Let's get some appreciation for the characters who make saving the world from the powers of darkness a thing that actually happens once in a while. It's time to talk about the antagonists of our favorite magical girl shows.

When I think of a villain in a magical girl show, the one that comes to mind immediately comes from Otogi-Jushi Akazukin, the show I adored before I even got into the genre. Unfortunately I don't have much fondness for the actual main villain of the show, instead we have the second of her generals, so to speak.



Instead of being eaten by the witch, Gretel is one of her minions, using gravity magic and a sword larger than her own body, Gretel is the first of the show's serious antagonists to make the scene, the first one deemed an actual threat. Of course you can imagine that a weapon like that would never strike a character in a kid show, so it's mostly used for knocking people around or knocking their weapons away. Also, I love her shoes!



If you picture the buttons as eyes, they look like they have monster faces.

So you're asking yourself "If there's a Gretel, shouldn't there be a Hansel?" Ooooooh lordy, Big Brother is here.



When Hansel shows up, things get real. The ominous, foreboding music plays and you know our heroes are in for a tough battle. Hansel as a character is very stoic and firm, disliking weakness above all else, even when coming from his own sister. He seems to care about her, but can be just as cold to her when she fails to do her job.

It becomes apparent early on that Gretel is one of the more sympathetic characters, if not THE most. This thirteen year old girl wants nothing more than to live a happy life with the only family she has, but instead is living a life of servitude while her brother becomes increasingly disdainful of her.


If there's one thing I really like about the villains in later Precure seasons (Fresh and above) It's that they manage to make them human to some degree, rather than just being all for the evilz. When I think of characters like these, none stand out more than Kumojacky of Heartcatch Precure.



The easiest way people describe this guy is "A shounen protagonist in the wrong series." Kumojacky isn't a sadistic prick who does cruel things for the sake of it. He is motivated by his personal desire to become stronger, and is the kind of guy who believes that problems can all be solved by punching them in the face.

Then of course there's the aptly named, Dark Precure.



Like Hansel above, when she shows up, you can expect awesome things to happen. This character is the only one I've seen in a MG show to constantly wreck the protagonists on a regular basis. It's not until around the mid 20s before they can even defend against her and escape. Then of course there's her story... hooboy. What a tearjerker. So cruel.



One of the things I liked about Doki Doki Precure when it first aired was that it did unexpected things like having the villains be savvy enough to jump into the fray themselves instead of just leaving the monsters to fight and teleporting away. This guy was pretty much the king of that, and a little bit of what I've said about Dark Precure and Hansel.

Being based off the sin of Sloth, Bel rarely feels like doing anything, but when he does, he's usually not only the most threatening of villains, but also the most intelligent. He steps shows immediately after the Cures have won against the latest monster of the week and plunges them into the doomed Trump Kingdom, then anticipates that they would find their way to the one thing that can send them home, and heads there to destroy it.

It's not at all surprising that the generals and dark magical girls tend to be more interesting than the alpha villain. They tend to either be manipulated or otherwise sympathetic. They have much more fleshing out and are often redeemed. Precure in particular has a bad habit of having the final enemy be woefully lacking in any kind of information about what their deal is. They just sort of exist to be evil and wiped out.

They tend to have most of the cliche evil mannerisms, wanting to destroy the world without much noteworthy motivation behind it.

Female main villains are a special kind of hard for me to deal with because of their backstories revolving around love that didn't work out. One case where I feel love as a motivation works well is in the case of Princess Tutu's Dark Magical Girl, Princess I-Need-A-Better-Outfit, or, an outfit at all.



Seriously, what is that top? You could cover more with your own hands! Anyway, I need to rewatch this show because honestly her character confused me a little. It seemed like when she transforms into Khraehe for the first time she becomes a wildly different character, much more antagonistic than the girl who seemed willing to put up with the protagonist's nonsense. I'm certain that there was some element of her Khraehe persona being repressed, as she wanted to keep things the way they were going before the events of the story begin.