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As somebody that does, I actually have heard about this show offhand and have been interested. Would you be willing to give me a brief plot summary? Utena gives me some ideas but is still a little broad.
The Magical Girl Problem
- Thread starter ColdGoldLazarus
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As somebody that does, I actually have heard about this show offhand and have been interested. Would you be willing to give me a brief plot summary? Utena gives me some ideas but is still a little broad.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Gay theater girls battle for top spot.
(except not really)
(well, kind of?)
no.
Pink Flamingo Cabal Grand Vizier
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- Pennsylvania
Two childhood friends made a promise when they were little kids that they'd star in their favorite theater production together one day. They later reunite in high school, where auditions for the play are being held, and... crazy, semi-abstract shit happens. It's very Utena-like, and I don't wanna give away anything more. If you ever felt disappointed that you never saw any duels that didn't involve Utena then you'll enjoy this. It also has a lot of commentary on the nature of fiction and identity and all that good shit.
Also, there's a character named Daiba Nana, who has weird short triple-pigtails that look like banana bunches, and she's delightful.
chibipoe
May I tell you of the glory that is Catradora?
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Just found this thread. Must say, this is a pretty good example of why I go lol at people who paint Sailor Moon as cutesy and fluffy(which ok, it could be), when none of these supposed 'dark' magical girl shows are doing anything that Sailor Moon hasn't already done.
Like, the manga is legit about how the universe is an awful place filled with cosmic horrors that drive humanity insane just by waking up and Usagi goes 'eh' and that is just the first arc. She goes on to self-resurrect herself from complete soul-destruction and overcomes the source of all evil. (This is depicted in the anime by naked hugs, which is just her shining her love of everything ALL ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.
no.
Pink Flamingo Cabal Grand Vizier
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This more than anything is what infuriates me about the weird dudebros who blow off any magical girl stuff that isn't part of this new wave of edge, and automatically begin discussing edge when the topic of MG is brought up. Many of these stories were always dark, it's just that Madoka started the trend of MG shows that are about being dark. It's a subtle but very impactful difference.
Jimmy C
Mostly Harmless
One thing that causes confusion is that there are actually two genres that are named "magical girl shows" and aimed at two different audiences.
The first is primarily aimed at grade-school girls and most represented by the Precure brand in the present day. I would recommend a random episode of Smile Precure as an example of what are the main features of such a show. Out of all the Precure series I watched, that was the one I consider the most generic without boring me to the point of dropping it.
The other is primarily aimed adult otaku and airs after midnight. Its features are sex appeal, violence, darker subject matters and is currently in the process of getting "cuter and pinker" as a poster here put it, while retaining these features. Madoka is the current model for this genre.
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
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- Luxembourg City
Eventually. It's not that "all mahou shoujou shows involve Faustian bargains and genocide now," it's just that a few really successful ones do.
In the meantime, as with any genre, new shows don't undo the old ones. Success does breed imitation, of course, but Madoka coming out suddenly didn't mean Akazukin Chacha no longer exists, much less Sailor Moon--itself subject to darker story arcs within its series.
The tone will absolutely swing back at some point. I'm definitely not an expert on the genre, but even I know there are some light-hearted magical girl shows coming out, even if they're not that popular.
Sivuel
n00b Technomage
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Interesting thread. I've had similar thoughts before. I once wanted to write a scene with modern American middle schoolers discussing a magical girl anime, and was scared that I couldn't think of a single example they could have seen on TV.
Now part of the problem might be what anime I pay attention to, but I definitely felt like there's less kids magical girl anime compared to otaku magical girl anime. This contrast was definitely part of my thought process when I wrote "I am the human", where I focused on stuff like constructing a school experience, villains with silly motivations, and potential young love.
Now part of the problem might be what anime I pay attention to, but I definitely felt like there's less kids magical girl anime compared to otaku magical girl anime. This contrast was definitely part of my thought process when I wrote "I am the human", where I focused on stuff like constructing a school experience, villains with silly motivations, and potential young love.
Jimmy C
Mostly Harmless
Times like this, it's a helpful reminder that those of us who don't know Japanese and live outside Japan get a very... filtered view of the variety of anime produced in Japan.
Most of it doesn't get streamed or torrented, let alone subbed.
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I mean, I'm almost positive this isn't true. Like, I'm sure there's a decent amount of low-key anime, often stuff for little kids (and not the Precure kind of little kid) that nobody bothers to sub. Probably a couple other things too. But between the several licensors that snatch up most anime that come out in a season, a site completely devoted to getting the license to anime so that they can sub them live for an international audience, and a heavily prominent international otaku community that will snatch up and sub stuff that nobody else wants to (such as, well, Pretty Cure)...
I'm pretty sure those days are long gone.
I gave 7 examples of lighter MG entertainment that has come out since Madoka (including one mega-franchise that has had like... at least 4 seasons since then) that all certainly were available in the US, given that I watched them, and with the exception of Pretty Cure, all of them were deemed relevant enough to get reviews (typically episodic ones) from prominent anime sites like ANN. (And ANN doesn't cover Precure because they have no one on staff that has experience in the series, and otherwise simply has the additional time to binge over a dozen 50 episode seasons) And I mean... guys, in a lot of communities Crystal was a big fucking deal when it was announced and first came out. Enthusiasm died a good deal after the first few episodes because the first couple seasons weren't that good, but like... Cardcaptor Sakura's sequel made a bit of a splash too. "lighter MG anime existing" is really not some low-key secret even solely held by dark-alley subbers, let alone solely a Japanese fable.
Jimmy C
Mostly Harmless
Perhaps. I'll conceed on that.
I think it's more because ANN has a policy of not covering non-official releases (aka fansubs) for almost a decade now. And there are no official streams of the latest seasons of Precure, or we wouldn't be dependant on annoymous fansubbers for the past few seasons.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Fresh Precure then? Is there an english sub blu-ray availiable?
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
What's a good site to watch it on?
no.
Pink Flamingo Cabal Grand Vizier
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I think crunchyroll has it? I'm not sure, I usually just... put on my hook hand and eyepatch, so to speak.
Synthesis
Special Mobile Suit Troops, U.E.S.A.
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- Luxembourg City
Anime is still a genre for a lot of media platforms in the U.S..
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Also, technically speaking, it isn't that Revue Starlight borrow from Utena, more both of them borrow from Takarazuka Revue. 
Though Revue Starlight borrow a lot more, for obvious reason.
Though Revue Starlight borrow a lot more, for obvious reason.
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I just watched Fresh last month and can concur that it was really good.
I also submit that Splash Star was much better than it's given credit for, copycat protagonists and all. It just doesn't start to get good until the second quarter.
I also submit that Splash Star was much better than it's given credit for, copycat protagonists and all. It just doesn't start to get good until the second quarter.
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Splash Star is definitely one of the above average seasons; I think that it suffers a bit in that the franchise didn't quite have any sort of successful formula down- as Yes then proceeded to clearly show to its massive detriment- that post-fresh (or at least Post-Heartcatch I'd say) shows have to work from. But like massive step forward from Futari Wa and I actually quite liked Mai and Saki. The villain was just a little underwhelming (even if the final battle itself is pretty good), they didn't have a good minion dynamic down yet, and I feel like the 30-40 period is almost a massive dead zone.
Sadly like most Precure seasons it is not, legally speaking, available in English dub or sub. (But like, if you're going to watch a season, keep in mind that I'm probably the most ridiculously biased-in-favor-of-Fresh fan I know, even if I don't know many people with Fresh Isn't Good Actually takes)
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- West Michigan
I actually liked Yes and GoGo, mostly for the characters. Nozomi was a great lead and Coco and Nuts were the first mascots in the series that weren't just "I don't want to drown this character in battery acid" but legitimately good. Milk... not so much, but she didn't do anything in Yes that the additional mascots in Futari Wa and Max Heart didn't do first (and then became likable in GoGo). Those two (forgot the names) were the worst.
I also thought Fresh had the best final arc so far. They actually spent time worldbuilding!
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Mipple and Mepple I think? They were painful. I mean, I get wanting to keep yourself from being able to be called a Sailor Moon clone. But as the franchise has shown there's plenty of perfectly good ways to not be Luna and Artemis without being... that.
The characters were pretty good (Nozomi feels a bit less dynamic than a lot of Precure leads but she's far from awful, and honestly probably better than, like, Hibiki), there were some pretty good episodes- like the one with the Evil Precures was great. Part of it is simply that I didn't find the series memorable; like not much of it stuck with me outside the really misguided romance stuff with Nozomi. Like... it just was never a good idea and I'm glad it isn't a well they've gone back to, and I think it did sour me on the show some. Honestly GoGo I don't remember at all- honestly the sequels never do much to grab me.
I didn't really like the final confrontation when I first watched Fresh but I've liked it a lot more in hindsight, both in the way instead of anything super flashy they bother to actually use the meaningful confrontation to close the show's dominant character arc, and the way it actually bothers to try and really... incorporate a world outside the Pretty Cure, fairies, family, and baddies. Heartcatch is often praised for this, and to an extent rightly so, but it kind of builds off the ground Fresh laid. And then Suite just brazenly mixes elements of the two shows together for its concept so you get it some there too. Smile and DokiDoki then proceed to go completely back to the original far more simplistic formula which hurts them both, but at least Smile isn't The Tale of Mana and Her Easily Impressed MG Harem.
So there is that.
- Location
- Singapore
.... the funny thing was, I thought this was a thread about exterminating magical girls.
The 'mutant problem' and all.
The 'mutant problem' and all.
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- Somewhere in the stacks
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Heartcatch Precure is my rec if you're gonna watch one cold. Admittedly the only one I've seen but I will stan Yuri until the day I die.
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- Poland
I haven't noticed. It's like with NGE, people claim there was thus huge era of dark mecha deconstructions until GaoGaiGar reminded people of good happy mecha but really many of the dark mecha shows were made after ggg
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- Los Angles
I both agree and disagree.
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Demographics are largely a function, for TV, of airtime and for manga in what magazine the series appears. The times when young girls are watching TV differ on the whole from the timeslots where early to mid-20s male audiences are most likely to watch. This lets us know that most of the shows we're talking about here aren't aimed at a younger audience.
To this end, products are largely aimed at one or the other. Madoka, afaict was never competing for airtime with Pretty Cure. Mahou Shoujo Site, for example, appears in the same manga as Baki a martial arts manga featuring fairly grotesque levels of violence. These, quite demonstrably, aren't series aimed at the standard young girl magical girl demographics at all, but magical girl aesthetics creeping into the Baki audience.
Rather notably, this isn't really new. Cutie Honey is a very early and pretty iconic magical girl series, and one that was very much built on sex and violence (mostly sex), in ways that contrast heavily with, say, Sailor Moon to varying extents by incarnation.
Adopting a younger, less overtly sexual vs cute aesthetic, is fairly new, but this feels like it signals the exact opposite of what you suggest, a growing demand for 'cute' content among the mid 20s male audience that justifies taking pages from a Baki or Fist of the North Star or Cutey Honey for more Magical Girl Site (or Madoka really, because let's not credit Site with anything) aesthetics.
By contrast, we've had genuine darker shows aimed at the shoujo demographic magical girl works usually target. Utena deals with some fairly serious issues and is firmly shoujo (though a bit older age range than Precure I'd assume). Princess Tutu originally aired on a kids network, despite being a go to darker show in the genre. However the darker content is largely subtext here, and the violence itself is heavily stylized. It's not an anime featuring torture or heads being ripped off.
Rather notably then, the 'problem' could be expressed as "people online talking more about the version of an aesthetic-based category that caters to them than one aimed at other people."
Pre-2011, I think we actually saw something more generally in line with what people complain about here. Namely, look at all the grimdark "Crystal Tokyo is a dystopia" type fanfiction and analysis in fan communities overthinking Sailor Moon. This is, often, taking the edgiest possible take on a work that, while it contains unhappy moments, is nowhere near Madoka or Site or Raising Project in terms of the duration or intensity of the bad things the audience is meant to feel. It's a fairly deliberate attempt to overread the happy ending and deliberately misconstrue what the author intends to create a darker, edgier world.
This is, if anything, more disruptive than people who really like Madoka a bit too much, because it intrinsically intrudes on a universe that isn't about these things and tries to co-opt it, and can easily co-opt ongoing discussions, insisting, not that Madoka exists, but that Sailor Moon always was Madoka and should be treated as such.
I"m a bit curious if emphasizing these darker takes in the past decade with a few prominent works has served to intensify the more iffy analyses out there, or to divert them now that there already exists prominent settings where this particular variation of the fantasy is enacted wholeheartedly and about as bluntly.
Utena is a late 90s anime. The genre's seeds are in a few works from the 60s by most accounts, so Utena, while a decidedly influential work, is hardly formulative years no matter how you slice it.
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