Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい) is a 12 episode slice of life yaoi romance based on the manga of the same name by Toyota Yuu.  The series aired over the Winter season of 2024.

     Adachi Kiyoshi is a gloomy office worker who has struggled to find love through out his life.  He suddenly gained the ability to hear peoples internal thoughts when he comes into physical contact with them.  His world changes when he learns the secret thoughts of a coworker, Kurosawa Yuichi, a handsome well respected sales rep.  Adachi struggles with the idea that a man can fall in love with him, let alone the most desired bachelor at his company.  He also struggles with uncertainty around being able to reciprocate his coworkers feelings and desires.  Using his supernatural abilities he cheats to understand Kurosawa's motives and desires.  As the two men spend more time together and Adachi comes into closer contact with Kurosawa's heart he begins to accept the feelings welling up inside of him but has to figure out a way to express them, unsure of his own worth.

   Kurosawa struggles to maintain his polished veneer, always battles against his desires and urges.  As he spends more time with Adachi he begins to push him to find out if there is a chance of him getting his wishes.  Unknown to him, the object of his affection can hear everything he's thinking when they are in physical contact.  Even without that, Kurosawa does what he can to express his feelings for him without risking too much if rejected.  As time goes on he finds it harder and harder to hold back and when he confesses and isn't rejected an unbalanced relationship begins to unfold.  Adachi, inexperienced in love, begins to lean into his strange powers to help him be a better partner for Kurosawa, but how long can he keep a secret like that from someone who loves him so openly?

    This was a cute and slow burning romance that played into some standard yaoi tropes with out coming off as trashy of voyeuristic.  Kurosawa's seme qualities were blunted by his literal school girl giddiness and barely controlled perversion.  Adachi was a typical self hating gloom boy uke.  What drove the story to be interesting is how Adachi navigated around his ability to read peoples thoughts, or more accurately, their hearts.  Even with this massive cheat code enabled he struggled with how to respond to the other persons affection.  Some of this hesitation and uncertainty stems from his own lack of confidence.  He struggled to understand why a guy who could catch anyone he desired would be interested in an introverted loner like himself and hesitated to express his feelings clearly even after they had begun to date.

    There was a parallel side story dealing with a college friend of Adachi's who also ends up gaining the mind reading via prolonged virginity ability and an infatuation with a younger delivery boy.  I'm not sure what literary purpose this plot line provided other than checking off a shota trope but some aspects of it felt a little creepy and forced.  The object of Adachi's friends affection happened to be a college friend of one of Adachi and Kurosawa's younger coworkers.  Honestly though it was fine, just seemed to distract too many times from the core story around the main characters.  On a final note the art work seemed to suffer near the end of the series with consistency.  The artwork wasn't the highest of caliber to begin with, the character designs being pure shojo and not highly detailed.  But in the end the story was cute and lovely and it might be fun to see a one shot of the couples later in life.

    The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll and is currently only available in sub format.