Here's the MAL link!

Most magical girl series have a motif. Sailor Moon has space, Tokyo Mew Mew has animals, PMMM has pain and suffering... Well, this parody series has a weight loss motif.

First, some background. This manga is not a standalone title. It's actually a spinoff from a yaoi manga called Sakende Yaruze (also known as Shout Out Loud). Miracle Dieter Miyuki was a fictional anime in the universe of that manga, and eventually became its own manga. There are only two volumes -- more chapters were published in Japan, but were never collected into their own volume.

Has anyone seen episode seven of Wedding Peach? The one where the villains infuse some rice with "the essence of fatness" causing all the girls who eat it to get fat? That's essentially what the plot to this manga is. Yukimi, a chubby girl, transforms into the thin and beautiful Miyuki to fight the evil Chef Fiatee, who wants to make all the girls in the world fat for...some reason. We're never really told why Chef Fiatee is so fixated with teenage girls eating habits, but there you go.

To be honest, I went into this expecting a lot of fatshaming... And there was some, especially in the beginning. But it honestly surprised me by being less shame-y and more preachy. All it really did was promote healthy eating habits, like not skipping meals and eating your vegetables. Not too bad, all things considered, with a premise like this. Still, I'm not going to pretend that it didn't make me cringe every time Yukimi got picked on by the resident Mean Girl.

Perfect timing for these New Year weight-loss resolutions going around. I have to say I'm not totally surprised that something like this exists, especially since there is that workout anime with girls trying to become seiyuu or something or that game where bishounen yell at/shame you into keeping up with a diet and exercising. (that latter makes me cringe so hard)

This seems like a really cute quick read and it's nice to hear that there is some positivity in there. I also love the magical transformation item is a dumbbell, very appropriate. ^^ I'll check it out sometime if there are any translations somewhere.

I had never heard of that before! It doesn't surprise me, though. Japan can be pretty bad with the weight thing. I don't wear it myself, but I'm interested in J-fashion... From what I've heard, one of the reasons that a lot of those clothes don't go up to bigger sizes is because the designers don't want to lose their regular customers. They fear that no thin people would want to buy their clothes if they knew that fat people could wear them, too. It's sad, really.

But yeah, this manga was nowhere near as shame-y as I was expecting. It was made abundantly clear that Yukimi was completely healthy at her size, and there was nothing wrong with her eating habits. Actually, if the manga shamed anyone, it was her classmates for constantly skipping meals and taking diet pills. The manga really seemed a bit like a social commentary against the weight loss craze among young girls in Japan... It was pretty interesting to read! There are translations up on MangaFox of the two collected volumes.