So You Want To/Write a Magical Girl Series

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How-To Guide


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Stop right there, writer! Don't turn yourself loose on your readers and viewers without the knowledge you need to write a good story with wands, transformations and miniskirts! ♥ I am Magical Princess Mystic Keyboard, and with the power of originality, I'll teach you everything you need to know! ♥♥

The Magical Girl genre may have begun with a handful of old-school manga aimed at being Bewitched For Kids, but throughout its history, it's seen a lot of changes, typical plots evolving from "a kindhearted Cute Witch does anonymous good deeds" to "an elementary-school-aged dreamer uses an Older Alter Ego to become an Idol Singer" to "a group of Magical Girl Warriors fights off Demonic Invaders" -- and the fun thing about it is that every single one of these plots remains viable for a story. You can even mix and match them with each other or with other genres if you really feel like it. And hey, it'll be fun!

Of course, check out So You Want To Write A Story for all-purpose advice.


General advice

  • Make your characters interesting even without magic. It is easy to get distracted by the coolness of magic, but don't forget to make your characters interesting enough that you would care about them even if they were powerless and never had powers; that way, your characters will be deep, complex, and relatable. Magic will not make your characters interesting by itself; a flat character will remain boring no matter how much magic she has.
  • Personality is even more important than magic. It doesn't matter how powerful or weak your characters are; if they are interesting and relatable, you will keep people interested. Think of Spider-Man -- there are superheros with the same superpowers and/or more powerful than him, but what keeps people loving him is that he is relatable and interesting, not so much because of his powers.
  • Give us a reason to care: If your magical girl has a secret identity exposed, what would happen? How would her parents react? What would her boyfriend say? What would their classmates say? Would they approve?
  • Break the mold. Nothing wrong with being inspired with the greats, just remember putting your own spin on things. Be a first-tier version of yourself rather than a second-tier version of someone else.
  • Develop your non-magical characters too. Don't underestimate the plot potential of non-magical characters like friends and parents, as they can be used to make deep and complex plots. How, for instance, would your heroine react if her father was killed/kidnapped by the Big Bad?
  • Define how having magic changes your characters' personalities and lives. Are they more confident, mischievous, serious while transformed? Or are they the same? Do they change their appearance? Is their magical self their real self or how they would like to be? Has magic improved their lives?
  • Be very careful if you want to study magical girl works from Hentai/Eroge, they're aimed at a different fandom and will be Darker and Edgier than their generic counterpart, they always include rape scene and Naughty Tentacles taking home in these titles, so the cutesy facade won't last long and may even dip into Squick or Gorn. That being said, they tend to be Porn with Plot (the Eroge are mostly Visual Novel) and you may be surprised by how much you can learn from them.

Necessary Tropes

  • First things off: magic. You need to establish it, and you need to know what it does. However, Magic A Is Magic A isn't too important, as it would be with other genres that use magic. All you need to do is make it work; you don't have to explain it with anything but a few sentences.
  • Make all the naked transformation scene jokes you want, but the fact is that, especially in the olden days, a Magical Girl story was really a Coming of Age Story. You don't need to go so far as to have the main character happily abandon her powers to run off with some guy at the end, like they did in The Eighties and earlier - in fact, that really ticks modern readers off. Still, character interactions, maturation, and important milestones are good. Don't run the tropes listed under Coming Of Age Story into the ground, though. It's distracting and can get disturbing pretty fast, which isn't quite what we're looking for either.
  • The Power of Friendship and The Power of Love cannot be thrown away or ignored. Most magical girls' powers run off the stuff. Even if they don't, they're still going to have to bail out their friends once in a while and work together. Even if she works alone, your main character shouldn't be completely shut out from the world all the time, unless she's going to learn how valuable the people around her are. This applies to normal, optimistic series, but also to the Sailor Nothing imitators -- after all, the theme ran strongly through Sailor Nothing itself. If you absolutely have to, subvert it, deconstruct it -- just don't ignore it.
  • Related to the previous item, it's rare for magical girl shows not to have at least a hint of Romantic Two-Girl Friendship somewhere. Mainstream series tend to either have the main character involved in one or keep it between secondary characters only, but rarely have more than two of such relationships going on at the same time. If you decide to focus on the main character, lots of mainstream series are subtle about it. A popular way is to have a Fan Girl pining for the main character, while the lead herself is mostly oblivious to the romantic overtones (like Tomoyo to Sakura in Cardcaptor Sakura). Another way is to make the feelings mutual, but to introduce a Relationship Ceiling (Honoka and Nagisa from Futari wa Pretty Cure). The latter is rather tricky, as it can lead to confusion with the audience -- unless you aim for that. Secondary characters are fair game and you can crank up the Les Yay between them quite a bit (see Michiru and Haruka from Sailor Moon), but it really depends on the setting and target audience. Then again, if you're sick and tired of Hide Your Lesbians and Get Back in the Closet and you really want to give the pairing equal footing with the het ships, and no one's stopping you, why not? A number of Pretty Cure fanfics capitalize upon the Cureshipping tendencies in the show by making out-and-out canon ships between the Cures that are treated equally to the het pairings, from side characters (Hanae and Ikuko from Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy, Akira and Sora from Shining Pretty Cure) to the leads (Asa and Yoko from Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon).
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Perhaps not strictly "necessary", but very common. After all, there are plenty of young girls who fantasise about being a princess. This is because, like the Superhero, it's a power fantasy - the difference being that, where the superhero is a physical power fantasy, the princess is a social power fantasy, of commanding the love and obedience of everyone around you. Of course, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility applies to a princess as much as it does a superhero.

Choices, Choices

Are you doing a Cute Witch story, a Magic Idol Singer story or a Magical Girl Warrior story? All three have their obvious perks, so it depends whether you prefer slice of life, celebrity life or saving the world as your type of Wish Fulfillment. However, remember this:

  • The Cute Witch template could use some dusting off, as it was last popular quite some time ago - but you're in the company of Kaitou Saint Tail and Ojamajo Doremi, so you're not the first to revive it. Just try and avoid making it into Bewitched like it was originally intended to be. If we wanted that, we'd watch a Magical Girlfriend show.
  • The Magic Idol Singer is going to have to deal with the politics of her career, and, eventually, probably losing it in favour of a cuter, younger girl - not exactly uplifting. How are you going to get around that? (Do you plan to?)
  • The Magical Girl Warrior story, no matter how original or entertaining or how many times it's been done before, will be called a Sailor Moon ripoff in the comments. It's unavoidable, so you'd better learn to deal with it.

Does your heroine work alone, or in a group? The latter has become much more common nowadays, probably because it allows The Power of Friendship to be exercised more often. If you're doing the Magical Girl Warrior thing, you might want to throw in a Mysterious Protector or Aloof Ally along with the band. (Actually, that might work for a Magic Idol Singer, too...)

Especially in a Magic Idol Singer series, a rival character is good for motivating your lead. You don't have to limit yourself to a singer from a competing label, though; the character works equally well as a selfish witch jealous of the Cute Witch's popularity or a Dark Magical Girl competing for the Plot Coupons (or anything else you can think of).

Want to throw out the genre tropes and instead use the plot devices from Humongous Mecha series? How about Shounen battle series? Or maybe you want to send in a Deconstructor Fleet? These can be done extremely well to a wide reception, but we only know this because of Lyrical Nanoha, My-HiME and Sailor Nothing, in that order. If you want to go off the beaten path, don't just rely on novelty - do it as well as they did.

Pitfalls

  • One must not ignore Characterization Tropes, as with everything. Nobody wants a boring cast, and nobody wants one we've seen a million times, either.
  • For Magical Girl Warriors, don't just focus on the battles. No matter what the Nanoha fanbase will tell you (no offense, it's a wonderful show), character development and interaction are key to any shoujo series (or any seinen/shounen series if you decide to go the Nanoha/My-HiME route).
  • Moving to the cynical end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism is for Sailor Nothing, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Dark Fic. If you want to occupy that spot yourself, do something they didn't do. You'll be written off as a Darker and Edgier mindless childhood-corruptor otherwise.
  • The liberated among us plead with you not to fall to the old cliche of the heroine giving up her powers to run off with the boy. That became a Dead Horse Trope years ago.
  • Magical Girl Warriors will be accused of ripping off Sailor Moon, as previously mentioned. This does not, I say, not mean that you can just go ahead and rip off Sailor Moon because they'll say you are anyway. You're not doing anyone any favours.
  • Some people are going to bash your show without having watched it. Just accept it. Your show can still last. Wedding Peach has somewhat of a fanbase, even though a lot of people blindly assume it's all about how marriage is important, when it's more about how love is important (and that marriage isn't right when there isn't love).
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Even in Magical Girl Warrior shows, Magical Girl stories are not just about girls who have power, but the power of the feminine. Of course, including a Tomboyish character is fine, too, and one shouldn't go too far the other way, either.

Potential Subversions and Variations

  • Having the Mysterious Protector go Brainwashed and Crazy makes for good emotional drama, of course, especially when he's finally gotten together with The Hero. Too bad it's been done to death. We don't want to cringe when we see that scene in Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew, or any of the other series that have used it in the past, so please stop it from becoming a Dead Horse Trope. Don't worry, you can still play with it and churn out something original! Corrector Yui and Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon both had the lead's close friend and teammate catch the crazy in place of her boyfriend. Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch appeared to be leading up to Gackto brainwashing Kaito, all the way up to invading his dreams and kidnapping him, but he just wanted to steal his powers and blackmail Lucia with a "Friend or Idol?" Decision. Do something new.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal. Ever since Sailor Moon said those words, people have copied them until it turned into a blur of unoriginality, not to mention ungratefulness for awesome powers. Too few girls actually want them.
  • Try mixing and matching the three genres! It's worked before and quite well, and it's not done enough to be boring yet.
  • How about a male romance prospect who is an equal partner to the female lead? Emphasis on "equal", emphasis on "partner." Please don't just rely on sudden cases of helplessness to facilitate feelings of love, that are then expressed by them just talking about it nonstop. This makes the romance feel forced. Instead, try to write a female/male team that works together, that has conversations together, and that respects each other. A note: beware of perfect matches when creating romances; everybody involved should preferably be a real character.
  • Why don't you try to explore the view from the sidekicks and Secret Keepers? Especially the ones who have no powers and are more often than not in the rescued side, or were skipped by The Call. At least for A Day in the Limelight or a And Now for Something Completely Different episode.
  • We know Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe, and since Magical Girl Warrior series mostly take place within the last 30 years or so, so who says there's only one Magical Girl Warrior (or one team of them) active at a time? To that effect, instead of creating a Magic Girl Warrior team in the Sentai mold, go for a Justice League style group consisting of a bunch of different sorts of magical girls.
  • In the same vein, how about magical girls from different cultural/ethnic/religious/socio-economic backgrounds? This troper is currently[when?] in an RPG where he plays a homeless magical girl who protects kids on the street. How about an inner-urban black or hispanic magical girl? A Military Brat girl? A Muslim girl?
    • That's difficult to justify if the story is set in Tokyo — Japan is extremely racially homogeneous and religion isn't really important there — but not impossible.
  • Try for a magical girl who loves the idea of the powers, but thinks all the other magical girls are doing it wrong.
  • What if the villains aren't Harmless Villains? What if they're Dangerously Genre Savvy Complete Monsters who don't mind if their Starfish Aliens of the Week actually kill people (and since they might be Eldritch Abominations, it actually makes much more sense if they just don't care about it)? What if casualties are common and the battle is a long road of Break the Cutie for the heroes? This subversion might be only a good idea if you're working on a Deconstruction, though. Typical fans of the genre (young girls and... well, Lolicons) just don't like to see Darker and Edgier stuff much... even if Cutey Honey is older than Sailor Moon.
  • Just because your protagonists are young girls doesn't mean your show has to be a Shojo series. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha proves you can write a magical girl series with plenty of action to appeal to the older male crowd. And Hentai with a Magical Girl theme prove you can write a magical girl series with another kind of action to appeal to the older male crowd.
  • Try doing something different with the genre. In the early days of the genre, a few magical girls were ordinary muggles who were given a magical object, like Akko-chan's mirror, or Pastel Yumi's wand. As for the object itself, its magical powers were quite specific and limited, unlike the Cute Witch. This type of magical girl has fallen out of fashion, but it's not too late to attempt a revival - only please note that while the object sometimes bestows an Older Alter Ego, this type of magical girl has nothing in common with the Magic Idol Singer or Magical Girl Warrior apart from the Transformation Sequence, and the girl could only vaguely be considered a Cute Witch. Or there's the wizard school, like Gakuen Alice or Petite Princess Yucie, where the Cute Witch must attend magic school with other witches (and sometimes wizards) in order to learn how to use magic. If you use this one, however, try not to rip off Harry Potter. Or there's the psychic, like Telepathy Girl Ran or ION, which tend to be more down to earth and feature girls who were born with their powers and discovered them at some point in their lives - telepathy and telekinesis are common, although levitation is sometimes used, and with many other psychic powers out there, the choice is limitless. Please note, the last two have no transformation sequences, no signature outfits, and minimal use of bling.
  • For extra humor, try adding a Gender Bender slant - the hero is a boy who turns into a girl whenever he transforms to fight evil. Dozens of Fuku fics can't be wrong, after all. Or you could play the gender inversion straight and have a serious story featuring a male witch or idol singer or warrior, but remember some of the motifs, costumes and props suggested here won't apply.

Writers' Lounge

Suggested Themes, Plots, and Aesops

One overall theme around Magical Girls is the Power of the Feminine, who is not necessarily "Grrl Power". In a way, a Magical Girl is a celebration of the way girls do things, and the power to overcome everything and find the strength inside herself, all while looking fabulous. Don't underestimate this wish fulfillment aspect; even if they later claim that they just want to go back to normal, very few girls won't enjoy having a little bit of magic power to do what they want ;).

The ever-popular Be Yourself is a very common Aesop we can use, and becomes more appropriate when we focus on the Character Development. "We can do everything with The Power of Love/Friendship" is another popular one, because it's especially powerful for females.

Potential Motifs

Hearts. Stars. Horseshoes. Things that look like plastic? Jewels never go out of style.

If you're writing a team of characters, giving them a united theme is a must - but planets/gods have already been done by Sailor Moon. What else? Ojamajo Doremi used musical notes, Tokyo Mew Mew had endangered animals, and Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch just went for colours (since the team would obviously be Color-Coded for Your Convenience anyway). A team based on semiprecious stones is a possibility, or pick out some esoteric pattern that you like - the Zodiac, Tarot, uppity women of history (imagine Sailor Hatshepsut, Sailor Joan of Arc, Sailor Elizabeth I... now stop imagining Fate/stay night as a magical girl anime; that's already been done). This will be a good starting point for crafting your team's powers and personalities, and you could base villains around them, too (Sailor Elizabeth I faces off against the despicable Spanish Armada Five! For example.)

Fairy Tale Motifs are commonly used in Magical Girl series, and for good reason - fairy tales are stories, often with a young girl as a major character and magic as a major element, with enough resonance to have endured for centuries. With some shows, the connections to such tales are referenced (Prétear, Princess Tutu, among others), others simply base storylines on fairy tales (e.g. the first arc of Sailor Stars is based on "The Snow Queen". Don't just go by the Disney versions - add your own take on the stories, and do the research - you'll probably find at least a few stories that you hadn't heard of, but would make great motifs to include in your story.

Departments

Set Designer / Location Scout

These kinds of stories tend to be set in the present day, usually in a big city. Tokyo is popular.

The bad guys in a Magical Girl Warrior series will live in a sea of black, purple and gray. It could just look like a void with only those colours in it, but you can always add some variety by making it a fortress, a ruin, even an office building if you really want it to.

Props Department

Cute, pink, plastic weapons and accessories are a must. In a Cute Witch series, you could use some typical witch accessories - usually for magic purposes, but maybe when she's fretting over the lunch she's making for that cute boy in her class, she's cooking it in a big pink cauldron with heart-shaped jewels on the sides. In a Magic Idol Singer series, showy microphones and cute stage show props should be within arm's reach. In a Magical Girl Warrior series, Improbable Weapon Users are the most popular, but the Lady of War might have a glowy or jewel-studded sword. All three types like wands.

Costume Designer

Cute. Flashy. Impossibly Cool Clothes. The Cute Witch should have a few witchy elements to her design, like a pointed hat and short spiky dress, but should look adorable overall rather than threatening. For the Idol Singer, check the streets and fashion magazines, and check them often. Try some Frilly Upgrades for your Magical Girl Warrior, and put your Dark Magical Girl in leather or Spikes of Villainy. Overall, when in doubt, err on the cute side.

Stunt Department

Magical Girl Warriors: Ballet-fu, Le Parkour, and lots and lots of twirling to shoot beams of death out of your parasol or heart-shaped flute. The other types don't have to worry about this.

Extra Credit

The Greats

Magical Girl Warrior

Magic Idol Singer

  • Fancy Lala is an old-school, cutesy-plastic-transformation-pen whirl through the Magic Idol Singer's life. Yes, it's old, and it uses some storytelling devices that the modern day rolls its eyes at - but the main character's use of creativity to tweak her own powers should alone grab some attention, plus there's the nostalgia factor and knowing the roots of the genre.
  • Full Moon o Sagashite is an early-2000s anime by Tanemura Arina. If you know her, you know exactly what you'll get. This is a Tear Jerker with a lot of relationship drama, from family to friends to love triangles, and sometimes a combination of two or more of the three.

Cute Witch

  • A modern example is Ojamajo Doremi, which is adorable condensed. The art style might put you off if you're not into that sort of thing, but it's a good crash course for the do-gooder witch (even though they might be a little selfish sometimes). The main characters sometimes have a quest or two, but never to the level of the Magical Girl Warrior's workload - these girls just want to be happy.
  • A much more classic example is Magical Princess Minky Momo, both the original and early 1990s remake. The original is famous (some may say infamous) for its Downer Ending -- the main character is run over by a car and dies.

Non-Shoujo Genre Hybrids - these are gaining in popularity

Western Animation

  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: This show's popularity proves that strong characterization and entertaining writing can make even a premise that seems blatantly ridiculous on the surface great fun to watch. Though keep in mind that only the first two episodes have any semblance to a Magical Girl show. The rest of the episodes are Slice of Life.

The Epic Fails

Princess Magical Finish! Wasn't that fun? Hey, what do you mean you asked for that Engrish loli girl? Stupid fanservice always stealing my business... I need a new destiny. This career isn't working out.

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