An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Magical Girl May

Sacrifice, Despair, Slice of Life, and Two Stories for the Price of One – Yuki Yuna is a Hero Season 2 (Washio Sumi & Hero Chapters) Spoiler Review

It’s been a while since the first time I talked about Yuki Yuna is a Hero. The basic takeaway was that it was very much a Magical Girl show that existed in the shadow of Madoka Magica in terms of its world and story structure, but that carved an admirable niche for itself, in large part with good use of lighter elements and slice of life to counterpoint the magical darkness of existence in the setting.

Apparently, Yuki Yuna did pretty well for herself, because that show ended up being the start of a fairly significant franchise, which returned to anime in the form of a second season split between two half-season long stories: the Washio Sumi Chapter, which tells the tragic tale of the first run that Mimori Togo (then known as Sumi Washio) and Sonoko Nogi had as heroes; and the Hero Chapter, which functions as a direct sequel to Season 1 of Yuki Yuna.

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Friendship Through Superior Firepower – Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Spoiler Review

When it comes to Magical Girl franchises, Nanoha is one of the big ones. Possibly not on the uppermost tier (it’s hard to say anything stands on the same level as Sailor Moon), but it’s both quite large, in terms of the amount of content that’s part of the franchise, and highly recognizable. Despite this, I didn’t address Nanoha in my first Magical Girl May block of reviews, and while I’m no longer focusing the month of May on historical retrospectives of the genre, I did feel somewhat remiss in that I didn’t say anything about Nanoha.

Well, if the best time to tackle this thing was the first time around, the second-best time is right now, so that’s what we’ll be doing, looking at the very first season of Lyrical Nanoha, the one that started it all for the sprawling Nanoha franchise.

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Cardcaptor Sakura in Fate/Stay Night’s Skin – Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya Season 1 Spoiler Review

So, this is a show about a grade school girl who discovers a magic staff and then learns that she has to harness the power of magic in order to gather a set of mystical cards that are currently incarnated as magical beings and causing trouble around her city. She has a crush on a high school boy known to her, her closest magical contact is kind of a self-important jerk sometimes, and she ends up competing for the cards with a rival her age who is initially overly serious but with whom she eventually becomes good friends.

Oddly enough, this girl is not Sakura Kinomoto. It’s Illyasviel von Einzbern, at least in the Magical Girl spinoff of the Fate franchise, Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya.

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In the Panties of Madness – Koi Koi 7 Spoiler Review

So, stop me when this sounds crazy: The show opens with two girls on a bicycle being pursued by a pair of attack helicopters, only for the biker girl to take out the helicopters (which are also operated by teen girls) with a rocket launcher and a lightsaber…

For the sake of this joke, and because I want to believe that it would be true, I’m going to imagine you’ve stopped me there. Welcome to Koi Koi 7. Haruhi have mercy on your soul.

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There is Now a Level Zero – Little Witch Academia Spoiler Review

Little Witch Academia is a show with an interesting history. It first started as a half-hour special, introducing us to the major characters and at least a version of the world. Later, the funding was achieved to produce another, longer special which fleshed out much more of a setting and introduced some new characters. It didn’t really contradict anything in the original, but it did evolve the material significantly.

They’re not the main thrust of this review, but I think it’s important for background to cover them quickly.

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Your Mileage May Vary – Vividred Operation Spoiler Review

Vividred Operation is a weird one for me. The first time I tried to watch it, I quit part-way through Episode 2. The reason for this is probably the reason it’s got a fairly poor aggregate, and why a lot of viewers will also be dissuaded from getting through the show: The fanservice is intense, and if that doesn’t bug you on its own it’s worth noting that it’s mostly loli fanservice. Like most Magical Girls, the leads in Vividred Operation are in middle school, and unlike a lot of Magical Girls (especially ones that get fanservice-heavy treatments) at least some of them, notably the main character Akane, are drawn to look on the younger end of that and still get a lot of shots focused on their rear ends.

To be fair, the show lets you know this pretty much from frame one, when one of the first shots of the show does the James Bond style “Scene between the legs” shot with one of the girls. The show does, frankly, tone it down a little over time (I guess they assume they’d hooked the audience they wanted to hook) but it never goes away, with even that particular shot coming back a couple times.

If that’s going to filter you, you can stop now. If not, what do you actually get for going through the whole show? Honestly, a very heartfelt, legitimate, and well-constructed Magical Girl show.

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What Comes After – Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka Spoiler Review

Here we are, technically one week into June, and I’m doing one last Magical Girl review to put something of a capstone on the month. The show in question is not a great classic, nor is it a landmark in the evolution of the genre. Rather, it is by its very existence a fascinating look at what has developed and how in terms of the Magical Girl genre. The show is, if the title was not a sufficient hint, Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka.

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Sacrifice, Despair, and Slice of Life – Yuki Yuna is a Hero Spoiler Review

The modern era of Magical Girl is still, essentially, “Post-Madoka” – there hasn’t been another game changer like Madoka Magica or Sailor Moon since, and so what remains is to analyze the themes and tropes of the genre as they exist. After Madoka hit, what did the Magical Girl genre do with it?

Some shows didn’t change a whole lot. It’s possible to get Magical Girl shows that reach to one side or the other of Madoka in terms of what influences they express. There are some harder to escape traits. Since Sailor Moon, the Magical Girl character herself has been more defined as a type of warrior, and since Madoka the image of what a Magical Girl is has more often included the idea that her powers are a burden, not a gift. Some shows play less with these aspects and some more, but when you think about a Magical Girl nowadays, chances are she wields weapons and has a heavy purpose. When speaking of shows that take more, especially from Madoka, though, you’ve got Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

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