Magical girl
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.
[9]: 7 A characteristic of Minky Momo and Creamy Mami showed girls transforming into grown-up images of themselves,[10]: 29 which has been linked to the increasing prominence of women at this time including politician Takako Doi, the all-female band Princess Princess, and pop idol Seiko Matsuda, as well as the passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1985.
[11] Due to the popularity of Minky Momo and Studio Pierrot's shows, the term "majokko" had largely fallen out of use in favor of "magical girl".
[2] A key attribute of the transformations in Sailor Moon is that they focused on exaggerating the characters' beauty through make-up and fashion, negating the link between cuteness and weakness traditionally seen in women.
[5]: 199 [12] Series that attempted to capitalize on Sailor Moon's success include Akazukin Chacha, whose anime adaptation created an original arc featuring "transforming heroine" characteristics;[9]: 106 Cutie Honey Flash (1997), a remake of the original male-oriented science fiction series Cutie Honey (1973) for a young female demographic;[13] and Wedding Peach.
While Sailor Moon also drew in male fans, Cardcaptor Sakura (1998) was extremely popular among men in spite of its target demographic for including themes such as cosplay, boys' love, otokonoko, and yuri.
[1] Similar to Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure drew influences from tokusatsu hero shows, but unlike the former, it was heavily focused on action and used the same talents who worked on Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.
[15] As the series were targeted towards older audiences, this allowed for dark and mature themes to be explored, including death and the price of magical power.
(2015) features a cast of male characters parodying the magical girl concepts combined with growing interest in bishōnen shows aimed at a fujoshi audience.
[13]: 110 Professor Bill Ellis noted that in traditional Japanese folklore, powerful women were depicted to be monstrous, similar to Oni.
[26] In magical girl series, the main female characters transform into prettier, more mature-looking versions of themselves who have special powers, an idea originating from Princess Knight.
[8] The "transforming heroine" (変身ヒロイン, henshin hiroin) is a concept adapted from tokusatsu hero shows (dramas or movies) that was first popularized by Sailor Moon in the early 1990s; it has been a staple of magical girl series since.
[1][9]: 9 The transforming heroine features an ordinary schoolgirl who changes into an "adorable" costume with "cute" accessories; she then uses a sceptre (or a similar weapon) to channel magical energy in order to fight against the forces of evil.
[9]: 7 The popularity of the show led to five more installments produced, including La Belle Fille Masquée Poitrine and Yūgen Jikkō Sisters Shushutrian [ja],[27] with all of them categorized as the Bishōjo Series (美少女シリーズ).
[9]: 7 The shows were viewed as a female counterpart to tokusatsu series aimed at young boys, such as Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, and Ultraman; however, interest in the genre declined in the early 1990s due to competing toy sales with Sailor Moon and other magical girl anime.
[31] For the Girls × Heroine series, Shogakukan project manager Reiko Sasaki stated that she had to create scenarios on how to integrate the toys into the show.
[46][47][48][49][50][51] In China, Balala the Fairies is an ongoing franchise originating as a live-action series before transferring to animation, though it was accused of plagiarizing Pretty Cure.
[52] Similar to Japan, the transforming heroine concept coined by Sailor Moon saw popularity when the show was broadcast overseas in the 1990s due to the girl power movement taking place in Europe and the United States at the time.
