User:Kaixokkiten/sandbox

I want to fix this page: magical girl

A rough start on a translation from the Japanese article, the "Overview" section and the "History" sections up through the 1990s: [cleanup note: I cannot read Japanese. However, I am fluent in Mandarin Chinese (traditional) and English, so I translated the original text into Chinese for reference]

The magical girl is a type of anime character that uses magic.

The defining characteristic of media in the magical girl genre is a heroine who can either use magic, or in some rare cases, just has an unusual ability. Magical girls are not taught but naturally gifted. In some cases a magical girl has command of her innate powers as soon as they manifest, but in other cases develops this control only as she learns more about her power and matures.

Note that the powers of a magical girl are not always literal magic or sorcery. Works about characters like the ninjutsu-using Sarutobi Ecchan and the cyborg Miracle Girl Limit-chan are usually also put in the Magical Girl category. Additionally, the light novel Mysterious Thief Saint Tail in which all of the characters are non-magical and the character Corrector Yui who acts in online virtual reality are usually classified as magical girls.

Common Tropes

A magical girls' age usually falls within the range of 10 to 14, during the beginning of puberty because a magical girl's "transformation" symbolizes maturation from a girl to a woman. The genre relies on the wish of children to be an adults. The heroine repeatedly changes to adult form when they are using their powers. Common plot points in media of this genre include the difficulty of living a double life, dealing with differences between the transformed self and true self, particularly when the character forms relationships. Commonly, she will form a relationship while in her alternate form, causing circumstances to become complicated between the heroine and her love interest. Such plots are reminding the audience not to judge someone based on physical appearances.

Magical girls are always [Translator: Is there a better English word to use for "無垢" and/or "純真さ"?], [Cleanup note: earnest, genuine, naive, innocent? I like naive but I am unsure of which is the most correct] in an otherwise ordinary girl. Almost all magical girls use a compact, a wand, a crystal, or some other accessory to wield their powers, but those devices are almost never the origin of their powers; a heroine's sincerity [Cleanup note: again, earnesty, genuine, naivety, innocence?] is key to tapping her power.

Since 1982's Magical Princess Minky Momo, magical girls have often been paired with pet-like sidekicks [cleanup note:the original translator said mascot, but really its more like the disney sidekicks]. The magical girl is driven by emotions and the pet driven by reason. They keep each other in check by constantly bickering. Through this the magical girl learns to control her emotions, while the mascot comes to understand that behaviors motivated by emotion often lead to the correct, though more dangerous, path. It is important that most of these sidekicks are male. [Translator: Gah.] The magical girl and the mascot's interactions are meant to be like those of a married couple or close pair of friends. It demonstrates that good communication of intent that leads to mutual understanding is the secret to building a satisfactory relationship.

Also, since 1990's Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, "The Battle" has been a main component (or otherwise featured element) of the magical girl genre. [cleanup note: Wait tell me more about the boss battles]

There are limits to the power of sorcery: often it is either that it is only useful for one year, or a secret must be known to use it, or some other such restriction may apply.

The magical girl may discard her powers, preferring instead to return to being an ordinary girl. This is meant to convey that it is most important to "be your true self", and that being "ordinary" and "average" has many advantages.

History

Sally the Witch (1966), an anime by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, animator at Toei Animation, is commonly regarded as first in the magical-girl genre of any media. In it, Sally, daughter of the great magical king and visitor to the human world, is surrounded by humanity, and is subsequently overwhelmed by human drama that results from humans asking her for magic help. [cleanup note: not sure about that last sentence.]

Toei Animation followed up Sally the Witch with Akko-chan's Got a Secret (manga in 1962, anime in 1969, both works of Fujio Akatsuka [cleanup note: I may have misunderstood. Are both of these works by Akatsuka-sensei?]) in which the human girl Atsuko Kagami is awarded a magic compact by the mirror spirit. Here, in contrast with Sally's being a "visitor from another world", Akko is the first "ordinary girl who is gifted magical-girl powers". Subsequently, "magical girl with innate powers" and "magical girl with gained powers" were established as two major subsets of encompassing the magical-girl genre. At around the same time, it was established that there would not be overlap with the then prevalent "morphing hero" pattern except in the transformations from human to superhuman, in Toei's witch anime the formula "magical girl = girl with magic powers" became instead a flourish of works about "everyday magic" done by girls in the pattern of magical girls [cleanup note: what does this last sentence mean? What Toei formula is this refering to? I did find this while trying to figure it out. Something about all magical girls being from Toei animation. ] that would inspire numerous derivatives (notably the beautiful battle girl subgenre) far into the future. 'Including the American Film Mary Poppins and Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Princess Comet (1967), a live action television drama.

At that time, when shows aimed at young audiences were being developed both as animations and as live-action children-targeted dramas, NET in 1969 broadcast side-by-side on Saturdays both Akko-chan's Got a Secret and the teledrama Bewitched (which would become the origin of magical-girl anime as a "Witch Series") and then, in same slot, for two years broadcast only witchcraft dramas—shows like the foreign I Dream of Jeannie (season two), Shochiku's Hot Witch (1970), etc. This setup was replaced by Kamen Rider, but its influence was still reflected in Kamen Riders author Shotaro Ishinomori's Beloved! Beloved!! Witch-Sensei (1971), which was for anime a 20-year forerunner to the first beautiful-girl warrior, Andro-Kamen.

Back in the anime genre, post-Akko series from Toei accumulated; at that time, influence from shōjo manga appeared as the coquettish, introduced-as-a-tomboy protagonist of the 1974 Little Meg the Witch Girl swept away Sally's honors-student-like magical-girl image, and since then, among magical girls, naughty protagonists have come to dominate. Also, characters like Meg's cool rival heroine, Non, the humorous agent Chou-san, and the Queen of Darkness, Saturn, hugely influenced later magical-girl works' minor characters.

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As the 1980s opened, Toei's line of works was interrupted, and, at the same time, Production Reed's Magical Princess Minky Momo (1982) and the Pierrot Magical Girl Series beginning with Studio Pierrot's Creamy Mami, the Magical Angel (1983) induced a second magical-girl boom. The human-world deeds of Momo, princess of Fenarinarsa, a land of dreams and magic, on one hand, and on the other the events surrounding Yū Morisawa, a girl who transforms into an idol by magic wand, were depicted with every comical touch. These two works won popularity, not only within their target demographic of young girl viewers, but also among males in their late teens and twenties; thus, the magical-girl genre exploded in fame. The idol boom social phenomenon came about under such circumstances' influence.

The 1980s up through the beginning of the 1990s was a period of remakes of earlier successful works. In those years, through the anime winter and also the revival boom, a new production of Akko-chan's Got a Secret (second run, 1988) was by one metric, merchandising, more popular than its original incarnation—according to Bandai, girl's toys sales were strong after it came out. Moreover, the continuation of Sally the Witch (second run, 1989) debuted, and, in the same vein, as part of the Toei Fushigi Comedy Series, came Shotaro Ishinomori's Magical Girl Chinese Paipai! (1989), followed by other works in the same genre, which were added to that series until the beginning of the 1990s.

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The success of Naoko Takeuchi's work Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (anime, 1992–1997) prompted anime adaptations like Akazukin Chacha (1994), Magic Knight Rayearth (anime, 1994), The Legend of the Angel of Love: Wedding Peach (anime, 1995), Nurse Angel Ririka SOS (anime, 1995), etc.; the collection of beautiful-battle-girl (or battle-heroine) magical-girl works constituted a new top magical-girl subgenre. Aspects of the subgenre like "battle squadrons" (multiplicities of main heroines) were influential on other works.

In 1995, Magical Girl Pretty Sammy, a spin-off of the original video animation (OVA) series No Need for Tenchi!, was produced. The work was clearly made under the assumption of a non-young-girl target demographic and was a forerunner for similar magical-girl anime targeting older audiences. Cardcaptor Sakura, which is unconventional versus CLAMP's more traditional works in, e.g., setting and visuals, was put out from the later half of the 1990s up through the opening of the 2000s. Its development, "collect the scattered magic cards", magic-using boy's competitions, and the like had not been an element in magical-girl works up to that point. Works followed that balanced a traditional magical girl, who resolved neighborhood incidents with card magic, against the battle-heroine element.

(Content in this section is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at jp:魔法少女; see its history for attribution.)