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alt title(s): Mahou Shoujo; Majokko 
Mahou Tenshi Creamy Mami
Known as Mahou shoujo ("magical girl") in Japanese, or just majokko. Magical Girls are empowered by various means with fantastic powers that both assist and complicate their lives, but manage to perservere despite this.
Magical Girls have high crossover popularity in different demographics with some minor but appropriate design modifications, and make up a sizeable portion of both shojo and bishoujo fandom.
Major flavors include: The Cute Witch, where magic is mundane to the character. The Magic Idol, who (initially) uses her powers for her own benefit. The Magic Warrior, mostly in a superheroine role fighting evil.
Magic Warriors arguably have the widest demographic appeal, and in the West are often synonymous with the idea of a Magical Girl.
History of the Genre
It may come as a surprise to learn that the entire Magical Girl genre is descended, effectively, from the American live-action series Bewitched. While two series claim the role of first magical girl anime — Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Mahotsukai Sally ( Sally, The Witch, 1966-1968) and Akatsuka Fujio's Himitsu No Akko-chan (broadcast 1969, but its manga predates Mahotsukai Sally) — the creators of both credit Bewitched as a primary inspiration for their work. Yokoyama explicitly adapted its concept for a younger audience, while Akatsuka merely says he was "inspired" by it.
Another important early Magical Girl show was Majokko Meg-chan in 1975. This was the first show to be marketed to boys as well as girls, and featured a number of developments — it was the first Magical Girl show to...
- have a Tomboyish heroine — all magical girls prior to this had been sweet, feminine girls
- feature a rival to the main character.
- include a really evil character. Prior to this, there was a perception that young girls couldn't handle such things.
Originally, all Magical Girl shows were produced by Toei Animation, so "Magical Girl" wasn't so much a genre as a specific collection of shows. This lasted until Ashi Production's Magical Princess Minky Momo hit the airwaves in 1982, followed by Studio Pierrot's Creamy Mami in 1983 (the first Magic Idol show).
The Magic Warrior subgenre, despite being the most well-known style of Magical Girl show in the west, didn't hit until Sailor Moon in 1992 (unless you count Cutey Honey, which wasn't aimed at girls but had a lot of influence on it, or Devil Hunter Yohko, which wasn't aimed at girls either). This was a essentially a combination of the earlier style shows with the Super Hero genre, particularly the Super Sentai formula. Sailor Moon was a huge hit, and naturally other shows were made in the same style, and some were even more divergent from the old-style shows. Many fans felt that shows such as Magic Knight Rayearth were still Magical Girl shows, despite all the dissimilarities from the previous generation (others disagree, and feel that Rayearth is Shoujo RPG World Fantasy instead).
The wave of shows made in Sailor Moon's wake eventually subsided, but other shows are still being made. Contemporary examples include Ojamajo Doremi, Futari Wa Pretty Cure (aimed at both teenage girls and male adults), and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (more of an action series with magical girls).
IMPORTANT NOTE: A girl who can use magic is not necessarily a Magical Girl in the sense of the trope or genre. A Magical Girlfriend, for example, usually does not fit into the same structure that defines a Magical Girl series.
Also see the Index of Magical Girl Tropes.
Magical Girl Works:
- Sailor Moon, perhaps the most famous outside of Japan.
- Magical Princess Minky Momo
- Devil Hunter Yohko
- Angel Tails
- Magical Angel Creamy Mami
- Cosprayers
- Minky Momo
- Wedding Peach
- Card Captor Sakura
- Nurse Angel Ririka SOS
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is an oddity in that rather than young girls, older teenagers and young men are the target audience, plus that it is much more character-driven compared to most other series.
- The latest manga has actually dropped "Magical Girl" from the title, since Nanoha is now 25 and either still a Captain of an Interdimensional Air Force or higher. She's still Magical, but is a woman, not a girl.
- At the same time, a Spin Off manga starring Vivio was released that kept the "Magical Girl" part of the title. Yup, Nanoha's daughter has now officially inherited her mother's role as Magical Girl, complete with Glam Of Shazam.
- Pretear
- The Pretty Sammy series (which itself is a gentle parody of Sailor Moon).
- Puni Puni Poemi viciously satirizes magical girl shows (among many other things).
- For the more mature audience, there is Lingerie Fighter Papillon Rose, which is part Magical Girl and part adult entertainment.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena is a famous subversion often considered the Evangelion of the magical girl genre.
- Princess Tutu took the Utena crowd back deeper into Magical Girl territory, though still very unique.
- More modern, subversive takes on the trope include the Mai universe (Mai-HiME, Mai-Otome, Mai-Otome Zwei) and the Pretty Cure multiverse (Futari Wa Pretty Cure, Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star Yes Precure 5, Fresh Pretty Cure, and Heartcatch Pretty Cure.).
- Onegai My Melody
- Tokyo Mew Mew
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch
- Cosmic Baton Girl Comet-San
- Ojamajo Doremi
- Kamichama Karin
- Moetan
- Kaitou Saint Tail and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne combine this genre with the Kaitou.
- Nanatsuiro Drops
- Shugo Chara
- Ai To Yuuki No Pig Girl Tonde Buurin is a parody and an example at the same time, one of the few (perhaps the only) parodies actually aimed at the same demographic as straight examples. It's protagonist is a Magic Warrior who transforms not into a glamorous Frills Of Justice clad heroine, but instead into a superpowered pig in a cape.
- Gently mocked in the Gakuen Kino novels, a High School AU of the Kinos Journey series; where ultimate pragmatist Kino is thrust into the genre.
- Affectionately parodied in Demashita Powerpuff Girls Z.
- Galaxy Fraulein Yuna (by way of Magic From Technology?)
- Getsumen To Heiki Mina
- Kagihime Monogatari
- Sasami: Magical Girls Club is one of the rare Cute Witch ones to actually see a formal United States localization.
- Umi Monogatari
- Brutal but comedic deconstruction: Dai Mahou Touge
- Hime Chan No Ribbon
- Fate Kaleid Liner Prisma Ilya. The original Fate Stay Night sequel "Fate/Hollow Ataraxia" had one side story where Rin has an interdimensional teacher who trains her by giving her a Magical Girl Rod that "followed rules from a different dimension." This manga takes that notion and runs with it, but with Ilya as the heroine.
Comic Books
Web Original
- Deconstructed hard in Sailor Nothing.
- Played with in various Improfanfic series:
- Magical Girl Hunters — So many girls are empowered as magical girls that they're starting to run out of sensible themes and names, and many magical girl groups are starting to target lesser evils like corporate greed. The protagonists are the eponymous hunters, hired assassins who eliminate magical girls who have become pests. Some featured deconstructions include Sailor H, the Sailor Shoggoths, and the 64 (later 128) Crayola Knights.
- DoGooders — Two members of the eponymous band are magical girls. Several other magical girls appear in the series, including Sailor Becky who wields the power of the Otaku (ripping off attacks from various anime) and Sailor Exposition who holds the power of being able to put people to sleep by extremely long explanations. There are even two different flavors of Dark Magical Girl.
- Girls With Guns — Follows the somewhat nonsensical adventures of Pretty Deadly and Sailor Becky from the above two series as they take on a Crap Saccharine World by virtue of superior armaments.
- So far in Arcana Magi, Alysia Morales is a magical girl under unfortunate circumstances. Meanwhile in Arcana Magi Zero, Alysia Perez and Megumi Miyazaki are magical girls complete with Transformation Sequence, magical outfits , and random attack names.
Webcomics
- Angel Moxie is both a parody and an homage of the genre. It is about Junior High student Alex (a fairly standard magical girl) and her two friends (each of whom have super powers but otherwise don't have many magical girl characteristics) as they fight off Lord Yzin and his servants. It can be found here
 .
- Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT parodies the genre with a Fan Girl who becomes a (sorta) magical girl... and proceeds to apply large amounts of Wrong Genre Savvy.
Western Animation
Magical Girls in other works
Anime and Manga
- Cutey Honey is a forerunner of Magic Warrior version, which blended fanservice and fun battles in one tongue-in-cheek package. Fans are divided whether she counts as a true magical girl or a superhero.
- In an episode of Gokujou Seitokai, one character is suspected of being a magical girl; both the Magic Warrior and the Cute Witch (complete with Glam Of Shazam) versions are brought up.
- The same situation pops up in Love Hina, where Kaolla Su is compared to a Magical Girl because she eats a lot, talks to animals, and can change into an adult. Kentaro Sakata and one of Keitaro's highschool friends vainly struggle to convince the main characters that Kaolla was one.
- Angol Moa's true form in Keroro Gunsou seems to be a parody of the Magical Girl; she has the Stock Footage transformation and special-attack scenes, the costume, and a cute personality, but she's the Lord of Terror from the prophecies of Nostradamus who came to destroy the world with the "Lucifer Spear".
- Dark Magician Girl in Yu-Gi-Oh! is largely based on this idea, with several of her summoning scenes looking similar to magical girl transformation sequences. Despite the name, she is not a Dark Magical Girl.
- Behoimi in Pani Poni Dash. She's not really a Magical Girl, but that doesn't stop her from playing the role. She even gets her own Image Song about her Magical Girl-ness.
- Lampshaded: the DVD extras of Ah My Goddess have a gag dub in which a student accuses Belldandy of being a Magical Girl. Belldandy insists that she is a Goddess, not a Magical Girl, and they then debate the crucial differences.
- This was likely inspired by a situation in the manga when Sayoko witnessed Belldandy's powers and accused her of being a witch. Sayoko specifically referred to Magical Girl tropes, including the Idol Singer.
- Parodied in Suzumiya Haruhi; the main characters create a movie in which the protagonist is a bunny girl-waitress from the future whose attacks include shooting laser beams, rifle bullets, and micro black holes (the last two novel-only) from her eyes.
- Episode 7 of [Zoku] Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei focused on Art Shifts, with the title sequence and parts of the episode devoted to Kafuka, Chiri, and Meru as the magical girl team Model Warrior Lily Cure, and Nozomu Itoshiki as the Big Bad, The Teacher Of Despair. It even closes with an On The Next continuing the plot. This is a drastic change from the usual format of the show.
- To Love Ru combines this with an Expy. Kyoko Kirisaki from Black Cat is turned into Magical Flame Kyoko, a pyromaniac magical girl.
- Ninin Ga Shinobuden has a parody in the final episode with "Magical Nin-Nin Shinobu".
- In Kannagi, after viewing a magical girl on TV, Nagi immediately buys a toy wand and modifies it into an impurity-vanquishing spiritual weapon to compensate for her lack of power. Then she gets really into it and starts doing poses. It looks goofy on an ancient goddess, but Nagi's clearly enjoying herself.
- Mahou Sensei Negima has the Show Within A Show, "Mahou Shoujo Biblion". The show's resident Cosplay Otaku Girl/Playful Hacker/Meta Guy cosplays as a character from the show. Said girl eventually gets a Magical Girl staff as her artifact. It gives her super hacking powers.
- Asakara, on witnessing Negi's powers for the first time, theorizes that he is a magical girl (boy version).
- There's no way Charlotte Coolhorn isn't a parody of this.
- Galaxy Angel has had an episode about magical girls.
- From the same TV season, episode eight of H 2 O Footprints In The Sand had an extended sequence revolving around Otoha as a magical girl. That was probably the least odd thing in that episode.
- Ayumi Kinoshita, a bespectacled Ill Girl from Hell Teacher Nube, learns from her teacher how to project her astral body as a physical presence, just so she can attend school with her friends. In the process, she learns to transform it into any shape she wishes... including an indestructible Magical Girl when said friends are kidnapped.
- The OVA of School Days features a parody on the Magical Girl genre with Kokoro and Kotonoha as magical girls respectivly.
Comic Books
Live Action TV
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, oddly enough, can be seen as a Magic Warrior show. The first season in particular looks quite a bit like a classic Magical Girl series viewed through a funhouse mirror. This is probably not a coincidence, since Joss Whedon is known to be a fan of Sailor Moon.
- Even Super Sentai has an example. Carranger, the parody series, had the kid sister of the series' main villainess transforming into White Racer, a racing-themed magical girl, to occasionally help out the heroes. Also, she had a cat/car-based mecha. Carranger was an odd year.
- GARO, despite claiming to be a tokusatsu show, feels much more like a Magical Girl anime. It also has it's music done by JAM Project. What's not to like?
Video Games
- The character MOMO from the Xenosaga series gains two different Magical Girl forms, each with their own extended (and fortunately skippable) Transformation Sequence.
- In Red Alert 3, the Empire of the Rising Sun's hero unit, Yuriko Omega, is a powerful psychic who can flip tanks with her mind. She wears a schoolgirl uniform, and seems to be no older than 18.
- Fantastic Fraulein Mumor. Final Fantasy XI, being a Japanese MMORPG, was bound to have this eventually.
- Midori from Devil Survivor seems to see herself as one of these, sadly she is in a Shin Megami Tensei game.
- The trope is parodied in [[killer7]] with the boss Ayame Blackburn, with her over-the-top introduction speech and ludicrous soubriquet.
- In the doujin fighting game Eternal Fighter Zero, Sayuri Kurata's fighting style is a reference to the Magical Girl genre, complete with a transforming Magic Wand.
- A Show Within A Game within No More Heroes is Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly, apparently also a Super Robot show. We never see the anime itself, but the main character seems to be obsessed with it (he is, after all, an Otaku).
- The Sequel features what is apparently the intro of the show.
- Shannon of God Hand is a villainous (though not exactly Dark Magical Girl) parody of this.
- Nearly the entire cast of Rosenkreuzstilette.
Webcomics
Western Animation
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