Magical girls aren't like the Child Soldiers of Third World conflicts, sure, but they are still children being sent out to fight in potentially deadly battles.
^Yeah, that. I don't mean that magical girls = child soldiers, but that they're similar in the sense that both are children fighting in deadly situations. Most series don't deal with the traumatic effects this would have on children, because, as you said, it's Wish Fulfillment, and part of Madoka's deconstruction is this realistic treatment of that aspect of being a Magical Girl.
I think part of what makes PMMM's deconstruction so obvious is because it explicitly sets up expectations for series that are more on the Wish Fulfillment side. Madoka, being horribly Wrong Genre Savvy in the beginning, does things like design her magical girl outfit (reminiscent of Tomoyo, and is excited about working together with her Magical Girl senpai to save people. In a more idealistic series, she would never lose that idealism, even though she might be hurt or defeated in battle. Instead, PMMM portrays her trauma at seeing Mami die in a realistic way; her idealism - and along with it, the illusion of the worldview of a "regular" Magical Girl series - is shattered. It parallels the shock of seeing another soldier die in battle - there is a reason soldiers get PTSD - and therefore is a more realistic take on the whole idea of fighting monsters.
edited 21st Mar '11 6:41:17 AM by Anarchy
Although I get what you said mostly, I don't acknowledge the conveyed equation that traumatizing = realistic. Something being traumatizing like that, doesn't count though. Being manipulated is not what Magical Girl is all about. However, the way you put it that Jumped at the Call has its lethal flaws, I can agree with
@KSPAM : If you ever happen to try and talk down on a show, let's see others say the same thing to you
What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...I think it's perfectly realistic to be traumatized by having to go through life-or-death battles on a daily basis. It would not be realistic to act as if such life-or-death situations are fun or glorious or cute or nothing but pure awesome without any experience of the fear of death whatsoever - that would be Wish Fulfillment. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Wish Fulfillment, I mean.
edited 21st Mar '11 8:19:37 AM by Anarchy
I guess some of it is whether or not one wants to have the magical girls win in the end, or have the story end in a tragedy. Because even if they're scared of fighting monsters, like Sailor Moon is, she still has to do it otherwise the enemies will destroy/take over the world. Part of what makes them heroes is because they face their fears and fight against evil anyway. And sometimes, in Sailor Moon's case, they end up reforming their enemies instead of killing them. Magical girl fights aren't like real-life war where it's Grey-and-Gray Morality, it's more like Black-and-White Morality where there's clear-cut evil that has to be destroyed. And as for the Kid Hero trope in general, kids like thinking of themselves as being able to do the same things adult heroes can, so that's what the shows are about, and some adults (like me) find the younger characters appealing, either out of nostalgia or love of role reversal or whatever (because I remember hating how all the heroes were grown men when I was younger and wanted to see young girls be the heroes).
edited 21st Mar '11 8:46:26 AM by Rainbow
That's a very nice analysis of Magical Girl tropes and why they exist. But the point of deconstructions is to take apart those tropes and explore them in a realistic context. There is no Black-and-White Morality in real life, for example. Taking that clear cut morality and showing that the boundaries between good and evil aren't always that clear is one common method of deconstructing Black-and-White Morality.
edited 21st Mar '11 8:53:07 AM by Anarchy
Dealing with the consequences of having kids fight doesn't have to be horribly depressing. One could, for example, show the characters coping through Gallows Humor rather than angsting.
I need to take those to heart when I start writing again. What the Rainbow Colored Morality? I isn't that even more realistic than Gray and Grey morality? Everyone seems to have their own moral code tha the follow, some more stranger than others and not everyone agrees on the same thing.
edited 21st Mar '11 10:27:35 AM by G.G.
You mean Blue-and-Orange Morality? Yeah, that's how real life works.
Here's an idea I bet no-one's ever done before!
What if the Mentor Mascot / Fairy Companion is in fact a previous Magical Girl who was turned into a Non-Human Sidekick as punishment because she failed to defeat the Big Bad, and it's implied that the same thing will happen to the current magical girl (whom the previous magical girl has to mentor as further punishment for failure) if she in turn also fails?
And here's a justification for Frilly Upgrade (maybe).
Basically, during the previous season, the magical girl sacrifices her power to destroy the Big Bad permanently. Then a new threat arises, and she is given new powers by a different source. Because her old outfit was so iconic (to her, at least) her new outfit resembles it, but has enough differences to count as a different set of clothes completely. And if she has Elemental Powers, she keeps the types of elements, but gets new attacks based on those elements.
Well, whaddaya think?
edited 21st Mar '14 5:29:15 PM by fruitstripegum
That second one is sorta played with in Sailor Moon, actually. I forget how, in each individual case (it happened every season), but in the second season the addition of the Ginzuishou to the title character's transformation locket gave her an upgrade, and the newly-reacquired knowledge the guardian cats Luna and Artemis allowed them to revamp with the henshin pens of the other senshi.
edited 27th Apr '11 9:11:23 AM by FurikoMaru
A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!The second one was done by Kamichama Karin, too: the rings were all broken by the start of the second manga series, so they just get new ones. It's more a justification for So Last Season than Frills of Justice, though.
I think the best way to deconstruct this genre is to have a single heroine. No Five-Man Band, just one single, solitary magical girl fighting the evil organisation.
Since she doesn't have any teammates, and thus no-one to talk to about her duty, the stress she no doubt experiences from the never-ending battles, her Secret Identity and her Triple Shifter life would be a lot worse, pushing her ever closer to either therapy or a complete mental breakdown.
Well, how's that for an idea?
Sailor Nothing was basically like that, until Dusty gave powers to Himei's friends.
edited 29th Apr '11 2:34:27 PM by ThatHuman
something^^ What are you, high? There've been solo acts in this genre from the day it started, practically. Majokko Megu Chan, Creamy Mami, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, Fancy Lala, Minky Momo, Cutey Honey if you want to count her, Devil Hunter Yohko up until Azusa shows up, Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki, Yuki from megatokyo... they've only fallen by the wayside lately because Sailor Moon made Magical Girl Warrior ensembles insanely popular.
Bloody odd mis-type.
edited 29th Apr '11 5:30:51 PM by FurikoMaru
A True Lady's Quest - A Jojo is You!![]()
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Also, eventually she would tell someone. She'd have to. She'd go insane if she didn't, if its like you suggest. That would be an interesting thing to watch, but you could only get so much mileage out of it before it became unbelievable.
Even Batman has someone to talk to, for Madokami's sake!
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Look, it was a suggestion, that's all. There's no need for the attitude.
Anyway, how's about this? The Big Bad has a vision and sees the one who has the power to foil his/her scheme, so he/she activates some type of "monster magnet" and draws every evil-doer in the area - both human and non-human - to the magical girl's hometown with the same goal: destroy the magical girl.
Is that a better suggestion?
I'm thinking of a Magical Girl who wins, and then real life moves ahead of her. In her endless battles, her friends have gradually drifted away from her, her schoolwork has fallen off the charts, and the Final Examinations are looming. Worse, one of the remnants of the Enemy issues a challenge while she's halfway through her Finals! Cut to the future, where the endless stream of Remnants seeking revenge make it difficult for her to maintain a normal life, making her marriage get grounded on the rocks, and then one day, she's just in time to see her own daughter pick up her mantle.
edited 7th May '11 11:33:03 AM by AceOfScarabs
The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!![]()
It's not a deconstruction, just a suggestion. They've appeared on this thread before, so there's nothing wrong with it.
Although, I suppose it does justify Tokyo Is The Centre Of The Universe. And it'd probably lead to a Hoist by His Own Petard situation if the signal was reversed and directed towards the Big Bad, causing all the monsters to attack them.
And wouldn't you be pissed off if someone asked if you were high and called you an odd mis-type?

I don't know if magical girls are really that close to real-life child soldiers. True, they're young girls/teenagers who are fighting and often in life-or-death situations, but most of them are allowed to live relatively normal lives otherwise, which is different from the little I know about real child soldiers, or adult soldiers, for that matter. I guess I personally don't like thinking of the magical girls I love watching and writing about as equivalent to real-life child soldiers because one of the draws of the magical girl genre for me is seeing young girls BE the powerful saviors of the world. I like that Wish Fulfillment aspect of the genre and idealism and find it disturbing when others say that someone like Sailor Moon is no different than a girl who is forced to use a gun in real life. In fact, I have never heard magical girls made to be equivalent to child soldiers before coming to this site.
Or is it just that one Madoka show that makes them equivalent to real-life child soldiers? I understand that fighting for one's life in real life is terrible and scary, but that's an argument that could go for many adventure/fighting monster stories, not just magical girl stories.
I think I might have a problem with deconstructing the magical girl genre in general, in that I don't like things being made more "realistic" and cynical because I like the idealistic, Tastes Like Diabetes aspects of that genre. Or at least people saying that the deconstructed, gritty version is how the show really is and that I'm fooling myself for liking idealistic shows.
edited 21st Mar '11 6:10:59 AM by Rainbow