimal side effects. And, to add on to that list (which continually piles up), we have cochlear implants, which carries us into the next half of this discussion.
Deafness occupies a unique position among common disabilities. Unlike the others, it significantly impairs what the average individual would consider the most natural form of communication - verbal. For a "deafie" to communicate with the "hearing," one of them is normally speaking in a foreign language. This even extends to the written word. Sign Language isn't "English (or whatever other language) with your hands"; it is an entire language unto itself, with its own syntax and grammar. The ability to communicate in your native language is a luxury most people take for granted until it's gone. A result of this communication-based isolation is the development of a "deaf culture" - a phenomenon notably absent from other major disabilities (which may have shared experience and commisseration, but lack the same sense of culture and community).
An additional feature of deafness (tied into the former) that separates it from many other disabilities is that deafies are expected to accommodate the hearing, instead of the other way around. Deafies are expected to be able to read lips, even to speak, to use a pencil and paper or terrible speech-to-text and text-to-speech utilities (all in a foreign language, mind you), to watch closed-captioned TV shows and movies in a manner convenient to the hearing people around them, all while hearing people can't even remember to give the basic courtesy of looking at them while talking. For comparison, this shows all the sensitivity of telling a paraplegic to man up and use the stairs like everyone else.
The point of all this is that a significant portion of deafies consider their deafness part of their identity; part of who they are. It's why you have the sub-community of CODA (children of deaf adults) and, essentially, "honorary deafness" when a hearing person is accepted into the community. As a result, many deafies look upon cochlear implants in a very negative light - just the newest in a long line of humiliations deafies are expected to subject themselves to so that they might be "Fixed" and acceptable to the hearing populace.
To tie this all back to magical cures, it really comes to the overall discussion of "cures" in general. And when we look to those discussion topics, there is one common refrain that tends to come up relatively often: "If Rin got arms, she wouldn't know what to do with them." This is both true and not true - Rin could certainly figure out what she could do with arms, and it would make a lot of tasks easier once she got used to them. But the comparison's inaccurate - giving Rin arms is more appropriately compared to giving someone an extra pair of arms or a prehensile tail. In other words, a body modification or enhancement. And, of course, Emi muddies the waters even more, since her disability actually was a loss (rather than, as implied in Rin's case, an absence).
In the end, I guess it just comes down to the distinction that any such approaches are probably best thought of as augmentations, rather than "cures" or even "replacements." People live with what they have, and any sense that they're "incomplete" or "defective" or "broken" will come with all sorts of baggage (and likely carry the implicit message that many peoples' core sense of identity is simply "wrong").
Now, this isn't meant to be any sweeping sort of "check your privilege" or "be careful that you don't offend anyone, ever." I am well aware of the fact that many people with disabilities would like nothing more than a cure. I guess it's more to note that there are many unpleasant implications associated with the idea that all disabilities can and should be fixed, I guess.
And, of course, we then return to cancer. And, as I stated earlier, cancer doesn't really fit the mold. It's more of a cause of disability rather than a disability itself. It would be comparable to saying Shizune was at Yamaku because of meningitis. Meningitis may have been the cause of her deafness, and there may be a condition which makes it chronic and in remission, but Shizune's at Yamaku because of deafness. To go back to Saki, who also has a terminal condition, she's not at Yamaku because she has spinocerebellar ataxia; she's at yamaku because, as a result of the spinocerebellar ataxia, her muscular coordination is degenerating.
As a result, even the magical cure for cancer carries different implications from the magical compensation of the other disabilities/ailments. To my current understanding of the medical principles at work (which is most likely woefully inadequate), there is no such thing as cancer being "cured"; a cancer is "in remission" when the patient is asymptomatic and the doctors are unable to detect any malignant cell tissue. However, the nature of cancer is that it's a catastrophic failure in the cell replication mechanisms in the body - it's when the fail-safes fail, and fail-safes for the fail-safes fail, too. So a cancer can be "in remission" because the tissue that has catastrophically failed is gone, but the conditions are favorable to recurrence, because all the conditions that allowed the first malignant cells to come to be are still there.
A "cure" for cancer would require the ability to seek, find, and repair every genetic defect (or at least the most major ones) in every cell of the body. In fact, I believe current attempts to cure cancer are in fact directed toward retroviral agents that would effectively work as an added failsafe. So, given the rules you've put in place for magic, it's not so much that Misha's cancer is cured as it is that Kenji has access to supermedicine that can repair/remove malignant cells in non-operable tumors. She'd still need to be regularly screened for relapses (and given the magical disappearance of her tumors as soon as they're detected, it may be hard to keep the magic under wraps, unless she's receiving constant care and attention exclusively from wizards (or, depending on his eventual proficiency, just Kenji)).
And maybe that's what it comes down to in the end. Maybe I'm just unhappy because magic breaks its own rules for the sake of a Happily Ever After.
Chapter 11: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The parenthetical is distracting and out of place. It might work as a footnote, but where it is, it just kills things.
The cancer scene is solid (if a bit cliche). Maybe I just wish that the cancer story didn't have to share the spotlight with a much more prominent magical setting.
I do feel that you refer to chemotherapy as "poison" just a
bit too often.
Akane/Aikawa's pretty fun, but highlights a detail I hadn't quite fully noticed up to this point: you are
much more comfortable writing your OCs than you are writing the canon characters. Not bad per se, but definitely noteworthy.
And the parting warning yet again touches on this whole "unexpectedly strong" bit.
Chapter 12: Mulan (Reprise)
If there was only one scene I remembered from this story, it was this one right here. It strikes me as beyond bizarre that each of the girls is more than willing to jump in the sack with Hisao within 3 months of meeting him, yet there doesn't seem to be even the slightest hint of attraction from or toward them if it's another girl's route. It doesn't need to be a full-fledged "Two Hallways"-style love triangle, but it should have at least merited a single instance of "You know, if things were different, I don't think I would've minded going out with her" (or you, if a girl were bold enough to approach him). I mean, we
kind of get that with Misha, but that's a whole other can of lesbi- er, worms. A can of
worms.
Also, of course, this is when it's clear that this isn't the normal "strongest in generations" routine.
And it brings up the complex politics among the teachers. I can't remember offhand the details of what happened after this scene (probably an advantage for this approach), but it's clear that Kanzaki wouldn't hesitate to bring the hammer down on Shizune, if for no other reason than to protect Kenji. Takeshi, it would seem, disagrees.
The reconciliation scene is nice, but, unfortunately, touches on one of the difficulties of the A and B plots going on here. On the one hand, you have the magicaliness and wizard politics and all; on the other, you have a cute high school love triangle. They meet, but they don't really mix. Not really oil and water, but maybe a vinaigrette.
Chapter 13: Hercules (Reprise)
The main thing here is the reveal of why we've had the spectacular displays of magical potential. Well-foreshadowed and the explanation makes it all come together rather cleanly. I guess you figured that any amplification scene with Hanako would either be too traumatic or too irreversible.
Chapter 14: The Lion King
Akane's right, more than she realises. In fact, Hisao's a
long cutie.
People tend to forget that the school has at least been refitted with accommodations for the various disabilities of the student body.
The several layers of the joke with the dog are quite enjoyable.
Being as obsessive with details as I am, I feel compelled to point out that Misha did state (in Act 1 no less) that she didn't come from around Yamaku.
And I must repeat, I do love the interpersonal scenes; they're just overshadowed by the magic.
Chapter 15: Mary Poppins (Reprise)
Even when I first read this, I wasn't sure whether or not you intended to have Hisao echo Akane.
Rather appropriate that the psychiatrist said "with a telephone," considering Kenji's dislike of phones.
Another cute scene; you know the drill.
Chapter 16: The Lion King (Reprise)
This Kenji bit works a bit better, and is all the right sorts of fun. However, retrospect now shows us that Emi could in fact be eating a parfait.
And the whole succubus thing bugs me, but not for the reason you think. Succubus is female; incubus is male. That technicality aside, it's certainly a fun explanation.
Chapter 17: Mary Poppins (Encore)
Well, "healing" scars is a pretty involved and delicate process (especially if we're accounting for the nerve damage from third-degree burns), but I guess I'm willing to sort of give it a pass, for the sake of narrative.
And of course we have Rin being Rin, which is (almost) always a treat.
But with the actual healing, this is where I feel things get a bit... iffy. It feels like healing is hand-waved a bit too much as compared to transmutation. As in there was talk about how an improper transmutation could have all sorts of negative repercussions, but there doesn't seem to be any worry about the possibility that Kenji's attempts to heal the scarring could result in him accidentally tearing gaping wounds into Hanako's flesh. And, again, doesn't really take into account the considerations regarding nerve damage.
Chapter 18: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Reprise)
Not much to say about this chapter - it moves the chapter forward, introduces the "Final Boss," and builds up to the climax.
Chapter 19: Aladdin (Reprise)
Doing action well is quite difficult, but you did a good job here. You have my applause.
Chapter 20: Aladdin (Encore)
A solid conclusion, wrapping up the conflict rather nicely, give or take a bit. I seem to remember a scene where Hisao used his amplification powers on one of the enemy wizards, to cause them to lose control and hurt themselves. I was disappointed to learn that that was all in my head.
Kenji's gesture of solidarity between bros was a nice touch.
Epilogue: The Emperor's New Groove (Reprise)
Standard happy ending with everyone coupled up to make babies that look exactly like the corresponding parent. Not that that's a bad thing. Everyone getting accepted to one Tokyo university or another might be a bit of a stretch, but that's Happy Ending narratives for you.
Rereading it, I'll concede that it handled the cancer better than I remembered. So much so that a couple of my earlier chapter comments might not be especially relevant. Nevertheless, I think it still has two major issues: (1) It really did deserve to have its own story. Making it a B-plot for a magical AU story does the whole approach a bit of a disservice, which ties in to (B) even accounting for the restrictions, and study, and scientific practicalities and so on and so forth, we have a resolution to the cancer story of "thanks to a miracle cure, cancer's little more than a bad memory, and we can expect to live a long and happy life together." While that's certainly a
happy resolution, it doesn't really strike me as a
satisfying resolution. There's no real growth or lessons learned from the cancer plot, no learning to come to grips with things outside your control, accepting unpleasant realities, or other such lessons. Rather than a conflict of itself, it's merely a motivation, relegated to irrelevance once the motivation's no longer needed.
Which, I guess, ties into what has become my refrain over the course of this review/analysis - the cancer plot deserved its own story, where it was an actual source of conflict, rather than a mere motivation.
So, to boil it all down into a book cover blurb: Katawa Kijo is not just one excellent story, it's two excellent stories. Which, in this case, is actually a bit of a problem.
, so that could be seen as redundant. I can't recall an instance in your stories where it's bothered me, though.