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The List - 7 Magical Girls that Fandom Forgot

This week's list made me think of Shamanic Princess. I put a lot of effort into this getting the old, out-of-print DVD, but I haven't seen it yet.

Cutiebunny wrote:

^ You credit anime fans too much. Most of them, especially the younger fans, have no idea. Apart from mega hits like Evangelion, Sailor Moon and whatever else is brought to the forefront every few years, anything past a decade in age is "old school". I'd be willing to bet that the majority of con goers have never heard of "Wedding Peach", "Pichi Pichi Pitch" and "Shugo Chara". I always say that the best way to tell how popular an old school series is is by the amount of people cosplaying its characters. I go to 5+ large cons around the US every year. I can't tell you the last time I've seen SC cosplay, let alone WP or PPP.

Maybe, but ANN's reader demographic skews older than the average con-goer (which is by and large teens).

WingKing wrote:

For additional suggestions to fill people's "obscure magical girl" needs ... Miracle Girls (featuring identical twin magical girls who jointly share powers).

Miracle Girls (the anime, never read the manga) didn't feel like a magical girl series to me at all. The main characters had magical powers, but apart from that the story just wasn't a magical girl one. It was about their daily lives, romances, and, closer to the end, a mysterious (mundane) organisation that wanted to capture them. It was way more like Tokimeki Tonight than Magical Emi or something.

This week's list made me think of Shamanic Princess. I put a lot of effort into this getting the old, out-of-print DVD, but I haven't seen it yet. It has amazing character designs, though.

Quote:

Lil' Red Riding Hood Cha-Cha Kids in the U.S. have never gotten to experience Lil' Red Riding Hood Cha-Cha because it has the one-two punch of being pure cute children's entertainment and running for 75 episodes. The story follows Cha-Cha, a witch in training who always goofs up her spells due to puns. For instance, in the first episode she attempts to summon clouds (kumo) but instead summons spiders (kumo).

It might be the pun problem as well, depending on how big a feature that was. How do you create a pun on clouds and spiders in English? It's not as simple as saying sake is soda or rice balls are donuts. It can be done, of course, but it's time-consuming if there are a lot of puns to work out.

Key wrote:

Never heard of Okusama, but the concept sounds like an interestingly difference spin on the genre.

Agreed. The premise reminds me of the fact Japan was originally inspired by Bewitched to create the magical girl genre.

This series is based off an h-game where the hapless protagonist finds himself transformed into a magical girl's mascot every night.

Aquamine-Amarine wrote:

Five of the magical girl manga mentioned in this article were serialized in Nakayoshi, and yet you conveniently forget to mention Shugo Chara!, which was also extremely popular when it was still being serialized. Nakayoshi even advertised it as being as popular as SM and CCS once, near the end of it's run. I'm not really surprised that it's been ignored, given how everyone on this site is so obsessed with SM and never wants to give SC! any credit.

Shugo Chara is reasonably well known, though. The manga got a full English release (as did the Shugo Chara-chan spinoff manga), and the full TV series is available on Crunchyroll. The target of this list seems to be magical girl anime that have never been legally available in North America at all. I'm a huge magical girl fan, and a couple of these are obscure enough that even I'm not familiar with them. Otherwise you could also easily include Hana no Ko Lunlun from 1979/1980, which (as "Angel" in the US) was one of the first magical girls to make it to American TV, years before Sailor Moon, even though hardly anyone remembers that anymore.

For additional suggestions to fill people's "obscure magical girl" needs, there's also Dream Hunter Rem (the non-hentai version, unless you're into that kind of thing - the main character enters people's dreams and fights demons who are trying to steal their life force), Happy Seven (where in a neat little mythological twist, the seven magical girls have the powers of the Seven Lucky Gods), or Miracle Girls (featuring identical twin magical girls who jointly share powers).

^ You credit anime fans too much. Most of them, especially the younger fans, have no idea. Apart from mega hits like Evangelion, Sailor Moon and whatever else is brought to the forefront every few years, anything past a decade in age is "old school". I'd be willing to bet that the majority of con goers have never heard of "Wedding Peach", "Pichi Pichi Pitch" and "Shugo Chara".

I always say that the best way to tell how popular an old school series is is by the amount of people cosplaying its characters. I go to 5+ large cons around the US every year. I can't tell you the last time I've seen SC cosplay, let alone WP or PPP.

It might be the pun problem as well, depending on how big a feature that was. How do you create a pun on clouds and spiders in English? It's not as simple as saying sake is soda or rice balls are donuts. It can be done, of course, but it's time-consuming if there are a lot of puns to work out.

or Fushigiboshi no Futagohime are better contenders since they are also pretty much forgotten by everyone except dorks like me.

Miracle Girls (the anime, never read the manga) didn't feel like a magical girl series to me at all. The main characters had magical powers, but apart from that the story just wasn't a magical girl one. It was about their daily lives, romances, and, closer to the end, a mysterious (mundane) organisation that wanted to capture them. It was way more like Tokimeki Tonight than Magical Emi or something.