Magical Boys: Do They Exist?

Transformation Sequence? Power of Love or Power of Friendship? Costume Porn? Morality Issues? The right optimistic tone?

Really though Yu Gi Oh Abridged might be the closest there is to a Gender Flipped Magical Girl.

edited 5th May '11 8:42:10 AM by Raso

The problem is even though there is obviously a difference, it's a little hard defining the differences between a Shōjo Magical Girl anime and a typical Action Shōnen. Bleach is definitely not Magical Boy, besides their audience.

I can't believe no one had this idea before.

edited 5th May '11 12:35:12 PM by chihuahua0

yes they are called Power Rangers!!

...That's Sentai. Sentai uses the traditonal Five-Man Band, has flashy moves, hammy, and more sci-fi.

edited 5th May '11 2:32:41 PM by chihuahua0

Saint Seiya?

It's like a gender flipped Sailor Moon (or rather, Sailor Moon is like a gender flipped Saint Seiya), complete with powers derived from the cosmos and the characters being reincarnations. <<

Anyway, being Sci-Fi doesn't stop something from being a Magical Girl. See also: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Cyberteam In Akihabara

edited 5th May '11 4:12:07 PM by Servbot

People have had this idea, its just not used very often.

Again, that's Sentai. A Shonen Sentai.

It seems like a Magical Girl story is only one if it's written that way.

Well, yes. Isn't that obvious?

Its why My~HiME isn't a magical girl show, for example.

I haven't watched Cyberteam (on my list of things to do...), but everything I know about it suggests its no more a Magical Girl show than Bubblegum Crisis is.

edited 5th May '11 4:28:05 PM by SakurazakiSetsuna

^^ That's the thing though, Magical Girls, at least the ones influnced by Sailor Moon, is pretty much a sentai show, except featuring an all-female team.

Only other difference is that they have a male target audience they use technological armor they use mecha uhh... the companies said so? <<;

edited 5th May '11 4:32:23 PM by Servbot

Good execution of formatting.

The company says so. That's probably what really defines a Magical Girl story. Meaning: A Magical Boy story is still fresh for pickings.

edited 5th May '11 4:30:54 PM by chihuahua0

^^^ Cyberteam revolves around a prince that the main character pines for, power-ups from out of nowhere, marketable mascots, and a blatant Wish-Fulfillment story for an ordinary schoolgirl. It's a pretty by-the-books Magical Girl story.

edited 5th May '11 4:34:31 PM by Servbot

@ Fallen Legend: It's already been pointed out that Kamen Rider is closer to Magical Boy compared to Super Sentai.

Hey, would the Hibiki riders count as male (and instrument-using instead of singing) Magic Idol Singers?

Does he use his powers and post Transformation Sequence form to achieve stardom?

Um, I don't think so. Never actually saw Hibiki myself, just the Decade stuff involving Hibiki characters. But yeah, no glamorous stardom, I think.

StS is not a Sentai, unless someone can point out the kaiju and giant mecha.

There's a webcomic called Shounen Fight!. Despite the name, it's intended to be a magical girl manga with male characters.

It's pretty good, actually.

Does a "Magical Boy" genre exist? Yes it does: Mega Man.

Let's start with the obvious: Mega/Rock is a robot who just wants to be a good boy for his "father" Dr. Light. Robot Masters are your Monsters of the Week, all of which are Theme Named (while not quite In The Name Of The Moon, very close to it), complete with Defeat Means Friendship and New Powers as the Plot Demands. His brief and cool Transformation Sequences ("You get...") further elaborated in subsequent series (Mega Man ZX) is basically a Shout-Out to Magical Girl transformation sequences, using his robot body to lampshade the nudity. He calls his attacks in subsequent games (Powered Up/Maverick Hunter X) were voiceacting is available is pretty much no different form a Magical Girl spamming a magical attack. Blues/Protoman is always that dude... (later replaced by Zero) and Rush also acts as a Cool Pet. Let's not forget the younger sibling Roll to appeal to the "other" Periphery [[Lolicon Demographic]] the same way [[Shotacon little brothers]] are in Magical Girl anime.

Power Crystals also explain why Zero has boobgems. And let's not forget the dozens of subtext between X and Zero.

But most important is about how "innocent/naive" Rock/Mega or X remains in the games. Its pretty much emphasized in the entire series his "worrying for others" makes him special among other robots, and some even say is the source of his power.

Mega Man is just a Magical Girl show disguised as a game for all ages both male and female. The only difference is the use of technology to replace magic, but still having the same convenient effect. Later games in the series make him styled more like a Magical Girl Warrior (X/Maverick Hunter X), to the point that like certain magical girls, he even acends to a higher plane of existance (Mega Man Zero). There are a dozen more tropes I could pull off from any Magical Girl show that also appears in a Megaman game and vise versa.

edited 22nd May '11 10:21:51 PM by s5555

Here's a list of mahou shoujo tropes. Would you mind giving examples of at least ten of them showing up in Megaman games? Please do not stretch and give kida-sorta almost examples.

By the way, Theme Naming and In the Name of the Moon are not related. Plus, I'm pretty sure the Megaman powers aren't really examples of Magic from Technology. That trope does not work that way. Or else things like Super Robots and the Doctor's TARDIS would count.

edited 23rd May '11 2:58:21 AM by ThatHuman

@chihuahua 0: So, according to your definition, a Magical Girl story must be printed in a shojo magazine?

^

It exist, just hard to get out of Japan. There is increasing cult popularity of the magical boy/fake girl in Japan, which is actually quite disgusting. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ This idea just appears more in manga nowadays, it would be hard to get it to anime, those that actually got out are usually boys that got transformed into magical girls by magical powers, rather than actually still being a male after the transformation.

Has anyone noticed Shugo Chara? That has Magical Boys! Tadase, Ikuto and two other guys whose names I can't remember get them! Tadase get's a frilly shirt, and mini crown, and stuff like that, so that's kinda what I based Magical Boys on.

edited 18th Jun '11 8:52:35 PM by IMaginaryTown

If we're talking about series that don't star boys but include them as supporting characters, throw in Kamichama Karin. The second season actually has more boys than girls. And I'm sure you could find plenty more series like this.

I haven't read/seen it, but Dog Days sounds like what you're looking for.

You forgot the cute witch, a character who lives in a magical realm and comes to earth either to have fun (Sally the Witch) or to take part in a competetion to become a queen (Majokko Megu-chan, Sugar Sugar Rune).