My Super-Cute Black Mage Is a Shojo Manga With a Great Gimmick

With shojo manga series with tsundere leads, it can be frustrating when there’s a constant denial of a character’s, but Takidon’s My Super-Cute Black Mage solves that issue. The male protagonist Jade possesses a prickly personality and is downright antagonistic to the heroine Aria. But because of the mind-reading gimmick that manifests in the opening pages of this new Yen Press series, the edge is immediately taken off to result in a funnier and more heartwarming series.

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Editor’s Note: There will be a few mild spoilers for the first few chapters of volume 1 of the My Super-Cute Black Mage manga.

Both Aria and Jade are students at the Hardi-Quartz Academy, with her being the third-year prefect acting as a leader and guide for a group of first-years that includes him. As the series starts, he’s incredibly caustic. So much so that he’ll tell her that he’ll kill her, insult her, and go out of his way to be negative in every interaction. This is framed as being an attitude due to being descended from dangerous, villainous black mages. However, when she grabs his arm to drag him back to a lesson after he storms off from the group, she realizes she can hear his thoughts when she touches him. So even though he’s calling her a “stubborn hag,” he’s actually thinking, “You’re so cute.” So right away, an element that could get grating in this shojo manga is eased due to Takidon’s execution in My Super-Cute Black Mage.

This means there are two important pieces of information we’re given right away too. First is that people in Aria’s family can read minds as part of their magical gifts. Her mom had told her about this, but she figured it was all teasing and a joke. The second is that Jade is powerful and has that background, which affects everyone’s perception of him and seems to lead to some inherited strength and abilities. 

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It also leads to both humorous and loaded situations in this shojo manga. The former ends up being handled quite well. Takidon uses this for full comedic effect. So yes, we’re seeing Jade act like a full emo, villainous rebel. He’s telling Aria that he’ll kill her. We see him purposely push her when walking past her. But because these situations also involve inadvertent physical contact when they happen, we also see that “I’ll kill you” doesn’t carry much weight when he’s actually thinking “I love you.” Or that the reason he bumped into her is because she wasn’t watching where she was going and would have stepped on a dangerous plant that would have stung her. 

But this also means concerns come up because of their closeness and general dangers that even magical students can be subject to. However, Jade’s lineage is an even greater threat to both him and Aria. Partially because other students stigmatize him. They see his behavior as him showing his true colors, rather than trying to put up a wall between people so they don’t get hurt or bullied as a result of associating with him. Not to mention that, later in the volume, the prejudice toward him leads to another major threat to the two leads.

Jade’s “act” and Aria’s powers in My Super-Cute Black Mage add twists to the shojo manga tsundere trope. Not only are we in on the secret and his feelings right away as readers, but the heroine is too. As a result, it leads to new storytelling and comedic opportunities and makes the character type feel fresh.

The first volume of the My Super-Cute Black Mage manga is available now, and Yen Press will release volume 2 on September 22, 2026. 

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