One Great Panel: Magical Girl Dandelion

One of the many reasons I love doing One Great Panel so much is that I sometimes obsess over a panel for a series that I never even end up reading that much of. Which I think proves the whole point—a singular panel can tell a satisfying story, even if I never read the whole series.

I was looking back at past One Great Panel entries and remembered series that I have long since parted with—A-DO, Omori, Sakamoto Days—but still remember the panel vividly, as well as why it stood out.

Such is the case with this one from Magical Girl Dandelion. I don’t know how much I like this series yet, but this panel grabbed me, and I was grateful for it, because it’s been so long since my last One Great Panel.

This comes from Chapter 4, Page 13.

Context: Dandelion—on the left, in case you couldn’t guess—has recently saved her grandpa from becoming a fiend. She used her newfound magic to stop his heart from essentially spoiling. Afterwords, she gives the fiend—the one the right, named Shade—who has been secretly protecting her her whole life, an offer he never expected. In this world, all fiends were once human, but a sort of infection spoiled their heart and turned them evil, which magic wielders like Dandelion will eventually try to vanquish.

I’ll start with the most obviously intentional element of this panel, which I remain obsessed with every time I look at it—placing the scene in front of a mirror. It has been established by this point that fiends don’t have a reflection. So what better way to frame the important offer than in the one setting that so clearly reflects (pun intended) that Shade is not human.

It’s an echo of his inhumanity, set opposite the echo of Dandelion’s humanity.

But if you’re thinking, “well that’s an obvious trick,” then consider the blocking. Shade is in front of the mirror so we can’t really see too well that he doesn’t have a reflection. Which makes it almost feel like a subconscious decision on Shade’s part to block his inhumanity.

Perhaps out of shame or envy. Perhaps because he does in fact, want to be a human again. Maybe he hasn’t ever even considered it, but this panel is his launching point to think about it again. To remember who he was. The way that his lack of a reflection is being blocked could be replicating how his conscious consideration of being human again has been blocked from years of repression.

I also admire how many ways this panel emphasizes how inhuman he is. I mean, consider the opposite pose. If his back is to us, and he’s facing the mirror, we lose at least three whole aspects of his inhumanity, meaning that the conscious choice to place him exactly as he is was a choice to emphasize exactly what he is.

Those inhuman aspects being his lack of reflection, the corrupted core visible on his chest, the darkness over his eyes, his pointed ears, even—and forgive me if this is your fashion—his clothes. We lose so much of that if we aren’t given this exact view of all the things he is… and all the things he isn’t.

Sometimes I think One Great Panels are accidental, sometimes they feel intentional. This one feels 100% intentional. In every aspect.

To pull on the context a bit, Dandelion and Shade’s relationship has gotten a bit tenuous since she’s become a magical girl. But here, at the literal peak of her magical abilities, she makes an offer that shakes his entire worldview. This is the most tame his facial expression has ever looked. He is always smirking or snarling, but here, he’s just serious. Blank even. And her? Complete and total empathy. Caring. Dare I even say love.

Shade has, after all, protected her since her parents were killed by other fiends. It’s an intriguing premise, honestly. Since writing this, I’m thinking I may want to continue the series after all.