Tag: magical girls

Magical Girls and Suffering Well

A fellow calling himself Exclamation Point, who makes pretty good videos analyzing anime, has recently uploaded one entitled “How to Suffer Well: Sympathetic Characterization in Madoka and Magical Girl Site.” From the title, I assumed he was going to use magical girl shows as a jumping-off point to discuss Stoical philosophy. I was wrong, but I think the video is still worth watching.

My opinion about “dark” magical girl shows is less positive than his, though, perhaps ironically, I think I enjoyed Magical Girl Site more than he did. His point in this video, which he makes very well (and then drives into the ground) is that the suffering in Puella Magi Madoka Magica stems directly from the characters’ decisions, and has consequences that fundamentally change their world, a world that is worth preserving. In Magical Girl Site, by contrast, life just sucks and then you die: The heroine is not at all responsible for all the bad things that happens to her, and she has no reason to preserve anything because everything is miserable.

He makes a good case, and I think what he says could apply not to Magical Girl Site only, but to the whole slew of “lesser” dark magical girl shows that have followed in Madoka’s wake without understanding why Madoka works. Magical Girl Site is just one particularly extreme example, one where the flaws especially stand out because it’s trying especially hard to be on the edge.

I basically agree with him, but I might point out that there is, at least, an improvement to the heroine’s life by the end: She’s got away from her abusers and found friendship, and has concluded, contrary to what she had been told and believed previously, that she is not in fact unfortunate.

Exclamation Point’s reply to me after I say that would no doubt be to point out that the heroine’s just going to die anyway within two years or less so her happiness is temporary and therefore pointless. I might then answer by way of rebuttal that all temporal happiness is temporary—and I might add that the story isn’t over yet by the time the first season ends, so it’s possible that the girls might find a way to foil the shortening of their lifespans.

#memes

Art by Lighane

Featured image: “Magical Girl OC” by Lighane

I am still out and about on my Christmas vacation, though I will be returning home shortly after the start of the new year, and then I’ll be able to return to more substantial posting. In the meanwhile, I’m still working my way through polishing and updates for the blog, including structured data and microdata for all the posts.

A Thorny Problem: The ‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ Rewatch, Part 17

The bird is fighting its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wishes to be born must destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The god is named Abraxas.

Herman Hesse, Demian

Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 17: “The Thorns of Death.” Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Character designs by Chiho Saito. Be-Papas, 1997 (Nozomi Entertainment, 2011). Approx. 24 minutes. Rated “16+.”

Watch for free.

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After one of the worst filler episodes in the show’s entire run, Revolutionary Girl Utena is now back on track.

This episode finally introduces Shiori, the nameless purple-haired girl we had earlier encountered in flashbacks as the unrequited love of Juri. Shiori stole the man she thought Juri was in love with.

Shiori smiles as she sits near the open window in her room
Shiori.

Shiori has enrolled again at Ohtori Academy after having attended another institution through middle school. The unnamed boy she though she had swiped from Juri is now out of her life for reasons we never learn.

Continue reading “A Thorny Problem: The ‘Revolutionary Girl Utena’ Rewatch, Part 17”

Review: ‘Flowering Heart,’ Season 1

Make up! Change!

Flowering Heart, directed by Lee Woo-Jin. Written by Lee Woo-Jin, Kim Hyoung-Kyo, et al. Starring Nancy Kim, Jacqueline Youn, and Dami Lee. ICONIX Entertainment (). 26 episodes of 11 minutes (approx. ). Not rated.

What we have before us is a magical girl title from South Korea. Being a magical-girl franchise from outside Japan, this arguably falls into the same category as such other non-Japanese titles as Winx Club, LoliRock, or Star vs. the Forces of Evil. But, of course, you’ve likely seen plenty of South Korean animation already, as both America and Japan outsource a lot of animation to that country.

Ari with tears in her eyes
Our heroine.

As of the time of writing, this series has two seasons, but as far as I have been able to determine, only the first is available in English. I originally found it on Amazon Prime, which hosts the English dub, but you can also watch for free on the show’s official YouTube channel.

Now here’s the confusing part: There is a dub of the whole season available, as well as a Korean version. But there are also at least a few episodes that have been left in the original Korean but subtitled in English. However, they haven’t been set aside in their own playlist, and their descriptions are entirely in Korean. Here’s the first episode with subtitles. After that … good luck. I’ve been struggling to figure out where the rest of the subs are; at least the second episode is there, and some later ones too, so possibly the whole subtitled series is buried in there someplace.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Flowering Heart,’ Season 1”

Laughing through Sorrow: A Meditation on the Magical Girl Aesthetic

I have a theory that I have a hard time explaining, one I have held for years and have constantly struggled both to articulate in essays and to encapsulate in my fiction writing. A recent Amazon reviewer of my novel Jake and the Dynamo has, I think, captured it well:

There are times when the laugh lines come so fast you can’t catch your breath and other times when the insight is so deep you can feel it all the way inside you. The author is very familiar with his source material and understands the consequences of its tropes far more than the creators that develop it. Jake is very identifiable and you really feel for him. The central magical girls—Pretty Dynamo, Card Collector Kasumi, and Grease Pencil Marionette—are deep and well-drawn. You feel their triumphs and their pain. Things you took for granted are exposed from entirely new angles. But it is also rip-roaringly funny.

I am still grasping at the proper words, but what I think I want to say is that the grandest or saddest stories should begin with comedy. I take my influence largely from comics, so if I were to name the comics that best capture how I believe stories should be written, I would point first to Bone by Jeff Smith and Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley. Continue reading “Laughing through Sorrow: A Meditation on the Magical Girl Aesthetic”

Rachael Lefler Asks, ‘Have We Seen the End of the Magical Girl Genre?’

In light of Magical Girl Site, which I will be discussing at greater length in the near future, I recommend a reading of this essay, “Have We Seen the End of the Magical Girl Genre?” written by Rachael Lefler and posted at Reel Rundown. She discusses the increasingly grim tone of magical girl anime in the aftermath of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

I think this is a thoughtful essay worth reading, but I disagree with her premise. She thinks the disappearance of lighter and happier themes in anime (which have not actually disappeared, incidentally) is due to politics: that is, the world has grown grimmer, and therefore our entertainment has grown grimmer, magical girl anime included.

I disagree with this for a few reasons. First. the world is not actually a more terrible place than in the past. That kind of myopia is common to every age, but it is false in every age. Bad stuff has always happened, and many more catastrophic things have happened in the past than have happened in our lifetimes. To support the view that this is myopic, I note that Lefler’s evidence that the world has gotten worse is very much centered on America, which is not the source of the anime she is discussing. (She does, however, note Japan’s concern over a declining birthrate—and this has become a discernible theme in anime lately.)

Second, the hypothesis she rejects almost out of hand, that grimdark magical girl anime is largely due to the influence of Madoka, would be in keeping with other patterns of influence both in this genre and elsewhere. The magical girl genre previously fell into the pattern of Sailor Moon because of its influence, so we should not be surprised that it has now fallen into the pattern of Madoka—though often with Madoka’s atmosphere and without the elements that actually make Madoka work. In a similar fashion, American comics fell into the pattern of Watchmen.

Third, lighthearted anime most certainly still exists. Moe and “healing” anime are definitely still things. In fact, we could probably make a stronger case that plotless, saccharine, slice-of-life CGDCT is eating the medium alive, than that grimdarkness is.

Fourth, this is not an unusual pattern for a genre. The move from clunky but sincere to more expertly crafted but sincere to snarky and insincere seems to be the typical process of growth, flourishing, and decay.

I don’t think it’s due to a change in the world at large, but an evolution in the genre itself, that we see all these deliberately miserable magical girl titles. The question on my mind is whether this genre is vigorous enough to survive the current trend. It survived Revolutionary Girl Utena, just as the mecha genre survived Neon Genesis Evangelion. It remains to be seen if magical girls are tough enough to survive Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Last one I swear

I feel a strange urge to create magical girl gang weed memes

‘Jake and the Dynamo’ Now in Paperback!

THE UNIVERSE IS OUT TO GET HIM … BUT THE UNIVERSE DIDN’T COUNT ON HER!

Have you wanted to hold Jake and the Dynamo: The Wattage of Justice the way I held your mom last night?

Well, now you can!

… Except that’s kind of weird.

But in any case, Jake and the Dynamo is now available in a physical copy!

GET IT HERE

Jake Blatowski can’t wait for high school: basketball, calculus, and a cafeteria that isn’t under investigation by the health department.

Well, he’s going to have to wait: a computer malfunction has assigned him to the fifth grade.

It’s bad enough that he bangs his knees on the desks or that Miss Percy is going over long division … again … but Jake’s sitting next to Dana Volt. She’s a perpetually surly troublemaker who doesn’t even have to exert herself to make his life a living hell.

But no, it gets better: Dana secretly belongs to a coalition of girls protecting humanity from the horde of deadly monsters that plagues the city. But Jake’s no hero; he just wants to get to varsity tryouts!

When the monsters choose a new target, Jake’s not at all surprised that the target is him. Sure, why not? That’s the kind of week he’s having.

Now the impulsive and moody Dana is the only one who can save Jake from certain death—but Jake is the only one who can save Dana from herself.

Jake and the Dynamo back cover