Forum - View topicWhat Makes Magical Girls So Popular?
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Fenrin
Posts: 703 Location: SoCal |
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Still waiting on a serious mahou shounen
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Spike Terra
Subscriber
Posts: 361 Location: Maryland |
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The magical girl genre is currently my favorite anime genre. I tend to steer closer to shonen style magical girl shows as I'm a bit of an action buff. My favorite franchises are Nanoha, Symphogear and Prisma Illya. I'm also a big fan of shojo style magical girl shows like Cardcaptor Sakura and Magic Knight Rayearth. So I'm glad that in recent years there are more people flocking to the genre.
I kinda wish there were more magical girl style games available in the west. I mean we did get black rock shooter (which I have yet to play), Omega Quintet (which is okay) and Senran Kagura (which totally counts as a magical girl game in my eyes). But I wish there were more options. |
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AholePony
Posts: 330 Location: Arizona |
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I always felt Genei wo Kakeru Taiyou was an underrated entry to the dark mahou shoujo genre. I like me some magical girls but I can never seem to get started on the old longer series like card captor
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15555 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I think that I feel intrigued by the femininity, that characters can have it and be strong.
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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The West has a very different view of what makes a strong female than Japan does. The west values masculinity over femininity so for a woman to be perceived as strong she has to act like a man and abandoned her femininity. Japan generally believes being feminine can also be strong so a magical girl wearing a skirt and dressing in pink doesn't mean she can't fight or be strong. |
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LightYapper
Posts: 131 Location: Somewhere on Earth |
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Honestly, I do find the article a little less informative without the mention of male demographics and MG series aimed at them. Otherwise, if it is retitled as "Why does magical girl series appeal to girls" or something, it's an enjoyable read.
So, onto your questions, Gabby. One general reason I love magical girls is that I like seeing girls kicking the baddies' ass. Which may be why I started getting into the genre from Nanoha and Madoka. It is then that I learned about Cardcaptor Sakura and Princess Tutu, two shojo MG series that I adore until now. Sakura for likable lead, and Tutu for deep storytelling. I really wish there are more MG series like these that doesn't overly rely on fanservice and such. @lebrel For you, I can only think of Yurikuma Arashi, if bear girls counts as MGs. That show also focuses on the girls' society, if also quite harsh. |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2637 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Similar to Ladybug in its French origins, there's also LoliRock, which is a much more traditional magical girl story. Where Ladybug falls into the kaito subgenre, LoliRock plays more into the Sailor Moon/PreCure superheroine subgenre of magical girls, with a few nods to the idol singer subgenre. It's actually very true to the magical girl genre in general, with its transformations, themes of friendship, light romance, and the strength that the girls, particularly main character Iris, learns to find within herself, even as she's still acting like a regular teenage girl. (It's on Netflix in both French and English, for the curious.) |
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Parse Error
Posts: 592 |
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That particular section was talking about the history of the genre itself and not popularity in the West, so this shouldn't matter. It would be more fair to say that, at the time, Cutey Honey was not actually intended to be a Magical Girl series, even though it got retroactively included into the line due to its unsurprising yet nevertheless unintended appeal to the usual audience for that genre. However, it still led directly to Majokko Megu-chan, which deliberately folded the ecchi aspect for boys and the strong female lead that had caused Cutey Honey to catch on with girls back into the genre as it had previously existed, and in doing so formed the rough template for most of its successors, including Sailor Moon, which itself was a throwback to those tokusatsu influences first brought in by Cutey Honey that had become progressively more diluted, especially through the eighties. The anime adaptation of Sailor Moon also shared an episode director for several episodes with Majokko Megu-chan and at points recycled ideas from it wholesale, so all things considered, it seems fair to say there's a direct line of descent from Cutey Honey to Sailor Moon. That said, the focus of the article falls primarily on the appeal of Magical Girls from Sailor Moon onward, so the historical omissions aren't such a big deal and the rest of the article was quite good for what it was attempting to cover. I think it would be nice to have a short series of articles on this genre, because not only has it been a significant staple of anime for a long time, there's also many different facets and bifurcations that could stand to be discussed. For example, just the topic of Magical Girl parodies alone would be more than enough to fill an entire article. Someone even wrote their PhD thesis on the subject of "Representations of Girls in Japanese Magical Girl TV Animation Programmes from 1966 to 2003 and Japanese Female Audiences' Understanding of Them." Male involvement is frequently either ignored or harshly criticized despite substantial influences going both ways, so there's plenty of underexplored territory there which could make for another interesting subtopic. |
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soundofsilence
Posts: 17 |
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Why is it so important that boys and men be able to relate to a genre of work they read? Girls have been reading works aimed at boys and men since reading began. Magical girls are more rounded as characters than 'love interest' characters, maybe that's part of the appeal? |
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TsukasaElkKite
Posts: 4005 |
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This was an excellent overview of the genre. As for me, I've found that magical girl anime has been very powerful in terms of feminism.
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BodaciousSpacePirate
Subscriber
Posts: 3018 |
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That depends, would he talk like Detective Pikachu? |
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brunoais2
Posts: 2 |
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How about anime like....
Ojamajo Doremi, for example? Is this only for girls? There's no fighting, there's no evil-being-who-wants-to-take-over-the-world. What's in this one that made it take 4 seasons, 1 OVA, 1 manga adaptation, 1 unofficial manga (IMO very good) spinoff and, very recently, a Light novel spinoff. This is, so far, the magical girl anime I've like(d) the most. How about Fancy Lala? It is a way different kind of view of majokko anime. There's also no fighting like Ojamajo Doremi is but there's also not much weight into same-age friends. Instead, it is a run for stardom by a girl in a 9 y-o girl placed, at times, in a 15 y-o girl's body who got into show business by her own talent (and some minor boost from a "chance"). Here the magic is quite limited in what it does and what it is used for. It would be a kinda so-so series if it wasn't for the songs which are top-notch on my rating. I'm not mentioning Card Captor Sakura or Madoka besides that I also really liked those series but I'd like to hear more about those two above. What are your opinions here? Last edited by brunoais2 on Mon May 30, 2016 8:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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FireChick
Subscriber
Posts: 2468 Location: United States |
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Miho is actually 8-9 in Fancy Lala, not 6. But still, totally agree. |
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jr240483
Posts: 4429 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
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cant be surprised by that. i sure was one of them. also the mai hime series isnt technically a magical girl series. sure their girls transforming to be sure,but its technically not what most people would think of when it comes to this genre. though you do make a point that the hime and otome series did pegged along the whole yuri base right alongside nanoha which is why series like madoka and yuki yuna went to it,and now its more or less becoming a staple point for other magical girl series as well,since as i stated a while back it starting to look like the prisma illya series is going that route since the whole "she is in love with his stepbrother" isnt having any traction with the fanbase at all. Last edited by jr240483 on Sun May 29, 2016 11:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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notrogersmith
Posts: 193 |
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I have one niggle:
Tokusatsu is no more of a genre than anime is. It just refers to live-action shows that are heavy on special effects. Furthermore, tokusatsu is not necessarily aimed at young boys. In addition to shows that are aimed at boys, such as the ones in the Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, and Ultraman franchises, there have also been shows such as Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, aimed at young girls, or Garo, a so-called "Hyper Midnight Action Drama" aimed more at the seinen demographic. |
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