A Celebration of Mahou Shoujo
Posted on | May 25, 2009 | 5 Comments |
Now as someone who has read my Twitter will know – the webpage for the Nanoha movie has recently been launched! Now for those of you grumbling that StrikerS was a pile of old codswallop, let me tell you this – it’s the original loli-riffic models ^^. The premise is that the story is set between A’s and StrikerS, I think. But anyway, if anything this will certainly cure the “Too many characters, not enough action” syndrome that they ended up with with StrikerS. And can someone please put Erio down? For his own good?
But that started me reminiscing over the good old days of mahou shoujo or Magical Girl anime. Magical Girl series were pretty popular back in the olden days of cel shading – the ldest was probably (the many faces of) Cutie Honey but noone could dispute that the most classic and long running was Sailor Moon in 1992 (now probably surpassed by Pretty Cure). But in fact, virtually every studio was churning out some kind of schoolgirl based mayhem. CLAMP got their rocks off with Rayearth and later (and more successfully) Card Captor Sakura, only for it to be butchered at the hands of 4kids. And I’m sure everyone remembers such runaway hits as G-on Riders! and Mermaid melody Pitchi pitch pitch pitch x infinity.
However, the big surge of magical girl anime in the early 90’s ebbed to a stop, with long running series giving way to shorter and more punchy storylines, relegating classic magical girl to the depths of kids TV (Ojemajo Doremi), irony (Magikano, Nurse Witch Komugi, Magical Poka~n) and amusingly, pornography (Angel Blade, Beat Angel Escalayer)
Even current series bear little resemblance to the original takes on the genre, with Nanoha sharing the glory with such gems as My HiME/Otome and Shugo Chara! giving the “new take” on this old material.
However a genre grows and develops, it never seems to get rid of its roots. And magical girl is no exception. Nanoha, for example, retains quite a large number of the aspects of the original Magical Girl stereotype although the way in which the anime is executed shows that these more recent series are targeted at a very different audience – Male moe-obsessed, action-craving otaku.
Let’s take a look at some of these classic elements:
1. The Magical girl
Where better to start with than with the magical girl herself. As everyone knows, elementary school girls make the best magical girls, closely followed by middle schoolers and then high schoolers right at the bottom of the pack. The reason? High schoolers get too embarrassed during the nude transformation sequence (see point 8) and therefore magic power is markedly reduced. Scientifically proven that.
Unwittingly, this elementary schooler(s) are just wandering along in their everyday lives when lo and behold, they save the fluffy creature of point (2) from the VERY JAWS OF EVIL, therefore granting them the use of mgical powers which are NO USE IN REAL LIFE. Shame that. If only they could use Pretty cure Marble screw to bring an end to the war in Iraq I’m sure many people would be happy.
2. The furry sidekick
Any particular reason why the creature that said schoolkid rescues from the VERY JAWS OF EVIL has to be a particularly fluffy/cute specimen bar the obvious marketing advantages remains a mystery. Added merchandising bonuses if the fluffy creatures can change into something equally and separately marketable (Yes, Pretty cure, we’re talking about you)
Although I would quite like a life sized Reinforce…
3. The Magical device
Every magical girl needs her wand, though nothing quite beats the sheer power and sadisticness of Raging Heart in Excelion Mode.
4. The repetitive storyline
So why do we have to collect 100000 of these things that you scattered all over the Earth again? Because otherwise it’ll cause the END OF THE WORLD? Oh, I nearly forgot. Silly me.
5. The multiply recurring enemy
Didn’t we, you know, just kill you 99999 times already? Oh well, I guess one more time couldn’t hurt. Well, NOT ME ANYWAY!
6. The all-defeating magical attack
Two words – SUTARRAITO….BUREIKAAAAA~~~~
7. The ridiculous magical activation phrase
I think maybe they thought that schoolkids would be so enthralled by the series that they’d chant the transformation activation sequences in the playground while playing Sailor Moon with their friends. And then of course nip behind the nearest tree to strip off and change into that 10000yen Sailor Uranus costume that mum bought in a dodgy cosplay shop in Akiba. Ah, those were the days.
8. The nude transformation sequence
If there’s something that magical girl anime has taught us, it’s that we love nothing better than seeing a ten-year-old girl get stripped naked and clothes to suddenly appear sequentially on her body while the camera whips round artfully to avoid revealing the fact that she lacks nipples. And sexual organs.
9. The subtextual lesbianism
What do you mean subtextual? It’s there, plain as day! Especially that bit on sports day when Tomoyo hands Sakura a towel. She’s obviously saying that she’ll be *BEEP*ing her in the PE store cupboard in 10 minutes.
10. The long awaited new series with a new set of characters made just to shift more merchandising that just doesn’t work as well as the old one did.
Sad, but undoubtedly and irrevocably true.
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May 26th, 2009 @ 1:28 am
For the record, Cardcaptor Sakura was butchered by Nelvana, no 4Kids.
May 26th, 2009 @ 5:42 pm
Good post! Nanoha and CCS sure are different. Im currently watching CCS again and they have similar but definitely different atmospheres.
BTW, I thought the new Nanoha movie was a retelling of the original series. Im cool with a new storyline, of course, especially if we get some new OP, ED, and Inserts. Nanoha music rocks. :D
May 26th, 2009 @ 6:32 pm
Something I always find funny about Magical Girl stories is how no likes to admit that they are actually superhero stories. I know sacrilege making connections between the Eastern and Western comics, but as a fan of superheroes in general I can see the basics no matter what dressing it is in.
1. Spider-Man – follows the same logic, a teenage superhero for a teenage demographic. Also any superheroine for the teenage demographic, Google Power Girl.
2. Although not usually tied to the origin (usually really bad science plays a part there) we have Krypto, Ace the Bathound, and Lockheed from X-men and Excalibur.
3. Best example is the Green Lantern’s Power Ring.
4. Superman and Batman were made in the 40’s, and fair chunk were made in late 50’s and early 60’s.
5. Most of a hero’s Rouges Gallery is formed in the first few years after their creation.
6. This thing is uniquely Japanese in origin, Japanese heroes just love to shout out their attacks too for some reason.
7. Shazam!
8. Again a Japanese thing, in American comics the costumes are so tight they just seem nude.
9. Homoerotic in general, but for lesbianism we have Wonder Woman and the X-Men as the standouts. In later years X-Men even has had tentacle bondage lesbianism.
10. One time they moved the Justice League to Detroit.
Truth be told the trend in current Magical Girl stories is the same as in American superhero stories, the whole post-modern dissection of the genre where it both pokes fun and makes homage to the past. That said there will probably be backlash soon, while it won’t have the same innocence as the old shows it will go back to the same frame of thought. I think that is what Shugo Chara! is doing anyway, I rather like it too.
May 28th, 2009 @ 6:54 pm
dark chibi: Oops, I think I was thinking of YuGiOH!
Jaden – yes, but have you noticed that in the West its almost always male superheroes and in the East its female?
This is presumably because in the West we want to be them, and in the East they want to be INSIDE them.
May 28th, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
Actually there are a great deal of male Eastern heroes although now they mainly appear in Tokusatsu programs (Super Sentai (adapted into Power Rangers for Western markets) and Kamen Rider) although Tatsunoko is starting to get back in the game too. Plus there is an arguement to be made that Super Robots are super-heroes.
As for sexual fetishizing of female superheroes that is rather rampant in the US too. (Not sure about Britain since from my limited knowledge, in particular, 2000 AD has rather strong female characters and frankly most of the stories are too grim to allow any really sexual attraction to form.) But I think the trend to sexualize Magical Girls is similar to the trend of frape. Magical Girls are empowered women but they are forced to submit to the sexual power of another. They may be able to defeat the embodiment of pure evil but they are at the tender mercy of a penis/tongue/dildo/fist/foot/etc…