Magical Girls

Oh the mother freaking magical girl genre, how I despise you.

Wait I said that wrong let me try this again.

Magical girl genre, oh how you sicken me.

Nope still not there.....What is the term I'm looking for? Oh yeah; Over used plot, twists, character designs and the genre itself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a 90's kid born and raised in the US so what am I supposed to know about the magical girl genre in anime? The closest to it I ever saw back then was from the Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura dub..... the butchered mess we got....but still love to this day nonetheless.

As I got older and I realized that my interest lies in the wonderful world that is the japanese manga and anime I got curious and began to look up shows similar to that which I grew up watching as a child.

That is how I discovered the magical girl genre. Wikipedia's definition of this genre is...."Young girls with superhuman abilities, forced to fight evil and to protect the Earth" Ah so that explains why I've never seen a High School student with magical powers in this type of genre. Maybe they grew out of it or don't believe enough!

So yeah, most of the shows start out the same. The girl has a ordinary life until something occurs and wham! Out of nowhere she gets magical abilities for some reason she cannot talk about and has to keep a secret identity (I think Japan should sue Disney and Hannah Montana! *Gasp* They stole our idea but instead of powers, she sings us to death!)

Why is it that all magical girls are mostly the same? Do the creators of these shows think we can really relate to these girls? My guess is since they're so popular everyone thinks; Okay guys, let's exploit the hell out of this and use the same plot over and over.

The protagonist themselves are mostly clumsy, lazy, klutz, naive and total idiots. Sure, we're all like that aren't we?

(*sob* "I have no life but if I transform I become someone with a life!")

Ah what would the anime themselves be without lackeys? Sidekicks? I mean.....friends! The protagonist usually has a best friend (or gains one out of nowhere) whom has abilities as her own but usually the friend actually has something the protagonist herself lacks; Personality! (Yes, I'm talking about you Ami Mizuno aka Sailor Mercury.)

Don't you just love it when the friend of the protagonist is a million times smarter, useful and more resourceful than the protagonist herself?

At times I can't help but think that they do this on purpose so we could feel like there's a actual reason behind us wanting to murder the protagonist.

Take Serena, from Sailor Moon. She's the perfect example for this since because of her and the anime is that we can say the whole magical girl thing even exists.

Of course I again repeat; what do I know? There could have been a pre-existing anime before Sailor Moon....I'm going to need references for this, one minute please.......

*ahem* In wikipedia it says that Sally The Witch which came out in 1966 can be counted as the first magical girl anime since it has all the components needed for the category. Okay let's see.......she must keep her magic a secret, she needs a magic phrase and she has two sidekicks oh wait I mean friends . Hmmmm that sounds just about right to me.

Alright Serena looks like you're off the hook it's this Sally girl we have to blame for what became of this genre.

You know what? I take it back. I don't know this Sally person so it's you I have a bone to pick with! Okay maybe it's a brooch or whatever it is you use to transform but either way do you know what I have had to endure because of you? And by you I mean your whole sailor scout team of course.

Putting Sally The Witch aside many magical girl animes use the same or similar style the Sailor Moon series used. I bet you don't know they even have a mermaid clone do you?

Ah Mermaid Melody one of my favorite animes if it weren't for all the filler like episodes and the fact that it is the same as Sailor Moon only mermaid form.

Mermaids? They didn't have anything better to portray them as? No wait I actually liked this one so I won't rant as much other than to talk about one thing that always ticked me off well two considering their chants.

But that's a story for another day when I return to rant I mean review other anime topics.

I hope you enjoyed this post, Rai-chan out.