Introduction to Mahoyaku

Mahoyaku is a Japanese mobile game targeted at a female audience (joseimuke). It is a story-based game centered around the Sage, a human from modern Japan who is whisked away into a fantasy world where they must unite 21 wizards to combat the natural disaster known as the Great Calamity. To do so, they'll have to navigate the complicated relationships of centuries-old individuals from varying backgrounds and cultures.

The Sage must bond with each of the wizards, learning about their histories, their philosophies, and their dreams. And through living and working together, the wizards will bond with each other, too, learning to value each other as friends, rivals, and even family. Wizards of this world are mistreated by humans, but through the efforts of the Sage and their chosen ones, perhaps millenia of distrust can begin to be mended.

Here's a look at the Sage and their wizards:

The Sage (default name Akira Masaki)

You can choose whether to play as a male or female sage, although this has no effect except to change the first-person pronouns in their dialogue. A young person from modern Japan with a gentle heart and an affinity for stray cats.

The Central wizards

The wizards of the metropolitan Central Country include:

The Northern wizards

The wizards of the harsh Northern Country include:

The Eastern wizards

The wizards of the nature-filled Eastern Country include:

The Western wizards

The wizards of the industrial Western Country include:

The Southern wizards

The wizards of the rural Southern Country include:

You can read more about them on the characters page, but if you're brand-new, I don't recommend doing this yet! It's full of spoilers. Read the main story first. Links below.

Sound interesting to you? If you don't speak Japanese, then you'll have to depend on translations to enjoy Mahoyaku. But that isn't a bad thing! Lots of people just read translations online without worrying about the game. The game's main story is fully voice acted, though, so just reading will have you missing out on voices (as well as music, backgorunds, and live2D). That's why I wholeheartedly recommend downloading and playing the game, even if you can't understand Japanese. There's instructions for downloading the game here on the mahoyaku wiki . If you don't want to download the game but still want to experience the voices, you can read translations alongside this let's play of the main story on YouTube . (Do note that this includes all of the creator's commentary and some gacha pulls, and includes both the first and second parts of the main story. You might not want to continue on to the second part right away, though—lots of event stories and part 1.5 of the main story happen in between.) Okay, ready to start reading?

The first and most important thing to read is part one of the main story. It introduces the scenario and all the characters. There are two translations available: one from mahoyaku-eng , and one from healingbonds . They are both equally complete and accurate. Mahoyaku-eng's translation is more flavorful, so you may find it a little more entertaining. Healingbonds includes screenshots in theirs, though, so if you're not playing the game alongside reading, you might prefer that. It's entirely up to you.

After you've read the main story, what's next? Well… honestly, anything you want. You can check out the Mahoyaku Resource Masterlist (maintained by sailstella), which has absolutely every story that's been translated (which is most of them). They suggest a certain reading order, although keep reading here to see my own suggestion for a reading order, which differs a bit from theirs. If that whole sheet is too overwhelming, don't worry! I've got three different ideas for you to try, depending on how you're feeling after reading the main story.

If only one or a few characters interests you, and you're content to focus on them and ignore everyone else, you can head over to my characters page. For every character, I have links to stories in which they're the main focus, or which provide development or interesting scenes for them.

If you just want to read what fans consider the most important or influential stories overall, and jump right in to interacting with other fans, then here's my bare-minimum reading suggestions:

That should give you a good basis to get started chatting with everyone and enjoying the rest of mahoyaku! (as of June 2022)

If you're a completionist, and want to read everything you can, and just need someone to tell you what order might be best, then I've got you covered. I think the release order is a good way to go. The masterlist's suggested order is in-story chronological order, and I think this has its appeal! I just have a different preference. You can decide which works for you. I won't repeat the entire release order of the events here, as you can see it on the masterlist (tons of thanks for their hard work). I'm also not linking character and location sub-episodes because there's just so many of them—you can find them on the masterlist and read them alongside the relevant location story. But here's the gist of how the stories were released or unlocked ingame (with slight changes*):

From that point on, there's no more location or affection story releases in between events, so you can continue in the order presented on the first page of the masterlist. As of writing this, the second part of the main story is releasing about two chapters a month in between regular events. 

*I made slight changes to keep the ballad event series together. I moved the affection stories a bit after their actual release date and East Ballad a bit before.

I hope that provides enough information for you to start enjoying mahoyaku!

Last Edited: June 29, 2022

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