So I was reading the Wikipedia article for Fancy Lala and this part really grabbed my attention.

Quote :

Fancy Lala did not achieve huge success upon release in Japan (Cardcaptor Sakura dominated the magical girl genre at the time and provided little opportunity for other magical girl anime to have much of an impact)

This grabbed my attention because of something I had been seeing said for a while now. That the reason Magical Girl shows are not really being made anymore is because Precure dominates the market for that sort of thing, and the only ones that have much of a chance at being popular are the ones that cater to the periphery demographic, like Nanoha and Madoka.

I have noticed that there hasn't been much in the way of Magical Girl shows in the last few years. Definitely aren't many of the Cute Witch style shows. Most of what we get seems to be geared toward fighting evil by moonlight.

Even if the new Sailor Moon anime doesn't breathe new life back into the genre and give way to a return to form, it'll be nice to have something going on with the genre besides Precure and Madoka.

It is sad that Precure has taken over the genre. I would love to see Ojamjo 16 be made into an anime. For those who dont know it's a light novel series about the Ojamjo girls in high school. I have read like one chapter of it. I'm not sure if there has been anymore more chapters that have been translated. 

I would like to see more witch animes because magic is always fun to watch.

Well, studios trying to rival eachother is nothing really new. In the 80s, Ashi Pro and Studio Pierrot ruled the magical girl scene, while other studios tried a different approach and tried to capitalize on what I like to call the "Wandering Orphan Girl" genre (Lady Georgie, Hello Sandybelle, Alpen Rose, etc.)

by 1990, The magical girl genre was actually on a lull, not much quality was coming out, but then Sailor Moon came along and we all know how that went... Suddenly every toy company had their own magical girl. Then when the CCS manga came out in 1996, there was another peak interest. Suddenly it seemed like everyone was trying to unveil their product before the CCS anime hit airwaves (did you know that Fancy Lala and Himitsu no Akko-chan (3) aired on the same day, and it was only 2 days before CCS's premier?

when Ojamajo Doremi was the new "It" girl, magical girl "Comet-san" got a nice animated reboot and with a new design compared to her original 1968 manga, complete with a pink hair, large head and thin limbs that are easy to animate..hmm.... wonder what motivated them to make those design choices...

Leaving PMMM and the like aside, the same sort of thing is happening with Precure. Other studios are trying to capitalize on different shoujo trends that Precure isn't touching. just so they can keep their heads above water.
Jewelpet puts alot of focus on comedy and cute boys (for 5 year olds anyway), Aikatsu & Pretty Rythym have Outfits and Idols (until Happiness Charge came around anyway)

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I remember listening to Anime News Network's podcast that interviewed someone who worked at animation studios as an intern. This was before PMMM came out (like 2009? 10?) and Moe was really still being focused on, despite a small decline in their popularity sales wise. He said everyone was waiting for the next big trend and still wanted to stick by Moe because it was the only thing they knew made them any money.

Now Magical Girls are one of the new big things, everyone's depicting themselves as one. Even real-life idols are coming out with "Kuko-chan becomes a magical girl!" or whatever. Being used to sell-make up to niche market Drama CDs

everyone talks about magical girls being about friendship and harmony. but you know what it was originally built on? and apparently still is today no matter how many progressive shows come out.

To copy Bewitched and make money.


...I kinda miss the "Wandering Orphan Girl" genre now... i made myself sad

RLinksoul wrote:

I have noticed that there hasn't been much in the way of Magical Girl shows in the last few years. Definitely aren't many of the Cute Witch style shows. Most of what we get seems to be geared toward fighting evil by moonlight.

If nothing else, there was Kuromajo-san ga Tooru, though that apparently finished airing a couple weeks ago.  Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha probably counts too (though it's not a girls' show), though I don't know if it became less mahou shoujo-y after the first couple episodes, since I haven't kept up with it.

But, well, yeah not a lot. It's kind of sad since most magical girl type shows that do come out now (or I guess I'm saying, most male-oriented magical girl shows) tend to be magical girl "in-name-only," so to speak. Like, Nanoha-type stuff where it's just an action show that has cutesy fighting costumes, and nothing else particularly magical-girlish.