MAGICAL GIRLS!

Our first real post!!! Bear with me, I like to be a little historical and a little informative and the way I’m writing this could probably use a little bit of tweaking, but I’ll leave that for future posts.

When it comes to anime and manga, how often does a cute young girl come into your mind and then transform into a scantily clad, cute girl with magical powers?

Yeah, me too.

In fact, like many anime fans around my age, one of my first exposures to anime at the time was the perennial magical girl, Sailor Moon. I didn’t really realize the difference between anime and other cartoons at the time, but Sailor Moon was still totally kick-ass. I mean, she could attack people with a magical compact mirror and her cats TALKED. As you can imagine, the show blew my 10 year-old mind.

'Sup Bitches.

These days moe is usually the direction that a lot magical girl shows go in, but did you know that magical girl shows, or mahou shoujo, started with Bewitched? The classic show was so well received in Japan that Mitsuteru Yokoyama, the creator of Tetsujin 28-go (Released in the U.S. as Gigantor) and Giant Robo, created the first magical girl anime, Sally the Witch.

Cutie Honey was actually the series that started the infamous henshin (transformation) sequence trend. Unsurprisingly, it became rather popular to have an adorable girl spin around nearly naked and suddenly reappear with a new outfit that would not protect her against a jagged edge, let alone hide her goodies. Which explains why moe and mahou shoujo go together so well.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. While I have some great suggestions for you, about all of them also have anime or manga that are either worse or better than my suggestion. It kind of makes it hard for me because I wanted to keep this blog in the realm of manga and other forms of comics, so this time you get two reviews in one! FIRST POST SPECIAL!



The Good: Magic Knight Rayearth by CLAMP
If you’ve seen the anime, don’t be afraid because the anime is not that great. The manga, however, is pretty damn awesome and is CLAMP’s breakout manga for a reason. It’s definitely shoujo, being about a bunch of girls and all, but it’s got a good deal of action too. Plus, if you’re a fan of some of CLAMP’s repeat characters, this is where it all starts. (With Mokona, of course.) It begins with a bunch of random girls from different schools on a field trip to the Tokyo Tower (OH HEY LOOK! ANOTHER CLICHÉ!) and getting sucked into a vortex that takes them to another world. (Three in one manga! A NEW RECORD!) These girls all have different personalities that make them a crucial member of their team, but aren’t without their own troubles and problems and, luckily, they never lose their original selves. They do, however, grow up nicely considering they suddenly have a lot of rather powerful enemies and they remain realistic despite being in quite the fantastical world. TOKYOPOP lost its license to print it, but never fear because Dark Horse will be releasing an omnibus edition soon in honor of CLAMP’s 20th anniversary.



The Bad: Princess TuTu by Ikuko Itoh
This kills me because the Princess TuTu anime is made of so much awesome it HURTS, but the manga is an abomination that belongs in the depths of hell. I cannot even tell you how much it pained me to read it. They messed up the original anime story so badly, they turned a bunch of good characters into bad ones. REALLY bad ones that replace the original villains even though the originals versions of all these characters were successfully kick-ass in the anime. It actually hurt me to see one of the sweetest, most selfless characters be turned into a poorly-written, evil mastermind. It was pretty much as bad as reading Ultimate Muscle. (Which might as well be the gayest manga that didn’t mean to be gay ever. It’s actually about wrestling.) That and the art is less than fantastic. So don’t buy the Princess TuTu manga. They probably don’t carry it at your bookstore which is a BLESSING, trust me. But you should still check out the anime. It just amazes me how different in quality they are…



The Classic: Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi
From what I remember of Sailor Moon, (it’s been awhile) both the anime and the manga are pretty cool. Then again, Sailor Moon wins in my mind because she can attack you with the contents of her purse! Serena/Usagi also starts as a crybaby, but she definitely came into her own powers over the course of the series. Sure, the art’s in an old style and that’ll make some of you cringe, but classics shouldn’t be ignored because they aren’t drawn in the current popular style or because they didn’t have the same kind of animation technology as we do now. Watch the anime and feel more appreciation for the contents of your girlfriend’s purse because unfortunately TOKYOPOP doesn’t have the rights to sell all its Kodansha titles and the manga is nearly impossible to find. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it on a scanlation site, so you might want to go that route if you can.

Well then, that’s it for our first post. Expect another post on Tuesday or so. I’m hoping for a twice a week updating schedule, but I’m also expecting a busy quarter at school. (Luckily, it’s my last quarter at school!)

But before we go: What are your favorite mahou shoujo series? What makes them so great to you? And which clichés would you like to see me write about in the future?