Magical Girl Undergrad [Stubbed]

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The superheroics will be televised.

Secretly Magical Girl Understudy, Anika DuPont plans to bolster her reputation—and that of her superhero show—as she travels to the big city for college.

The city is a battlefield where heroes like her brawl against villains for TV ratings and Style Points, which they use to grow stronger than unpowered “Extras.” There’s no better place for her to use the Style System to move her show from the little leagues to the superhero minors. But is she ready or just overconfident?

At college, Annie will need to manage her villainous long-distance boyfriend, juggle new friends, and keep up with classes—all while leading her show from Saturday morning to the big screen!

What To Expect:

- A mix of slice-of-life and Saturday morning cartoon action

- An MC discovering who she is both in the mask and out of it

- “Presentation!”

Update Schedule is M//W/F/Sat at around 11:15 Mountain Time. Cover art by Kindra Tia!

Come check out Magical Girl Undergrad 1:

Kindle:Kindle

Audible:Audible

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2023
Author: Aest Belequa

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 1,397
Views: 93,687

Chapters(14 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

kleptomaticRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
So yeah I'm applying for colleges right now and this just happened to come out!
I was originally going to shelve it to read later but I'm glad I didn't!
Typically, LitRPGs focus on the RPG aspect of the world, which is fine, but a lot of them don't get into the non RPG elements. This, possibly by virtue of being a slice-of-life, has a lot of good storytelling and worldbuilding. Love that in a story.
All the characters are cool too. Names are on point and hilarious!
The amazing amount of references is one of my favorite parts! I definitely don't get all of them. Mild spoilers? Maybe.
There's been a pretty overt Incredibles reference. And Lil Pal seems like a minor Homestuck reference? I might be grasping at straws with that one. Also Mojo Jojo exists. Which is amazing
Go ahead and read this!
AmateurHourRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
MGU is a humorous and deeply sincere coming of age story about discovering who you are as a young adult, through the lens of a genre which deals heavily in transformation, feminine empowerment, and hiding oneself lest you become vulnerable. Add on a magical girl schtick where the MC is influenced by and gains power from tokens from those who will be most impacting her life (other supers), and you've got a real peanut butter and chocolate combo of subtext/metaphors available.
All of this is spiced with some LitRPG elements to make sure the RR crowd stays invested, and while we've only seen hints so far some indication of further themes of showbiz and it's effect on performers will come into play soon.
DamagedRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Superheroes! Cameras! Action!
But what does it take to do all that? Follow a girl raised after a weird superhero system was founded as she grows from the small town hero to become so much more.
Well-written, follows its own beats nicely, and keeps foreshadowing with good payoffs.
Had a few hiccups here and there, but author fixes them in a timely manner. Well worth the read!
FiretrucksRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
MGU manages to be both silly and earnest, and is enjoyable the whole time. It's still starting out, but it's doing everything right in my book. Fun, enjoyable characters, an interesting world and system, and good writing without any major issues.
I think the Professor Panic theme song is a highlight. It really sets the Saturday morning cartoon tone. Tongue in cheek without being insincere. Too many magical girl stories seem to go for grimdark and lose the fun.
NoxVentusRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The character design and follow through is very good! Characters and are acting and reacting to each other based on their personalities and the world! It has good writing structure and no typos or anything to frustrate.
So it's just a smooth good ride on a unique concept executed well!
SmilingSatyrRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Going to be honest, I got an advance read of where I read up to before it was launched, and I've been a big fan since. Magical Girl Undergrad is fun, smart, and full of personality. Annie/Magical Girl Understudy is honestly incredibly compelling, a young woman caught between the baggage of adolescence and the start of adulthood. It's a theme that's delivered well and supported perfectly by smooth, self aware prose that's fun and easy to read.
I can't wait to see where it goes and I know I'll be reading on all the way to the end!
ZenkarnRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
TL;DR: Book is good. Go read.
Long version:
To do my due diligence, MGU is a story I've been following since its creation. So I may be vaguely biased.
Magical Girl Undergrad is one of the more unique LITRPG stories I've read. Its system is based around Supers of all stripes and persuasions acting in episodes to earn style points while they thwart/commit crimes.
This means each character is invested in putting in the performance of a lifetime, a fact that the author presents incredibly well. Each character has a unique power set, be it strong or weak, and they use it to their full advantage in every chapter.
Plus, they have a bad guy who has a rap song. Really, what more could you want? He even gets punched, which is the best thing to happen to a bad guy with a rap song.
Speaking of chapters, they range around the 2k mark. They flow well and never overstay their welcome. Each has an ending that is both a natural stopping point and enough pull to lead you to gain a one-more-chapter feeling.
Haven’t seen any issues in terms of spelling and grammar.
Overall, read book. Book good. Go read good book. Yes.
gostsamoRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
The initial title of the review was "Breaking the forth wall is covered by the show's budget", but it was beyond the character limit and you will have to do with this one. Not sure if it is better. Vote with the buttons below, I suppose.
The idea though was that this story makes its own twist on television and reality where television happens on the streets of Earth while heroes and villains are being taped for the enjoyment of an alien children audience. We seemingly are considered cute and our battles are an entertainment industry earning enough to cover all real life damages caused during the fights.
Annie lives on both sides of this reality. Just like everyone else, she could become an extra in someone else's show at any given moment, or she could become Magical Girl Understudy and fight the villain Professor Panic attacking her small hometown, performing heroic deeds in front of an invisible audience. A complicating factor is that the villain is her boyfriend with whom they regularly have shouting matches for the ages. Now she has graduated school and goes to the university where the fights are on another level and she still have to hide her identity while maintaining a long distance relationship with Peter.
The system deserves its own paragraph, because the author manages to turn the spectacle into a necessity. The tv aspect of the hero fights means that Annie must be dramatic, flamboyant, cunning, and a little badass in order to make the show work, which the system measures and awards her new abilities according to those metrics. Gaining powers naturally transitions into a tiered progression of leagues where Annie's show is qualified to participate in. Overall, this turns the story in a show about the shows with extra points for going meta.
The style has the peculiar feeling of a life movie played on an animated background. Annie is a mature young woman with hopes and goals who fights to protect piece, love, and justus with the plush cat serving as her famili
AesthivalRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
First impression: if you grabbed Madoka Kaname and shoved her into Lego Batman, you would somewhat get this setting.
The overall style does continue with that vibe, but this author's voice kept the story to a unique tune. I was thoroughly delighted at how on-theme for magical girls this story is, down to the music whenever Annie transforms. The scene and world building has been enjoyable, I like how many senses are called on to flesh out scenes in a pretty organic manner.
I like how the story is peppered with Episodes where the characters fight the Baddies, it gives a promise for a semi-episodic nature that is right on brand for magical girls. They go about their normal life with family and friends and school and then have to just fight bad guys sometimes, moving the plot along at a nice clip. I'm a bit of a magical girl enthusiast, I will out myself as a Sailor Mercury kinnie, and saying so, this story is delicious. I'm also always happy to find more stories that have college settings and college-age characters.
Grammar was fine. If there were any mistakes, they didn't interfere with the story so I didn't notice. I'm not reading to edit here.
Characters! These characters! First of all, the villains feel familiar, they're kind of cartoony villains (/pos) that I hope/expect to see become bigger threats as the series goes on. Also, I always love when the villains are familiar to the MC- as if they've been battling for ages and fighting is more of a game of cat & mouse at this point. I'm enjoying this MC a lot as well, she's high energy and confident and it's nice to have a story with such a strong female lead. I look forward to following this story through the eyes of a character like her.
hose246Royal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This story literally has almost every post-End Game superhero trope in it, from overenthusiastic characters to the tone to the laid-back, no tension atmosphere even in probably stressful moments. I think the best way this story can be described is “a post-End Game superhero movie” but in novel form, and also without the crap most of the modern superhero movies have.
Setting: There’s still a lot of stuff about the world that can be explored, but from what is currently shown to us, it reminds me a lot of Industrial Strength Magic. The story takes place in a post-”launch” world, which probably means a massive launch of nuclear weapons. The Illneats came and saved humans from the launch. And the humans in turn give them benefits – one of the benefits is to be able to make superhero episodes. The Illneats gives human superpowers to have them star in superhero episodes, and the MC, Anika, is one of the humans chosen.
Characters: I like the characters a lot, Anika is a lovable, reckless, and overenthusiastic girl. She is a small superhero who wants to one day become a big superhero. The side characters are funny and also generally share the friendly attitude of Anika. Frankly, they are just well-written characters.
Style: As I said before, this novel doesn’t have a lot of tension. This works as both a benefit and a drawback to the novel. Having no tension can help in a lot of scenes and achieve a lot of comedic effects, but having no tension can also make a story feel weary over the long term. But I also feel like having tension just wouldn’t fit into the tone the novel has built up.
Plot: Post-End Game superhero movie, I think you can imagine what the plot is gonna be like once you see those words. But honestly, this story works a lot better than modern superhero movies. It doesn’t have plot-holes, contradictory or annoying characters, or very generic tropes. Frankly, the only aspect of this novel that is similar to post-End Game superhero movies is the no tension tone t