(no subject)

[skygiants]

littledust asked me for . . . okay, for a bunch of things, which I will get to in due course, but the first thing she asked me for was my top five Magical Girls!

Which is an awesome request, but sadly the problem is that I haven't actually seen that many magical girl shows yet, and all the ones I have seen are subversions or meta-examinations to some extent. So . . . uh, you can have my top one-and-a-half! Which are also my only one-and-a-half, but that makes them no less awesome.

1. Duck, Princess Tutu



This choice shocks everyone, yes? Oh, Princess Tutu, I may make space in my heart for other things but you are my forever girl show. An Ordinary Good-Hearted Clumsy Ballet Student who's secretly a magical princess with powers of emotional catharsis through hugs who's secretly a duck who got called into the story because the narrator thought it would be funny, she's an irrepressible force of comic optimism stuck in a tragedy, but she's going to try her best to change it! I LOVE HER SO MUCH.

1.5. Utena, Revolutionary Girl Utena



This is only 1.5 of a choice because Utena is really only a magical girl if you squint; Tutu plays with the genre and the meta-requirements of it, but Utena subverts it much more savagely. So even though she has the transformation sequence and the magical ring talisman and all the surface trappings of the genre, it's hard to actually characterize her this way due to the fact that the rules of Akio's universe don't really allow for magical girls at all. (Princes, passive princesses or wicked witches, that's what you get.) But I love her also, so she gets to be on the list anyway.

Anyway, this feels a bit of an empty list, so I'm going to fill it out with three magical girl shows that I would totally watch. If they existed. Although they don't yet.

3. Magical Sword Anri Sonohara

This unexpected spinoff of 2010's Durarara!! focuses on Anri Sonohara - a shy ordinary schoolgirl by day, who by night uses the power of the magical sword Saika to transform into a vigilante defender of justice and fight evil! There would be a school festival arc, and a summer vacation arc, and at the end Anri would get to take down Izaya in a one-on-one battle (which is obviously the best reason for the show to exist.) Anri's transformation sequence would involve a lot of red.

4. Plain Magazine Princess Betty

Of course if Japan remade Ugly Betty they would do it as a magical girl show; I really just don't see another option here. No one realizes that plain magazine assistant Betty is also the magical superheroine that Mode has been trying to get the scoop on, and Betty's not about to tell them. Most of the heartwarming story arcs show that Betty's good sense, ingenuity and heart end up saving the day more than her magical powers anyway. She uses her 'B' necklace to transform; her outfit involves a lot of polka dots. Marc, of course, is not just her rival but also a Dark Magical Girl that Betty eventually wins over with the power of friendship.

5. Magical Ringbearer Frodo Baggins

In this fascinating subversion of the magical girl genre, Frodo is able to use a magical ring to gain the power of invisibility! (Mysteriously, the transformation sequence involves Frodo gaining a lot of frills and sparkles before disappearing.) At first the power is all fun and games for Frodo and friends, but Unlucky Childhood Best Friend Sam starts becoming worried - is it possible that the power of the ring could be dangerous? And why can't Frodo seem to give it up?

Okay, so - as my ignorance has been all too clearly displayed, if I were to further my education into the magical girl genre, what should I be watching? (Pretear is already on my list just by virtue of having been made by some of the same people as did Princess Tutu.)

Comments

[themadpoker.livejournal.com]

Sailor Moon! =D I'm kind of surprised you haven't, it seems to have been the earliest intro to anime for alot of people. I loved it for years and years; it was the only thing that could make me wake up early in middle school.

Cardcaptor Sakura is pretty good as well. It's one of the few CLAMP productions that doesn't dissolve into angst and eyes being ripped out everywhere. -loves CLAMP really- The whole show's adorable, I think you'd really like it. This post (http://beckerbell.livejournal.com/252687.html) goes into why Sakura is aweosme. =D

[skygiants]

I have seen a few episodes of Sailor Moon over the years, but not many. And I kind of want to watch both of these series, because I know they're classics, but the problem is that they are both FIVE MILLION YEARS long and I am a little afraid to start. @_@

[gramarye1971]

I suppose this may be as good a time as any to finish up the post I'm going to make on 'The Only 10 Episodes of Sailormoon's First Season That You Actually Need to See'. ^_^ Remind me to show you parts of the third season (which I actually have with subtitles!) next time we're in the same room together.

For other recs, though I have a feeling that many of them are sadly out of print:
- Magic Knight Rayearth is another CLAMP magical girl series that starts out stereotypical (three colour-coded girls with symbolic names get dropped into another world to fight a Big Bad who has the princess locked away in a tower), but it has a completely WHAM ending that's often touted as one of the best plot-twist endings in an anime series.
- Mahou Tsukai Tai/Magic Users Club has a manga and both an OAV and TV series, focusing on the two guys and three girls in their school's magic club. I own the manga and have only seen the OAV, but it is funny and cute (and has Takehito Koyasu in a particularly hilarious role).
- Jubei-chan: The Ninja Girl would qualify, I think -- 14-year-old girl finds out that she's the reincarnation of master swordsman Yagyu Jubei, and transforms by putting on a heart-shaped eyepatch.
- Seconding Card Captor Sakura, though it's one of those series that suffered badly from the original English-language marketing attempts in the early 2000s.
- I have to mention the zillion Pretty Cure series, though I've only seen part of the first one. They're all about the trinket marketing, of course, but the stories and characters are supposed to be good for all that.

[skygiants]

I vote yes! Do it! *laughing* And I will indeed remind you. :D (Clearly it would partner well with Nixon in China?)

I am intrigued by your recommendations! But also a liiiittle bit afraid of Clamp. (However, I think a heart-shaped eyepatch is probably the best magical transformation item ever?)

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I knew exactly who your 1.5 were as soon as I saw the entry, even before the lj-cut.

Recommendations for magical girl shows:

Sailor Moon, just because it was fundamental. Not necessarily good objectively any more, but important.

The other magical girl show I'm fond of is Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which was going to be a normal magical girl show except that someone noticed the character design looked like a Gundam. Upshot? The magical girl version of "peace through superior firepower." It's great.

[skygiants]

I am never, ever predictable.

I vaguely remember hearing about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha from the TVtropes page! (ohhhhh TVtropes . . .) Is that the one where the Magical Girl actually grows up and gets into her twenties?

[futuresoon.livejournal.com]

Magical Sword Anri Sonohara

...brb dying forever



ETA: Oh, and thirding Cardcaptor Sakura; I haven't seen it all yet, but it is just one big bundle of adorable, and also gay. Seriously there is a hell-ass lot of gay in that show. Except for how the dub tried to get rid of it, and could only accomplish this by splicing episodes together, since taking out the gay involved taking out half of most of the episodes. It is just that gay.

[skygiants]

THIS WOULD CLEARLY BE AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE SHOW. Also, I don't know how Walker and Erika would get into all the school festival episodes, but it's inevitable that they would anyway.

. . . this is beginning to sound suspiciously like what I have heard of the way they aired Sailor Moon in the states! :O Are there any In Conclusion Totally Cousins?

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

When you next visit, we will watch some Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon! Though, really, you should read the manga. It has more... well, I think it is better than the anime in certain areas! Not so much in others. (Sailor Moon S was the first major work of the guy that created Utena! You can see many of his early thoughts on racecar lesbians! In sailor skirts.)

[skygiants]

. . . but how long is the manga? *wary* I want to, but I am afraid of what I might be getting myself into! (OH IKUHARA. How you fascinate and frighten me. I want him to be the creative force behind all the wannabe magical girl shows on my list.)

[aamalie]

Haha, I am really loving Ahiru. I need to finish this series, soon!

I'm also going to basically echo everyone else and say Sailor Moon, because it's a classic and what got me into manga/anime in the first place, so thus has a special place in my heart forever. I've only ever read the manga in its entirety though. And, if you can find it, Sailor V to go with it! (It took about two weeks of searching the internet for me to find and download that in it's entirety, ugh.)

[skygiants]

Oh man, you really really do - how far are you now? The ending is SO EPIC, and it's only 26 episodes, that's hardly anything!

UNLIKE SAILOR MOON WHICH, AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, IS FIVE MILLION EPISODES LONG. *weeps*

[aberration]

I see Sailor Moon has already been mentioned, but yeah, you have to go to the quintessential. If you do, I'd recommend going for the S Series - it has some of the darkest storylines, probably the most characters outside the Stars series, and was directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, who was also significantly involved in Utena. Also, it' what I watched when I got into Sailor Moon when I was eight years old, so I obviously think it was the best series of all of them.

If you like that enough that you want to try the others, you can maybe just go back to the beginning, but I think that's a good place to start. And trust me, the plot is really not complex enough that you'd feel lost or anything.

[skygiants]

The only episodes I've actually ever seen of Sailor Moon were like three of the Stars series (I WAS SO CONFUSED) and the end of the first season when they all die. In Japanese, with gramarye1971 helpfully translating. *laughing* So . . . I'm used to having pretty much no knowledge of what's going on! Um.

[furikku.livejournal.com]

Whoa, the Tutu people did Pretear? No wonder it's fucking awesome! :DDDD

The Nanoha series is supposedly pretty good, although it's been hard for me to really get into. (Supposedly the action heats up in the second season, but you need to see the kinda lukewarm first season to understand what the fuck, so.)

Also seconding Jubei-chan it is pretty great.

I think watching some Sailor Moon is good, just because it's one of those Seminal Works, but it's not like The Most Amazing Thing.

Oh oh! If you have not already, watch le Chevalier d'Eon! It is sort of like a magical girl show!

PS: I would watch the fuck out of Magical Ringbearer Frodo Baggins. Especially if it were a genderswap of the original thing.

[skygiants]

This is what I hear! Not, I mean, that I'm slightly obsessed or anything. UH.

I've seen the beginning of Chevalier d'Eon! Then school ate me and I forgot to watch the rest, but I should go back to it one of these days.

PS. GENDERSWAP HIGH SCHOOL AU, Sooz. I'm just saying.

[hafl.livejournal.com]

Seconding the recommendations for Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura and Lyrical Nanoha. All these series are awesome and all in different ways.

Sailor Moon is one of the three anime series longer than 100 episodes I've actually watched in entirety, even the filler episodes. Though if you want to save some time, watching only the S season should be enough. I love this series so much I've written a ten page essay about how the Sailor Moon RPG game relates to the manga for class.

Sakura is also great, though I watched it ages ago and some later CLAMP series made me a little bitter about it. I suspect that nowadays, I would find Tomoyo's voice horribly grating, since I remember it as incredibly high-pitched. (This doesn't sound much like a recommendation, but it totally is, really.)

Nanoha is great, though I'm in the minority that sees A's as the weakest season. All three seasons are only 52 episodes long which is actually pretty short for a magical girl series. However, it is aimed at a male audience, so some things may be a little icky (And by that, I mean the hot springs episode). Still, Nanoha is the only magical girl I know about, that actually trains and works hard to become stronger, even without plot-mandated power-ups. Plus, there are tons of lesbian subtext in all seasons and in the third it's hard to call it only subtext. (Now that I think of it, there's a lot of text and subtext also in Sailor Moon and Sakura.)

[skygiants]

These are excellent recommendations and I am taking notes! . . . though, wait, do you mean all three seasons are 52 episodes each, or they're 52 episodes together?

[tiltingheartand]

I would so watch #5, I am just saying. (And, um. #1 is baffling.)

Also, my knowledge of the magical girl genre is, um. A bunch of random Utena episodes (... possibly one was a movie, I really couldn't say) and Sailor Moon, so I am eighteenth-ing the Sailor Moon rec. (And also the suggestion that if you only watch one series it should be S. Hello, lifelong OTP, how are you today. Although if you feel like watching one of the movies, OH MY GOD MAKE IT THE R MOVIE.) And, for what it's worth, some of the places the anime is weaker than the manga (there's a whole ridiculous arc-ish thing in the first season that came out of absolutely nowhere, for instance) are because it was actually coming out quicker than the manga was, so they had to do a bunch of filler episodes.

[skygiants]

(#1 IS GLORIOUS. *cough* Uh, sorry, I am only a little bit of a rabid fan! Honest.

. . . and it makes more sense in context? Once you actually figure out what's going on with the meta, anyway.)

HAHAHA THE UTENA MOVIE. That is all I have to say about that. Utena the series also makes more sense in context! Mostly. And nobody turns into cars. (I will totally admit that the Story of Epic Lesbians Epically In Love is maybe one of the things that makes me want to watch the show.)

[spellcoats.livejournal.com]

Hello. Welcome to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the anime series where nine-year-old girls have Gundam-class firepower.

[skygiants]

You know, I was actually thinking about putting Pretty Sailor Gundam Wing on here as a fake magical girl series, but it looks like Lyrical Nanoha beat me to it. *laughing*

[spellcoats.livejournal.com]

Mai-HiME is something like Highlander meets Sailor Moon meets Pokemon. Twelve girls at Fuuka Academy have special powers, including a mon they can summon called a Child. To save the world, they have to duke it out with their Childs, but when a HiME's Child dies, so does the person who's most important to her.

It has a companion series, Mai-Otome, that may-or-may-not be set in the same universe (Word of God has dropped nuclear hints, but still no definite word) about a world far in the future where traditional warfare has been set aside in favor of the Otome System, wherein young virgin girls (they gotta be virgins, semen makes the nanomachines disintigrate (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WallBanger), dontcha know) go through a selective training process; those who graduate contract with a Master, who's almost always some sort of political or military figure. When countries go to war, Otome fight; if an Otome dies, so does her master. Less bloodshed, but more weight on the shoulders of young girls who...may not be psychologically equipped to handle it.

[skygiants]

I have heard great things about Mai-HiMe, and it's been on my list for ages - I mean, as, uh, the above examples may show, I totally have a thing for subversive series, it sounds like Mai-HiMe is awesomely subversive.

. . . so one of these days I should actually get around to watching it, um.

[ojuzu.livejournal.com]

There would be a school festival arc, and a summer vacation arc, and at the end Anri would get to take down Izaya in a one-on-one battle

This is what I want from the world. Yes. \o/

As for Magical Girl shows . . . I've only seen a few episodes of Heartcatch Precure, but the Pretty Cure franchise as a whole has been recced to me by many people. From Heartcatch Precure, it seems like good sparkly save-the-world-with-flowers-and-pink-and-friendship fun. (Also I am told the original series has lots of Les Yay.)

[skygiants]

Best spinoff ever, y/y?

I've heard of the Pretty Cure franchise! And who could hate sparkles and flowers and pink and friendship? (It seems like Magical Girl series are the best places overall to find Les Yay!)

[lacewood]

I support the recs for Card Captor Sakura! I have never seen the anime, only read the manga, but I've heard the anime is good, so you can probably go with either depending on preference. XD It's also one of Clamp's LEAST traumatising series so uh... it's a good place to get into Clamp?

For a series no one's mentioned yet, I am also pretty fond of the Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne manga (the anime for it isn't as good though) She's a magical thief who goes around stealing demon-possessed artwork AND is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc, which effectively combines two of avourite magical girl themes - dashing art thieves AND reincarnation.

Also I would TOTALLY watch Magical Girl Sword Anri. +____+ (But wait does this make Mikado and Kida her TWO Tuxedo Kamens? rofl Kida's outfit would be yellow, and I guess Mikado's power would be... a magic cellphone?) There would also be the obligatory arc where Saika tries to possess Anri but she must fight it! And master it! With the power of her ~heart~ - though in DRRR terms, maybe more with her lack of heart, ahaha.

[skygiants]

I'm not sure I want to get into Clamp . . . @_@ But it does seem likely that I will at least be getting into Card Captor Sakura!

Ooh, I have also heard of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. And I will admit I do have a fondness for Joan of Arc.

WOULDN'T IT BE GLORIOUS. (It totally does. And Anri has to rescue one or the other or both of them, like, every episode.) But by the end, she totally gains the power of . . . better heart! Um.

[elle-white.livejournal.com]

Princess Tutu is our forever girl. :D

I'm sometimes amazed Utena and Princess Tutu exist. Deconstructive works that have intricate meta and frequently play with your expectations are extremely rare.

Pretear is a wonderfully and amusing take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , (here it's more like Snow White and Seven Bishounen) though it doesn't have the depth and intricate layers of meta that Tutu does. The plot and characters are reminiscent of Tutu in many ways, but it's still a very well told and sweet story in its own right.

[skygiants]

Me too, man. Utena blew my mind when I first saw it, and I never, ever expected to fall for a show as hard as I did for Tutu. I'm really, really grateful for both of them and what they say.

. . . which is why I am totally not expecting Pretear to be another Tutu. Nothing could be! *clutches it* But if it reminds me of it a little, that's not a bad thing. >.> (Hee, I'll totally admit, the other reason I was intrigued by Pretear is that one of the slogans that was used to market it was apparently 'Wearable Bishounen,' which just cracks me up.)

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

Like everyone else, I say Card Captor Sakura. If you do watch it, make sure you do NOT watch the English dub called just "Cardcaptors". The way they spliced up the original anime makes me want to cry. The anime and the manga are both really good.

Some magical girls I really like (but are kind of hard to recommend because they're hidden within a whole lot of other stuff) are the ones (and former ones!) of Megatokyo. There's this whole philosophy about magical girls in the comic.

[skygiants]

No English dub, noted! My first impulse is usually to go for the Japanese anyway, except when someone sits me down and is like "WATCH THE DUB" (which happened with Tutu and Baccano!), but that's rare.

I don't know much about Megatokyo, I will freely admit!

[pheonee.livejournal.com]

3. Magical Sword Anri Sonohara

I WOULD WATCH THIS SHOW FOREVER OMGG. *_*

Also, at the end Anri would get to take down Izaya in a one-on-one battle, YES, PLEASE, PLEASE. ANYTHING TO a) give Anri a chance to me even more awesome and b) shut up Izaya's stupid jerk face that I hate and want to punch a lot.

As for magical girl serieses, the Precure franchise--especially the first (Futari Wa Pretty Cure) and the latest (Heartcatch Pretty Cure)--I hear are quite good! Heartcatch especially has some of the most adorable puni plush art I've seen, next to K-On! (which is basically straight-up sugar, topped with chocolates and strawberries and cream, topped with more sugar).

[skygiants]

Hahaha I was SO DISAPPOINTED that the show did not actually end with Anri turning Izaya into a Saika minion. Probably the only time I have ever rooted for someone to be mind-controlled! And I knew it would not happen because there are plenty more novels and Izaya needs to stick around to be an antagonist for them. AND YET. ;_;