A BREAKDOWN OF THE BATTLE HEROINE/MAGICAL GIRL WARRIOR

 

THE Most famous FACE OF THE MAGICAL GIRL: A BREAKDOWN OF the battle heroine (aka magical girl warrior ON TV TROPES) SUBGENRE

If you ask the average nerd what a magical girl is, the default response might be to point to the ‘90s animated adaptation of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Naoko Takeuchi’s series is a global sensation, but it’s just one example of a wide genre with a whole variety of stories and a variety of roles, styles, and inspirations for its heroines.

The Magical Girl umbrella is fascinating once you open it up: exploring the different types that have been popular in different eras makes for an intriguing look into the genre’s history and its impact.

THE BATTLE HEROINE

Most fans of Japanese media are familiar with tokusatsu, but just in case you aren’t, this is a particular style of formulaic live-action film and television made with lots of special effects, primarily in the action genre. Classic tokusatsu includes monster/kaiju films such as Godzilla, superhero titles such as Ultraman or Kamen Rider, and what is often most familiar to Western audiences, Super Sentai, which is repackaged and partially reshot under the name Power Rangers. 

While women sometimes appear on these fully suited teams (most frequently as Pink Rangers), there have also been many iterations of female-led tokusatsu series, especially in the 80s and 90s. Each tends to feature one lone heroine fighting against evil, and are magical girls in their own right. Some examples of popular series are Magical Chinese Girl Pai Pai! (1989) and La Belle Masquée Poitrine (1990). (This is where I must point out that both of these series have superhero titles referencing their chests, and yet are for children.) The popularity of these shows seems to be pretty connected to the battle heroine boom in Japanese animation.

The tokusatsu–inspired heroines who fight evil on a weekly basis are the most recognizable form of the magical girl, and have been for the past 30 years. While Cutie Honey (1973) was similarly inspired by tokusatsu in the 70s, and was the first to have a fully nude transformation sequence, she was a lone heroine among the other majokko or witchlings of her time (and also a gynoid, getting her powers from tech instead of magic!). Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (1992), a name recognized worldwide even by people who might not watch Japanese animation, hit the scene with a full team of magical heroines and set a new precedent for the battle heroine genre, directly influenced by Super Sentai in particular. 

"It is often said that Sailor Moon, a series in which many girls transform into coloured uniforms and use attacks to defeat monsters, is a kind of Super Sentai type story about and for girls. This clip confirms that such series were a partial inspiration for the Sailor Moon manga and ultimately the anime and live action series as well."

"Though not the first to be referred to as a magical girl series, Sailor Moon was instrumental in popularizing the genre, pioneering the concept of a team magical girls. Most magical girl series to follow it derive some inspiration from it."

This is not to say that any further battle heroine series were copying this one series, but the fighting magical girl was simply what the public seemed to clamor for at the time. Another factor is certainly that almost all these magical girl shows are also aimed at tweenage children (middle-grade) and are therefore designed to sell toys. The more characters and weapons you have, the more merchandise you can sell. 

If you watch a battle heroine series, you can usually expect to find a team of girls with distinct themes and personalities who transform into heroes, fight monsters on an episodic basis, and defeat higher and higher levels of general minions before taking down the true source of evil in the season finale. Meanwhile, there are interpersonal conflicts in their daily lives, often somehow coinciding with their fight of the week. When non-magical girl series have spin-offs or parodies of magical girls are made, it is usually within the battle heroine genre specifically, such as Magical Project S (1996) or Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004). Most Western magical girl series, whether in comic form or animated, also fall within this category—you can see this everywhere from webcomics such as Sleepless Domain (2015 – present) to Dreamworks ventures like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018).

A sub-sub genre within the battle heroine is the magical phantom thief, who uses their magic for good but is perceived by others as being a criminal, causing a special variety of trouble involving police officers or detectives. There are only a few examples of this—Saint Tail (1995), Phantom Thief Jeanne (1999), and the comic Stellar Witch LIP☆S (2019). These magical girl anti-heroes put a mischievous spin on the formula while otherwise keeping it mostly intact.

The tokusatsu series Girls x Heroine (2017 – present) features battle heroines that also crossover into other subgenres, including magical idols, witchlings, and phantom thieves. 

There are so many ways to be a magical girl, whether it’s ... , a teenager fighting the forces of evil, ... Only time will tell the new ways the boundaries of this archetype will be pushed forward.