Guidance Needed for Reconstructing the Magical Girl Genre.

In response to Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, I'm currently creating a Reconstruction of the Magical Girl Genre, with new ideas coming along into the story.

So we have this 16-year old heroine who is apparently a loser, has a dysfunctional family; her parents are workaholics, and her older brother is highly neurotic (it's made more apparently in the later part of the story) due to his high expectations made by his parents and his friends. Yeah, our heroine is the Unfavourite in the family. She doesn't have any friends and finds her only comfort (and her source of escaping the harsh reality) through reading manga drawn by her favourite manga artist.

Until one day, she came home finding an Ugly Cute (and rude) mascot in one of her grocery bags and the mascot throws her the item that can make her transform into a Mahou Shoujo without giving the heroine to chance to do or say anything. Thus, she is now forced to fight the forces of evil living in the city she lives in. At first she doesn't like the idea of being a Mahou Shoujo after thinking of the consequences she have to face should she makes a mistake (eg. accidentally kill someone, bad publicity) and the amount of energy having to fight the abominations appearing in the city. So she temporarily rejects the mascot strongly but soon finds herself in a situation that being a Mahou Shoujo means having to protecting the people she loves and also to prevent anyone else from abusing the power of the Mahou Shoujo.

And about the people she cared about? Well, she makes some friends as the story moves along (thank Character Development) and while doing that she meets another Mahou Shoujo to figure out the people behind the abominations.

I know, I know it sounds cliche but it's the deep and complex interactions the heroine have with her family and her friends changed her to a more confident person, as well as learning what it means to be a true Mahou Shoujo. Instead of scaring the audience (which Madoka has already did) there are quite a number of funny moments in this series too. Though this series has a fair amount of Nightmare Fuel to unexpected readers.

I need opinion on this. Constructive criticism are welcome. Also, I need a good title for this one. Anyone have some ideas? Even if it sounds cheesy just type it down. Who knows; it might be just the title I need for this story.

edited 26th Mar '11 5:07:54 AM by MrHollowRabbit

Well, it does sound a little cliche, like a Saturday morning cartoon show. The trick is developing an unique enough plot to make sure people don't just dismiss it as "seen it all before".

Why not Mahou Shoujo? That could be your Working Title for now, but you'll need an English one.

Yeah, I'm trying to.

I'm planning for a Tarot Deck theme for the Monster of the Week. There is actually a pattern in the victims involved that resulted in the abominations but I can't reveal much right now. Like I said before, the story's not all butterflies and sunshine. Lots of depressing people, which isn't my usual style in the stories I wrote, which all of them are still in WIP.

Some ideas for this might be good. I'm still thinking of the origins of the mascots, had some thoughts of them being some sort of human aliens, but that will be too much like Madoka.

edited 26th Mar '11 7:43:38 AM by MrHollowRabbit

• Magical girls for some reason always know what to do and what they are doing, even when they start. Usually there's little explanation for this, othertimes they just hear what they need to do in their heads, etc. Sailor Moon has to be told what to say and do by Luna, but as soon as Luna tells her to say "moon tiara action", suddenly she is an expert at throwing tiaras.

In response, try averting this by having your Mahou Shoujo have to either figure out what to do on her own, or having her realistically suck at what she is doing. I can't expect a real person to be able to throw a powered-up tiara from day one. Perhaps she doesn't know how to properly charge up her power, so it flops mid charge. Perhaps she misses. Etc...

In any case, she needs to use her smarts, and needs to practice.

So like a How Do I Shot Web? situation? I was thinking if the mascot has no idea on teaching her how to use her powers. Thanks for the idea. More ideas would be appreciated.

edited 26th Mar '11 6:27:30 PM by MrHollowRabbit

The trope came to me, but I couldn't find a decent way to play with it: Defeat Means Friendship. Maybe it doesn't work? Or it works more realistically (would you really start considering the POV of someone who just curb stomped you, or would you rather pound them back first)? Or someone is genre savvy enough about it (hey, Defeat Means Friendship right? Time to slip on The Mole mode!)?

I will give you some advice :D

If you want to reconstruct Madoka you will need to first known the elements that are being deconstructed.

1. For instance the nature of the deal. In Madoka the girls are making a deal without knowing the full implications of it. and that uninforned choice has a very high price.If you make your mentor mascot to force her. It wouldn't be the same thing.If you want to reconstruct this . You can't remove the choice.Being responsible of your actions is a big theme on Madoka. No one obligated Mami, nor Sayaka etc.
2. Madoka made a good point showing that power by itself doesn't fix anyones life. And that is true , it would be a Broken Aesop if your girl's life improves only by magic.
3. The power of love was deconstructed too. Desiring and loving something isn't enough sometimes.Acting trough that love is. ( see episode 9). For example in Madoka , Homura makes a big sacrifice for friendship. But she doesn't simply desire it. She fights for it.
4. Define the villain motives. Madoka deconstructed the Card Carring Villain. The witches aren't simply on this For the Evulz, they are ex-magical girls that are now living in an Ironic Hell dimention. A total perversion of their old selves. Kb isn't doing this out of malice but for entropy. Try to give your villains a believable and good motives. Madoka make a good point showing us that evil isnt as simple as that.
5. Give your magical girls a higher purpose. In Madoka . Magical girl's efforts we're meaningless. they would eventually become the witches they fought.{ In most magical girl series there is hardly ever a pont for having the heroine besides fighting random monsters.
6. wait for the lAst 2 episodes. The most important stuff is yet to cone.

7. Madoka was amazing, and complex. making a classic magical girl series straight won't reconstruct this. You need to take all the elements that were deconstructed (make a list), show us why they aren't so bad after all and why being a magical gi isn't so bad despite of them.

Hope it helps!

edited 27th Mar '11 10:54:49 AM by FallenLegend

You could start out with her mutilating the toy who gave her powers perhaps a day or 2 after getting them.
You could turn the plot into her alone becoming a magnet for magic since the pet toy orginally was a limiter who sought out girls to place the power somewhere.
Her rapidly increasing mana powers will then slowly attract mana eaters, eldritch abominations who feast on pure mana.
The first part of the plot could be her attempting to find another toy to contain her powers, to get her powers to grow slowly enough so that she won't attract a Chutulu that will consume the planet and her.
At some point you could do a genre swap with her polluting the entire population with mana, and building a utopia as seen in most jRPGs. Flying continents, solar system barriers, etc.

Maybe try playing with Dark Magical Girl by having one who's an out-and-out villain, instead of a lonely Woobie? That's something you don't see often.

Okay, so that'd make her more of a Dark Action Girl, but she could try to pass herself off as a DMG so she can become The Mole, like in papercut's suggestion.

edited 27th Mar '11 4:12:21 PM by Xandriel

Hey, Mr. Hollow Rabbit. I too am intending to make a reconstruction of the Magical Girl Genre. I can be sure to help out too if you like.

This was basicly the premise of Substitute Magical Girl, The protagonists is basicly drafted as a Magical Girl, resists, but eventually grows to apricate it

@ Fallen Legend.

And what kind of higher purposes would you suggest or recommend? It would be helpful if you can reply back.

I agree completely with Fallen Legend, this isn't in any way a reconstruction, this is just a return to the original trope. If you think of a deconstruction as a criticism, a reconstruction is a smarter answer to the criticism that takes the points it makes into account.

With regard to point 5, as Legend says magical girls spend all their time fighting monsters (or 'bad guys'). Often the monsters somehow represent darkness or evil, but it remains that spreading peace and love by serial violence is fundamentally self-defeating, which I think was probably the point PMMM was trying to make. A response to that might involve magical girls that use their powers in a more sensible and creative way to bring about actual goals rather than blindly charging at whatever monster gets thrown at them, or a work that acknowledges the downsides of violence while also honouring its occasional necessity in the service of a positive end.

Magical girls often claim to strive for noble but childish and abstract goals like bringing peace to the world or protecting the innocent so maybe a reconstruction could feature a pursuit of similar values but with deeper exploration of what that entails and what challenges are involved?

edited 14th Oct '12 3:18:06 PM by Kesteven

Here's my idea:

Humanity is plagued by horrible monsters like Heartless, Hollows, Akuma, Chimeras, Shikabane, Yamiko, Wastelocks, Reavers, etc.

Magical creatures known as familiars recruit teenagers with attitude to fight the monsters. However, as they fight the familiar reveals horrible secrets about the nature of magical girls/boys (e.g. magic is an inherently unnatural and corrupting force, some magical girls/boys are former monsters that developed sanity), the monsters they fight (e.g. some of them used to be people and by killing them their souls are consigned to oblivion, some of them can be redeemed, not all monsters are evil), and reality itself (e.g. the city is an artificial construct and everyone except the protagonists are fakes, there is no afterlife and magic cannot reverse death).

Nonetheless, the familiar genuinely has their best interest in mind. Things really are that bad.

But as long as they have friendship they will overcome any obstacle. Literally. Without friendship they'll go crazy, die, or turn into a monsters or something.

edited 18th Oct '12 10:39:49 AM by Zenoseiya