Magical girl
genre of anime and manga
Magical girl (Japanese: 魔法少女, Hepburn: mahō shōjo) is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media (including anime, manga, light novels, and live-action media) centered on young girls who possess magical abilities, which they typically use through an ideal alter ego into which they can transform.
The genre emerged in 1962 with the manga Himitsu no Akko-chan, followed by Sally the Witch in 1966. A wave of similar anime produced in the 1970s led to majokko (魔女っ子; lit. 'little witch') being used as a common term for the genre. In the 1980s, the term was largely replaced by "magical girl", reflecting the new popularity of shows produced by other studios, including Magical Princess Minky Momo and Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel.
In the 1990s, Sailor Moon redefined the genre by combining "transforming hero" elements from live-action tokusatsu hero shows. The growth of late-night anime in the early 2000s led to a demographic shift for the genre, where series with more mature themes such as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004) were created and marketed towards an older male audience.
Genre history
1953–1971: Early magical girl works
Despite no presence of magic, the manga series Princess Knight (1953) is seen as a prototype for the magical girl genre, as it set forth the appeal of girls who transform to do things they normally cannot perform. Himitsu no Akko-chan (1962), serialized in the shōjo manga magazine Ribon, is credited as the earliest magical girl manga series. Sally the Witch followed in 1966, with a concept inspired by the American sitcom Bewitched. Its 1966 anime television adaptation produced by Toei Animation, is regarded as the first magical girl anime.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magical girl” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.