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[berrychanx]

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Tokyo Mew Mew x Ojamajo DoReMì Dokkan! Crossover

[magicalgirlgrimoire]

Genesis of a Genre: Part 1

Defining the four key archetypes of Magical Girl characters found in Japanese Magical Girl media.

I feel this wouldn’t be a great body of research without outlining some kind of historical context for the media were talking about! In this mini-series of essays I’ll be going over the first part of my research, which seeks to define the key influences of the Magical Genre, including industry and production influences, and provide an outline for reoccurring archetypes and conventions found in the narratives. This focuses mainly on Japanese Media, but I might do one about the history of western Magical Girl stuff too!

I pose there are four key archetypes for the protagonist (and sometimes supporting characters) of any Magical Girl franchise: The Witch, The Princess, The Warrior and the Idol. Any given Magical Girl may be one or a combination of several; for example Usagi (Sailor Moon)  is a combination of the Warrior and Princess while Akko (Little Witch Academia) is the Witch.

Girl Witches and Growing up

Many writer have cited the Witch as the first true Magical Girl Archetype; Sally the Witch and Magical Akko-chan are often regarded as the progenitors of the Genre. Both were published in the notable shoujo magazine Ribon in the 60’s and both were adapted into anime by Toei; Ribon notably also published several of Arina Tenemura’s works, including the Magical girl series Full Moon while Toei is the studio behind Sailor Moon’s anime in the 90’s, as well as creating both the Ojamo Doremi and Pretty Cure franchises in the late 90’s and 2000’s respectively. Sally was influenced by the popular American sit-com Bewitched, but reimagined to focus on an adolescent girl-witch who must keep her identity secret. She was often alone in her quest too, perhaps with a magical pet confidant, unlike future entries where Magical Girls would be a part of a team or have complex relationships to others with powers. There were ideas of destinies or even secret royal birth-rights, but ultimately the protagonist was simply a girl, who was born with magical powers.

These early entries set off the precedent for Magical Girl as a genre being inherently linked to themes of coming of age; the magic of the young characters often being allegorical for childhood innocence and ultimately being abandoned or given up as a part of their growing up. It’s notable at this point in the genre, very few or no women worked in these spaces; both Sally and Akko are written by men. I wonder how the genre may have been different if it was not the case; could these young girls be allowed to grow up magical if a woman wrote their stories? I feel this is a reoccurring theme in so many future works, so stick a pin in that.

In the contemporary sense, while Magical Witches aren’t quite as frequent as they were in at the start of the genre, there are still several shows that carry on the tradition. Ojamo Doremi, while borrowing several features from later warrior/sentai styled shows like Sailor Moon, has the lead characters as girl witches again. Madoka, though stylistically more a Warrior styled show, also alludes to the history of magical girl as a genre with the naming of it’s initial antagonistic characters being “witches” while the leads are “puella magi” or literally maiden witches, though the way it explores these themes is a conversation for another essay. Lastly, Little Witch Academia is the most recent notable example of the pure Magical Girl Witch. The franchise is like a true homecoming for the genre; I could wax on about how it’s a culmination of everything the genre’s gone through in the last 60 years. From it’s allusions to flashy transformation sequences, to it’s shift in focus to friendships between girls, Little Witch Academia is an absolute treat; it’s main character being named Akko undoubtedly a homage to her ancestor of the same name.

Idol Aspirations

As the genre progressed, women were…allowed into the magazine offices. The genre was reinvigorated in the 70’s, and with these new author came a shift in focus. Stories began to take more elements from Shoujo staples, with more focus given to interpersonal relationships and aspirations of the characters coming into place. 

The Magical Idol singer is this weird niche specific thing that sort of came from this period of time, though I think she signifies more than  her actual appearances across the genre. Authors for the first time wanted to create stories that reflected the goals of its readers- and at the time that meant Idol culture and aspirations of being a singer or celebrity. While contemporary examples of a by-the-book idol character is a bit rare since values have changed over time, she was the first step in magical powers for Magical Girls no longer being a part of a divine destiny or something to grow out of but instead powers being the means for Girls to achieve their goals. Magical Idol singers also often incorporate the characters noticeably aging up when turning into their alter egos, serving a duel purpose of giving younger viewers a sort of aspirational character to live through while also unfortunately allowing the animators to get away with fan servicey shots of the more mature looking character. 

The originator of this subgenre would be Magical Angel Creamy Mami, though Mermaid Melody would be an immediate example I’d personally think of for the Idol type character (with a big old additon of the Princess archetype too), a better example would be the aforementioned Full Moon, in which the sickly Mitsuki transforms into a Magical Idol singer to both live her dreams as a singer and to reunite with her childhood love. I’d also argue that series the Utena and Madoka follow along with this influence; in both cases the characters agree to engage with the magic of their worlds to achieve some kind of goal or dream. Still, I feel there’s lots of potential with this kind of outlook in Magical Girl stuff..!! Perhaps in the future we’ll get more magical girls focused on their careers… 

Warrior Princesses

I feel throughout this essay, I’ve been noting how the Warrior and Princess archetype often overlap with the other genres, as well as each other. I believe this is because the ancestor of these two defined archetypes is one and the same, and also the series I believe that actually started magical girl as a genre; that being, Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight.

Princess Knight, and bare with me on this, is a story about a Princess born with both a “girl” and a “boy” heart. She forsakes her life as a princess to escape some cruel fate that’s in store for her, and masquerades as a prince by using her “boy” heart. While this is an extremely dated view on gender, it immediately gives us three defining features of magical girl as a genre: First, the Princess archetype, which often holds influence from european fairytales and magical destinies; Second, the Warrior Archetype, in which the lead character must don a more traditionally masculine role of protector against some evil power, and lead a double life; and lastly, the introduction of gender roles as a theme into the genre, and the role of femininity and masculinity in the identities of our characters.  

All of these tenets are then repeated in both Sailor Moon and Utena decades later, and it’s arguably these two series that carry it forward to influence future franchises. As the major examples of these archetypes are one and the same, it is difficult to parse the two apart, even though they are quite different. 

So I’ll try anyway! 

I believe the Magical Warrior is defined as a main character or team of characters who are joined by a destiny to fight against some greater evil, while the Magical Princess is defined as a character who is destined to inherit or reclaim a great power linked to a monarchical structure. Both may have themes linked to western fairytales and fantasy, though often Warrior type characters have a wider breadth of influences while Princesses remain closely linked with ideas of  fantasy and fairytale royalty.

While Magical Warrior is definitely the most prolific of the archetypes in modern times, arguably overlapping with nearly every storyline, I think Magical Princesses are fewer. For example, Tokyo Mew Mew is a clear cut Magical Warrior story; they girl’s aren’t born with powers (So not witches), they aren’t doing it for a personal goal (so not Idols) and none of them have some divine destiny (not princesses). However it’s a lot more difficult to find a pure Magical Princess story; in Mermaid Melody, but the story overlaps with both Warrior and Idol archetypes. Princess Tutu might be the best example, as it’s a story of retribution deeply linked with elements from european fantasy.  

[berrychanx]

I know you're a Tokyo Mew Mew fan, but did you think about why the 2002 anime (and some of the "popular" magical girls) only got one season (51 to 52 episodes only) that didn't get a second season (or more) to continue the story, instead of getting a reboot ? (I don't much like anime get rebooted)

But some of the magical girls anime (NOT includes Salior moon and Pretty Cure franchise) do had season 2 (or more)?

Nowadays the og tokyo mew mew would be considered a 3 season cour anime / split into 3 seasons if it was to have 52 episodes.

Sailor Moon has multiple seasons because during its airing time the manga was still in development, so the studio and the author had to come up with original / fillers episodes to fill in airing time... While the TV aired this original episodes, Naoko would work on the Manga. And then each arc was split into different seasons (nowadays its still the same).

When tokyo mew mew aired most of the Manga was already completed (when the Anime aired the Manga was entering the last volume/ climax chapters) so the studio had lot of material to adapt and didn't need to create that many fillers in order to let the manga develop.

Why no S2?

Why TMM never got a season 2 is probably because how A La Mode was received, Kodansha request Mia Ikumi to create a new short story (which is they commissioned to be 2 volumes) since it was so short and rushed there was no time for development, reviews and sales were ok... Which meant it wasn't profitable for any studio to grab the project or animated.

Besides the anime had already did its job, which was to help sell the Manga and toys/merchandise (this can be seen with a lot of mahou shoujo's aimed for kids, like precure or even shounen's like beyblade - their main objective is to sell merchandise to kids, that's another reason why so many seasons pop up... To keep younger viewers interested and to profit from their parents money).

Reboots:

Reboots tend to happen cause of the series anniversary, usually they're made as a way to commemorate the franchise X birthday or to finish adaptating the full story without original content (fruits basket) and be faithful to the source material (fruits basket, sailor moon crystal).

Usually they're a goods way to capture new audiences, since new generations are more used to modern anime style, they'll more quickly will watch the reboot in a style their familiar with than to watch a 20 year old version with XX episodes (for example, I love the franchise legend of the galatic heroes but I know 112 eps + movies + ovas can be very tiresome for some viewers... Despite having lot of episodes focused on world and character building the plot sometimes drags on for too long, usually to those type of people who can't stand more than X episodes, I recommend the reboot, although more condensed it does a decent job without dragging on for too much, plus Hirayuki Sawano soundtrack is a plus).

Pre-cure & Co - why so many seasons?

For example the author/director of Ojamo Doremi is also the author of the precure franchise and he directed some seasons.

Since both shows are original studio creation, the author (usually the studio director or project director) can make up as many seasons, movies, ovas as he/she wants because the project belongs to them and it's not based on anything. - This also applies to Princess Tutu which is a studios original.

In short as long it's a studio original and seems to be profitable on sales and viewers ranking it will spawn a lot of seasons.

Like I also mentioned before... Toys...