Young, magical, and about to deliver a world of hurt... and possibly
friendship. The intersection of
Magical Girl with
Super Hero(ine).
In Japan, the extended growth-to-maturity metaphor
Magical Girl archetype can mean a variety of things; some do more than use their powers to improve or complicate their lives. Some go out and battle
Dramatic Evil, usually with a lot of mystic firepower and weird outfits (usually a
glammed-up Mini Dress Of Power) and
called attacks. This is not magic for magic's sake; the character rarely finds this enjoyable but gets morally cowed into it.
The action-oriented
Magical Girl Warriors have the extra bonus of appeal to male demographics, so they can be very lucrative; in this case they often resemble
Distaff Counterparts of Japanese
superheroes, particularly
Sentai and other
Henshin Hero characters. Importers of
Magical Girl series to the West tend to favor these characters, so
Magical Girl Warriors tends to become the established trope over
Cute Witches.
They can also be
Kicking Ass in All Her Finery, if the girl is outright
Badass and her dress is frilly enough.
The
Dark Magical Girl mostly appears in
Magical Girl Warrior series. Not to be confused with the unrelated
Magic Knight.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The earliest prototype was Go Nagai's Cutey Honey franchise, which slowly mutated and grew to have an unexpected female fanbase whenever the Fanservice level fluctuated heavily.
- Pretty much cemented by the enormous popularity of Sailor Moon, which introduced the Sentai elements to the genre.
- Currently, the most popular show of this type in Japan appears to be Futari wa Pretty Cure and its sequels/spin-offs.
- Parodied in the seinen series Pretty Sammy.
- Parodied also within the shojo demographic with Ai To Yuuki No Pig Girl Tonde Buurin about a girl who transforms into a superpowered.... pig.
- Revolutionary Girl Utena particularly embodies the "growing up as a struggle" metaphor, with the added bonus of Gnostic metaphor thrown in for good measure. This was emphasized way more in the anime than in the manga, however.
- Wedding Peach
- Tokyo Mew Mew
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is a Seinen example that starts as a standard Magical Girl Warrior anime then takes a more militaristic bent after its first season. Contrary to the trope description, Nanoha thoroughly enjoys using her magical abilities to befriend the living hell out of people.
- In the StrikerS
season, the girls are in a military, so they are literary magical girl warriors.
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is a cross of this and Magic Idol Singer.
- Shikabane Hime is a rather dark variant - the magical girls are undead corpses who must kill 108 other corpses in order to get into Heaven. Also, they use guns.
- Mahou Sensei Negima! has many examples.
- The Show Within a Show Magical Girl Biblion is a parody of this, complete with in-universe Rule 34 doujinshi that typically follows these character types. Since Chisame cosplays the characters featured there, her Pactio Card turned her into one with a cyberspace theme.
- Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome. Both have strong elements of Deconstruction.
- Cyber Team In Akihabara
- Black★Rock Shooter
- Devil Hunter Yohko
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which viciously deconstructs the idea of young girls fighting eldritch horrors in their spare time.
- Kamichama Karin
- Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, considered a forerunner to Nanoha.
- Sweet Valerian features three girls who transform into superpowered monster-fighting bunny rabbits.
- Kämpfer adds a Gender Bender twist - main character Natsuru turns into a girl whenever he transforms.
- Cardcaptor Sakura
- Shugo Chara!
- Corrector Yui
- Magic Knight Rayearth crosses this with Swords And Sorcery.
- Invoked in Mao-chan, where aliens Earth is being invaded by aliens so cute that figthing them is viewed as bullying, forcing the heads of Japan's defense forces to have their cute granddaughters fight the aliens.
- Makeruna Makendo adds a kendo theme.
- Hyper Speed Gran Doll is a very close follower of Sailor Moon, except with more of a sci-fi feel.
- Dream Hunter Rem is one of the earliest examples.
- Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel
- Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA comes courtesy of the Nasuverse.
- Magical Canan actually uses this term to describe their magical girls (Mahou Senshi.)
Comic Books
Fanfiction
Literature
Video Games
Webcomics
- El Goonish Shive: In the later comics Elliot gains a super-heroine spell after already having the ability to shapeshift into virtually any conceivable female human form including transformation of clothes.
Web Original
- Fey of the Whateley Universe. Down to the backstory, the ancient Faerie who rides along in her head, her ability to summon armor magically, and a magical battle in Boston in which she and The Necromancer spent most of the fight trying to intimidate each other by calling their attacks.
Western Animation
