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Subject: Does It Count?: Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream Wed Jan 08, 2014 1:04 am
I always find a show that sort of slips through the cracks, look at it and think "There's no way this is a magical girl show." Then I watch a little and think about and go "Wait...or is it?" and think about it to myself for days, going back and forth going through all the genre tropes trying to defend or persuade my stance.
So, I would like to get some other opinions whenever I find these shows. Please.
Case in point today "Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream", the third season of the kids Tamagotchi anime. The first two seasons follow a group of little Tamagotchis' adventures. simple enough I guess. Somewhere along the way the powers that be decided to focus more towards girls. So this season was born. Taking the original main characters and pairing up with two girl characters who can transform in order to make their dream come true or something
So it puts the show in this weird position, where on the one hand - its still about the group of tamagotchi friends just sort of going on random daily adventures. But on the other hand, the two new girl characters are obviously the shows big new gimmick to drum up sales.
To sort of put this into perspective. It'd be like if Dora the Explorer had a spinoff where she made a Little Witch Friend. Dora's still in it and does her thing, but the Witch gets all the publicity and segments in the middle of the episode and all of the episodes attention will move to her, even though we spend the majority following Dora. (I hope I didn't make this more complicated than it had to be)
My usual rule of thumb is that if the "magical girl" isn't the lead character who we spend the most time with and/or inside her mind. Then it doesn't count (which is why shows like "Is this a Zombie?" or "Mahou Shoujo of the End" don't count) but TamaG:YKD doesn't really have a lead character XD so I guess that's what makes it confusing.
What makes it more confusing/frustrating is that this seems to be the direction Bandai wants to take the franchise, because their 4th season "Tamagotchi Miracle Friends" has the exact same gimmick.
((fun fact: the singers for this opening are Chiwa Saito and Emiri Kato - the voice actresses for Homura and Kyuubey from PMMM))
Tell me what you think!
Mew Ami Cafe Owner
Posts : 5807 Coffee Beans : 13009 Join date : 2012-06-30 Age : 33 Location : La La Land
Subject: Re: Does It Count?: Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:06 pm
I had no idea that Tamagotchi had an anime. Well I guess this series is border line since the show isnt focusing on a magical girl. Not sure what to think of this.
Beat Hostess
Posts : 268 Coffee Beans : 715 Join date : 2013-06-29 Age : 35 Location : Unprotected dimension-Laxton city
Subject: Re: Does It Count?: Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:05 pm
While it contains many tropes: -Loads and Loads of Characters -Hey! it's that voice
and many others, I'd put my money on No. Most magical girl shows either -Focus on a Random girl/s who get locked into strangeness and start looking for someone/something to prevent the big bad to End the world as we know it. While in that, they get the One True Love or, understand that in life not everything is pink but, they contnue onwards.
OR -In some early cases(and some recents) The girl in question is a Lost Lamb and to return to Paradise/Get the objective, she meets rather unfortunate people and by doing good acts, she returns home ect.
While I'm not saying it's precisely like this, because not all fall under these 2 categories they all hae Something in common, either Focus on the girls or have magical powers and they become the lead.
These Little dudes go on adventures on their own and like Belle said, the 2 girls are most for appeal. The Focus: The Little dudes. Much like a Hamtaro/Mirmo Zibang way of doing things. It's like a tv-show ad of half an hour. These are very common in Japan.
That's just me though.
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Subject: Re: Does It Count?: Tamagotchi! Yume Kira Dream