"Magic Girls, no matter how frilly their dresses, high their screams, or incompetent their sidekicks, will be treated as the credible and dire threats they are, and I will direct as many, if not more resources to their destruction as I would for a more classical Hero."
— Rule #52, Evil Empress Guide
Known as mahou shoujo ("magical girl") or just majokko ("witch-girl") in Japanese, Magical Girls are empowered by various means with fantastic powers that both assist and complicate their lives, but manage to persevere despite this.
No matter how hard this may be for the Western world to believe, Magical Girls have high crossover popularity in different demographics with some minor but appropriate design modifications and make up a sizable portion of both shojo and bishoujo fandom.
A Super Trope to:
- Cute Witch—where magic is mundane to the character.
- Magic Idol Singer—who (initially) uses her powers for her own benefit.
- Magical Girl Warrior—mostly in a superheroine role fighting evil.
Magical Girl Warriors arguably have the widest demographic appeal, and in the West are often synonymous with the idea of a Magical Girl.
History of the Genre
It may come as a surprise to learn that the entire Magical Girl genre is descended, effectively, from the American live-action Magical Girlfriend sitcom Bewitched. While two series claim the role of "first magical girl anime"—Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Mahotsukai Sally (Sally the Witch, 1966-1968) and Fujio Akatsuka's Himitsu No Akkochan (broadcast 1969, but its manga predates Mahotsukai Sally)—the creators of both credit Bewitched as a primary inspiration for their work. Yokoyama explicitly adapted its concept for a younger audience, while Akatsuka merely says he was "inspired" by it.
Another important early Magical Girl show was Majokko Meg-chan in 1974. This was the first show to be marketed to boys as well as girls, and featured a number of developments—it was the first Magical Girl show to...
- have a Tomboyish heroine—all magical girls prior to this had been sweet feminine girls;
- feature a rival to the main character (Non, Meg's rival and the local Dark Magical Girl);
- include a really evil character. Prior to this, there was a perception that young girls couldn't handle such things;
- feature Fanservice (in the form of Panty Shots, slight nudity, and Megu being a borderline Fille Fatale), as well as Lovable Sex Maniac characters (Megu's stepbrother Rabi and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Chou);
- touch on more serious social issues, like Domestic Abuse, extramarital relationships, and drug abuse; and
- have the heroine not only lose fights, but having to face serious consequences (deaths, injuries, humiliations, etc.).
Originally, all Magical Girl shows were produced by Toei Animation, so "Magical Girl" wasn't so much a genre as a Series Franchise. This lasted until Ashi Production's Magical Princess Minky Momo hit the airwaves in 1982, followed by Studio Pierrot's Magical Angel Creamy Mami in 1983 (the first Magic Idol Singer show). A one-shot OVA produced in 1987 featured a Bat Family Crossover between Studio Pierrot's four '80s Magical Girl shows (Magical Angel Creamy Mami, Persia, the Magic Fairy, Magical Star Magical Emi, and Magical Idol Pastel Yumi). This was the first instance of a magical girl team.
The Magical Girl Warrior subgenre, despite being the most well-known style of Magical Girl show in the west, didn't hit until Sailor Moon in 1992 (unless you count Cutey Honey, which wasn't aimed at girls but had a lot of influence on it, or Devil Hunter Yohko, which wasn't aimed at girls either). This was essentially a combination of the earlier style shows with the Super Hero genre, particularly the Super Sentai formula. Sailor Moon was a huge hit, and, naturally, other shows were made in the same style.
The wave of shows inspired by Sailor Moon eventually subsided, but new sub-genres spawned soon in its wake. As of present, most magical girl shows can be loosely organized into three broad categories.
- Neo-classical, codified by Cardcaptor Sakura. Essentially, old school magical girl coming of age stories updated with the sensibilities of the modern age and the roles of girls and women in it. Mainly aimed towards young girls but often with a significant Peripheral Demographic of adult males. Contemporary examples include Ojamajo Doremi, Shugo Chara! and the Pretty Cure franchise (though that also fits in the second set).
- Action Hero, created by Pretty Cure, but codified by Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Magical Girl Warrior territory, with emphasis on "Warrior" and often enough Hot Blood to put a Shounen fighting series to shame. Largely aimed at the teenage and adult male demographic, and as such placing heavy emphasis on Fanservice: from a lot of fighting scenes with Calling Your Attacks, to Magitek Technology Porn. The Improbably Female Cast is frequently used as an excuse for Les Yay. Examples include: Mai Hi ME, Vividred Operation, and Senki Zesshou Symphogear.
- Deconstructive, codified by Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Debunking the very concept of a world where young girls are forced to confront evil as a Crapsaccharine World with plenty of dark secrets and delving deep into the psychology of its cast, often with religious or philosophical references. Tends to skew towards teens and adult males like the Action Hero variation, but there are a few works that aim towards young and teenage girls as well. Often borders on Surreal Horror territory; Madoka itself was considered the equivalent of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Berserk for the genre. Other notable examples include Princess Tutu, Il Sole penetra le illusioni, and Yuki Yuna is a Hero.
Of course, there are other examples that feature similar themes but diverge even further from the old-style shows. Many fans felt that shows such as Magic Knight Rayearth were still Magical Girl shows, despite all the dissimilarities from the previous generation (others disagree, and feel that Rayearth is Shoujo RPG World Fantasy instead).
IMPORTANT NOTE: A girl who can use magic is not necessarily a Magical Girl in the sense of the trope or genre. A Magical Girlfriend, for example, usually does not fit into the same structure that defines a Magical Girl series.
Also see the Index of Magical Girl Tropes and our own guide on how to Write a Magical Girl Series.
Not to be confused with John Popadiuk's Magic Girl pinball machine.
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Examples of Magical Girl works
Anime & Manga
- Studio Pierrot. They were best known for their Magical Girl series, such as Magical Angel Creamy Mami, Persia, the Magic Fairy, Magical Star Magical Emi, Magical Idol Pastel Yumi, and Magical Stage Fancy Lala in the 1980s. Also, the Studio Pierrot pilot film, Yumesekai No Hodgepodge.
- Akazukin Chacha started out as a Cute Witch, but was turned into a Magical Girl Warrior for her anime adaptation.
- Alice19th features Alice and her friends as Magical Girl Warrior.
- Alice Kara Mahou tells the story of Alice Asahina, an Ordinary High-School Student interested in the Tarot, who meets a magical rabbit and is chosen to extract magical gems from the hearts of humans before they cause negative side effects.
- Animal Detectives Kiruminzoo. It is basically Sherlock Holmes with huge animal costume motifs and serious comedy.
- Ark Angels features Magical Girls traveling through time to save endangered animals in order to stop God from wiping Earth clean of all life for its own good. As you can probably guess, the Green Aesop is strong with this one.
- Ask Dr. Rin!. The plot at first follows the everyday life of Meirin Kanzaki, a 13-year-old girl with the power to predict the future using feng shui magic. In order to test her powers, she creates a Web site under the pseudonym of Dr. Rin.
- Black★Rock Shooter is a Gothic take on the genre, with the heroines dressing all in black and toting huge guns/swords/scythes.
- Cardcaptor Sakura, easily the second most famous behind Miss Tsukino worldwide.
- Corrector Yui takes an interesting alternative magical source than the other typical series- Yui, Haruna, and Ai's internet avatars (their consciences inside Com Net) are the ones that have "magic" as science and technology is concerned.
- CosPrayers is an 8-episode Magical Girl show with Fanservice.
- Cutey Honey is the Ur-Example for the Magical Girl Warrior sub-genre. While not originally planned as a magical girl series, it pioneered tropes such as the ability to transform and the In the Name of the Moon speech that were adapted by later shows, such as Sailor Moon.
- The late-90s Cutey Honey Flash anime brings things full circle by being a full on magical girl warrior show. It even showed at the same time slot as Sailor Moon after the latter ended.
- Cyber Team in Akihabara
- D4 Princess
- Demon Fighter Kocho is a Fanservice-heavy series for the Seinen demographic, about a sexy heroine who uses her attractive body and magical powers to defeat spirits that are terrorizing a local university.
- Devil Hunter Yohko has Yohko Mano, the most badass one you'll ever see, that banish demons from the Earth as a Magical Girl Warrior in her spare time. Unlike her contemporaries, Yohko isn't afraid to get physical. She'll put the sword DOWN if she has to.
- D.N.Angel. Sometimes called a "magical boy" series, it generally has a lighthearted, romantic comedy/fantasy feel, although occasionally there's hints of darker mysteries and backstories lurking in the shadows.
- Dream Hunter Rem, an OVA from 1985 about a green-haired supernatural detective who enters other people's dreams and fights the demons who cause nightmares. A very early example of the Magical Girl Warrior sub-genre.
- Earth Maiden Arjuna is a magical girl show with a Green Aesop.
- Esper Mami is about Mami Sakura, an Ordinary High-School Student who one day manifests supernatural powers, including teleportation, telepathy, and telekinesis that use for solves mysteries and helps people in trouble.
- Fairy Musketeers
- Fairy Navigator Runa
- Floral Magician Mary Bell is about Mary Bell, a floral sprite who appears to those in need.
- Full Moon o Sagashite
- Fushigiboshi No Futagohime starts off with two girls who are given powers to save their unique world. It begins as a Cute Witch series, given their antics and how they help, and slowly evolves into Magical Girl Warrior, cementing the latter position with the second season.
- Fushigi Mahou Fan Fan Pharmacy
- Gaba Kawa
- Galaxy Fraulein Yuna (by way of Magic From Technology?)
- Genmu Senki Leda is reminiscent of Magic Knight Rayearth, except with one Magical Girl, not three.
- Getsumen to Heiki Mina combines this with Bunny Girls, aliens, a vegetable theme, and a possible Affectionate Parody.
- G-On Riders
- Hana no Ko Lunlun uses flower power to change her outfit.
- Happy Seven
- Himechan No Ribon. Nonohara Himeko is a magical tomboy of the cute witch type who can transform into anybody in the human world for one hour. This is due to her getting a magic ribbon from her alternate universe counterpart Erica, who just happens to be a princess in The Magical Kingdom.
- Hime Chen Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri
- Himitsu no Akko-chan features a girl with a magic mirror. She is a possible Trope Maker for the transforming type; she predates Cutey Honey by about half a decade (by comparison, Sally the Witch was a "magical girl", but she just had magical powers).
- Houkago No Pleiades
- Hyper Doll
- Hyper Rune
- Hyper Speed Grandoll with a more sci-fi vibe than usual.
- Idol Fighter Su Chi Pai
- Il Sole penetra le illusioni, another one for fans of Darker and Edgier.
- ION
- Is This a Zombie? is part Magical Girl, part about ten other things (Unwanted Harem being one of them).
- Jewel BEM Hunter Lime. It's a mixture of Cute Witch and Magic Warrior tropes.
- Jewelpet is about anthropomorphic small animals named after jewels, birthstones and other minerals, who can use magic with the power of their eyes, made of said minerals.
- Jubei-chan is about a girl who wears an eyepatch that gives her the power of the famous Samurai Yagyu Jubei.
- Kagihime Monogatari
- Kaitou Tenshi Twin Angel
- Kannazuki no Miko combines this with Humongous Mecha and Schoolgirl Lesbians.
- Kidou Shinsengumi Moeyo Ken—the magical girl genre meets The Shinsengumi.
- Kill la Kill is a fanservice-heavy Fighting Series where the characters' powers come from their clothes and places heavy emphasis on awesome.
- Koi Cupid. The story revolves around three young cupids, Ai, Ren, and Koi.
- Megami Paradise
- Magic Knight Rayearth is CLAMP's first crack at the genre, adding Humongous Mecha for good measure. Also borrows a lot from Heroic Fantasy quest stories.
- Magic User's Club
- Magical Angel Sweet Mint
- Magical Canan, which got its start as an eroge before becoming its own series.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is somewhat unusual in that, rather than young girls, older teenagers and young men are the target audience. It's also much more character-driven, compared to most other series.
- The manga eventually dropped "Magical Girl" from the title, since Nanoha is now 25 and either still a Captain of an Interdimensional Air Force or higher. She's still Magical, but is a woman, not a girl.
- At the same time, a Spin-Off manga starring Vivio was released that kept the "Magical Girl" part of the title. Yup, Nanoha's daughter has now officially inherited her mother's role as Magical Girl, complete with Older Alter Ego.
- Ironically, no one is ever referred to as a magical girl in the series itself. Understandable, as almost every mage is either from Mid-Childa, Ancient Belka, or other worlds where magic is a fact of life and Everyone Is a Super (well, the majority of the cast, at least).
- Magical Nyan Nyan Taruto
- Magical Pokaan
- Magical Princess Minky Momo which follows a princess who has to restore the hopes and dreams of others to bring her kingdom back, and is infamous for the scene halfway through where she gets run down by a truck before she can restore the final jewel to the crown and has to be reincarnated.
- Mahou no Mako-chan is a Magical Girl adaptation of "The Little Mermaid", in which the magic takes a back seat to the love story.
- Mahou Shojo Lalabel is a classic show about a Cute Witch and a thief she's after who are accidentally transported from Magical Land to our world.
- Mahou Shounen Majorian adds a Gender Bender twist: two boys, one of whom bullies the other, are transformed into girls in order to battle alien invaders.
- Mahou Shoujo Taisen, a Spring 2014 Anime that aims to give all 47 prefectures of Japan their own magical girl and mascot.
- Mahou Tsukai Chappy is about the Cute Witch Chappy who, becoming sick of the old customs of her people, leaves the Land of Magic for the human world with her little brother Jun and their pet Don-chan. In many ways an Expy of Sally the Witch.
- The Mai universe (Mai-HiME, Mai-Otome, Mai-Otome Zwei, Mai-Otome 0~S.ifr~, andMai-HiME Destiny)
- Majokko Meg-chan, ground-breaking in regards to the genre with both Darker and Edgier and Hotter and Sexier tones. Included a truly evil character as an antagonist (prior to this, there was a perception that young girls couldn't handle such things), subplots that sometimes touched more serious social issues like Domestic Abuse, extramarital relationships, etc.. and featured Fanservice in the form of Panty Shots and slight nudity.
- Majokko Tickle, created by Go Nagai, features a mischievous fairy who was imprisoned inside a book for playing pranks on people and ends up in the human world having adventures with her foster "twin" sister.
- Makeruna Makendo
- Mao-chan features three cute eight year old girls using recovered alien technology to turn into these... to stop an equally cute and far less effective force of alien invaders.
- Marvelous Melmo uses magic pills to change her age.
- Mei no Naisho is an unusual example. Although it's considered a magical girl series, the manga is the story of a young boy who was raised as a girl by his witch mother and possesses witch powers, a wand, and a talking cat familiar. It also features a perverted girl, as opposed to the usual perverted boy.
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch features mermaids who transform into Magic Idol Singers.
- Meru Puri
- Mink is another Magic Idol Singer who can transform into whoever she wants by means of a CD from the future, but is not allowed to tell anyone else about this while she's using it or face deletion.
- Miracle Dieter Miyuki
- Miracle Girls is about Tomomi and Mikage, a pair of twins with psychic powers.
- Miracle Shojo Limit-chan features a cyborg heroine, though a less popular one than its "sister" show Cutie Honey.
- Moldiver
- Nanako SOS (although, technically, she's more like a Super Hero, lacking a Mentor Mascot, Transformation Trinket, or most things usually associated with the trope).
- Nanatsuiro Drops
- Nurse Witch Komugi
- Ojamajo Doremi features The Team of Cute Witches. The girls primarily use their powers to help out and do other mundane things throughout the series. To list each of these would take too long. And when they actually come to fighting evil, they usually do so through unorthodox and impractical means and have to have their powers boosted in order to be successful.
- Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo: Bewitched Agnes is about a 26 year old Magical Girl.
- Onegai My Melody has a twist in that the lead magical girl and her arch-nemesis are anthropomorphic rabbits.
- Played for Laughs in Oto X Maho. Kanata is a guy who turns into a Magical Girl Warrior. To be fair, he was forced into it.
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is a very sexual, adult-oriented twist on the formula.
- Petite Princess Yucie
- Pixie Pop
- Prétear gives the heroine an Unwanted Harem.
- Princess Comet (a.k.a. Cosmic Baton Girl Comet-san).
- The Pretty Cure multiverse (Futari wa Pretty Cure, Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star, Yes! Pretty Cure 5, Fresh Pretty Cure!, Heartcatch Pretty Cure, Suite Pretty Cure ♪, Smile Pretty Cure!, DokiDoki! Precure, Happiness Charge Pretty Cure, and Go! Princess Pretty Cure.)
- Sailor Moon, perhaps the most famous outside (and inside!) of Japan. Many misinformed people will call any other magical girl series a "ripoff" of Sailor Moon, which isn't true in the slightest.
- Codename: Sailor V, the manga which led to the creation of Sailor Moon.
- Psycho Trader Chinami
- Quiz Magic Academy
- Rakugo Tennyo Oyui, a Jidai Geki take.
- Saint October
- Sakura Hime Kaden
- Sally the Witch, the first in the genre (for animenote ) and Trope Codifier for the Cute Witch subgenre.
- Sarutobi Ecchan features a girl with ninja powers.
- Sasami: Magical Girls Club is one of the rare Cute Witch ones to actually see a formal United States localization.
- Senki Zesshou Symphogear has Magical Girl Warriors who are empowered by the Power of Rock to fight an Eldritch Abomination. It has a lot of Shout-Outs to another music-themed Magical Girl series, Suite Pretty Cure ♪, but it was strongly influenced by Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and it's definitely one of the darker series.
- Shadow Lady, Kaitou Saint Tail, and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne combine this genre with the Phantom Thief genre.
- Shugo Chara!
- Shoujo Tenshi Milcute
- Someday's Dreamers and its sequel Someday's Dreamers II: Sora.
- St Dragon Girl
- Stray Little Devil
- Sugar Sugar Rune is about Chocolat and Vanilla. They are two young witches from the Magical World, the best of friends despite being polar opposites.
- Super Doll★Licca-chan
- Sweet Valerian
- Tantei Opera Milky Holmes combines this with the detective genre.
- Telepathy Shoujo Ran, if you consider Psychic Powers magical.
- T.P. Sakura: Time Paladin Sakura is a Magical Girl-themed spinoff of the Da Capo anime.
- Time Stranger Kyoko
- Tokimeki Tonight, while not generally considered a magical girl series, does feature a heroine with magical powers (namely, the ability to transform herself into a copy of an object by biting that object).
- Tokyo Mew Mew has an environmentalist theme. It focuses on five girls infused with the DNA of rare animals that gives them special powers and allows them to transform into "Mew Mews." Led by Ichigo Momomiya, the girls protect the earth from aliens who wish to "reclaim" it.
- Tweeny Witches, aka Magical Girl Squad Arusu
- Ultra Maniac
- Umi Monogatari is unusual among Magical Girl Warrior shows in that the focus is more on emotional development of the characters, the fights are fairly long, the girls' mentor is completely wrong about some things, most of the music is gentle piano music, and the revelation of what the Big Bad really is allows for a conclusion that's more true to life than most shows of this nature.
- Uta Kata
- Wedding Peach has a wedding theme. They are called "Love Angels" but they have the frilly superpower costumes and such.
- Yadamon
- Yume no Crayon Oukoku
- Zodiac PI
Deconstructions, Dramas and parodies
- Ai to Yuuki no Pig Girl Tonde Buurin is a parody and an example at the same time, one of the few (perhaps the only) parodies actually aimed at the same demographic as straight examples. Its protagonist is a Magical Girl Warrior who transforms not into a glamorous Frills of Justice-clad heroine, but instead, into a superpowered pig in a cape.
- Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! is a hot springs-themed Magical Girl tale about the all-male "Earth Defense Club", which doesn't actually do any defending. Only after a surprisingly-realistic pink wombat gives them superpowers do they start living up to their club's name. As you might have guessed, the show is very much an Affectionate Parody of Magical Girl anime and their associated tropes. It later received a sequel series, Cute High Earth Defense Club Happy Kiss!.
- Black Lagoon featured an OVA-only Alternate Universe omake that turned Villain Protagonist Revy into a magical girl called Radical Girl Revy-Chan, who solves all the loser protagonist's problems with guns before returning to the magical land of Hestonworld. This gets him arrested.
- Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan is another comedic deconstruction.
- Brocken Blood is another Gender Bender magical "girl" show, but with the added element of Magic Idol Singer. It's also a parody of the Magical Girl genre.
- Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman
- Deconstructive Parody: Dai Mahou Touge. The series is a parody of magical princess shows and often uses the juxtaposition of cute characters with brutal violence for humor.
- Affectionately parodied in Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z.
- Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA. The original Fate/stay night sequel Fate/hollow ataraxia had one side story where Rin has an interdimensional teacher who trains her by giving her a Magical Girl Rod that "followed rules from a different dimension". This manga takes that notion and runs with it, but with Illya as the heroine. The series started out as an example of parody, but eventually started shifting to a straighter example by 3rei!.
- The Nasuverse loves to play around with this. Arcueid has 3 different magical girl alter-egos, Caren has one, and both Hisui and Kohaku have one. All are jokes. Saber Lily could be considered to be one as well, but Saber's powers are already kinda magical-girl-ish to begin with.
- Gently mocked in the Gakuen Kino novels, a High School A.U. of the Kino's Journey series; where ultimate pragmatist Kino is thrust into the genre.
- Jungle de Ikou! is about Natsumi, a 10 year old Japanese girl who gains the power to transform into Mii (May in the dub), a super-powered and super-busty flower spirit, from a perverted old earth spirit named Aham (Ahem in the dub.)
- Kamichama Karin started out as a one-shot parody of the genre, but was popular enough to become a series in its own right.
- The manga version of Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne is another deconstruction in a similar vein to Puella Magi Madoka Magica. The anime is less so.
- Magical Play. It's an affectionate parody of the genre, especially the warrior variety.
- Magical Girl Apocalypse gives a horror example of the genre, with the Magical Girls as the monsters. They are Humanoid Abominations with the ability to raise any person they kill as a zombie, who unleash a Zombie Apocalypse upon the city.
- Magical Girl Raising Project is a dark Reconstruction of the trope, where Anyone Can Die is firmly in effect.
- Mahou Shoujo Ore is a Super Gender-Bender manga with a twist: it's the heroine that turns into a magical boy. "He" even goes into Magic Idol Singer territory to keep his struggling idol career afloat.
- In Mahou Shoujo Pretty Bell, the magic rod that is supposed to select the next schoolgirl to take up the fight instead chooses a 35-year-old bodybuilder. He's quite willing to take up the mantle, which is a bit of a problem for the demons used to fighting little girls...
- From the same author as Magical Girl Apocalypse comes Mahou Shoujo Site, which especially deconstructs the idea of the Escapist Character. It's even more brutal than Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
- Mahou Shoujo Tokushuusen Asuka deconstructs it by way of Reality Ensues. In a world where Magical Girls and the monsters they fight are common knowledge, the protagonist is a Shell-Shocked Veteran, and there's a bustling Black Market of otherworldly artifacts and weapons. And the government keep asking her to join their special operations team to deal with the terrorists armed with otherworldly weapons.
- Mahou X Shounen X Days!!!!!: Magical Boys that look like wizards, a classic Magical Boy Kingliness Test as the main backdrop, an owl mascot, two bad guys who don't look like wizards, plus the protagonists' problem of being in the nude if they don't transform together. Despite being lumped in the "parody" section, it's probably the straightest take on a Magical Boy series there is.
- Majokko Tsukune-chan is a surreal parody of the Cute Witch genre.
- Nurse Angel Ririka SOS is about a ten-year old girl named Ririka who must protect Earth from aliens who want to turn it to ruins like they did their home planet Queen Earth. The manga and anime have rather different plots. It gained a Periphery Demographic from fans who enjoyed its darker approach to magical girls than many other series at the time, but the older fanbase is the reason the show was cut short (the toys weren't selling).
- Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt is what happens when you get Studio Gainax (more specifically, the director behind the 5th episode of FLCL) to direct a Magical Girl series.
- For the more mature audience, there is Papillon Rose, an ecchi parody which is part Magical Girl and part adult entertainment.
- The Pretty Sammy series (which itself is a gentle parody of Sailor Moon).
- Princess Tutu took the Utena crowd back deeper into Magical Girl territory, though it is still unique.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica, another one for the Deconstruction team. It is often considered to be the Magical Girl Neon Genesis Evangelion (in terms of Genre Deconstruction and extreme darkness of tone).
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion is similarly considered to be the Magical Girl End of Evangelion.
- See also the spin-offs Puella Magi Kazumi Magica, Puella Magi Oriko Magica, Puella Magi Suzune Magica and the Historical Fantasy Puella Magi Tart Magica.
- Puni Puni Poemi viciously satirizes magical girl shows (among many other things).
- Revolutionary Girl Utena is regarded as the first major deconstruction of the genre. The defining trait of all Super Sentai Magical Girl series is that altruism and unconditional love will always save the world. However, the biggest prince in the story became the Big Bad in part because he was incredibly altruistic and could not handle the consequences, plus all of Utena's strength and purity can't save one Damsel in Distress if said Damsel (Anthy) won't break away from centuries of abusive habits to save herself. Also, Utena is more of a Magical Warrior than a conventional Magical Girl and her efforts to help Anthy were, until almost the end, more based on her own needs and desires than on her will to help Anthy.
- Shamanic Princess is a short, Darker and Edgier and Hotter and Sexier take on Cute Witch magical girls. The series is very non-linear, starts In Medias Res, and has a lot of mind screw. It panders to both female and male demographics.
- Unmagical Girl is a manga about a fictional magical girl coming into the real world where her powers are rendered useless and she has to live a normal life.
- Yuki Yuna is a Hero rivals Madoka in terms of how dark it gets but is overall more optimistic. It stars the titular Yuna and her three (later four) friends. The government has the girls become "heroes" in order to protect Japan from monsters.
Asian Animation
- Hey Yo Yorang is a Korean magical girl TV show.
- Petit Petit Muse is another Korean magical girl TV show.
- Secret Jouju starts Korean toy brand joins into Magical Girl theme business competition, it also have Middle East version crossover with local fashion doll brand Fulla: Fulla Princess.
- Flowering Heart is yet another Korean example.
- Sofy Ruby is yet another Korean example, in Minky Momo-like theme.
- Sweets Fairy, China's second Magical Girl series after Balala The Fairies.
- Flower Fairy, China's another Magical Girl series in Flash style cartoon, even Hatsune Miku being special guest officially!
Comic Books
- W.I.T.C.H. is an Italian animesque comic about a team of American girls with magical powers. In Icelandic, the comic was renamed to Magical Girls, since W.I.T.C.H. obviously doesn't work in all languages.
- Zodiac Starforce is an American take on a Magical Girl team. Artist Paulina Gauncheau is a huge fan of the genre (and especially Sailor Moon), and it shows.
Films — Live-Action
- Teen Witch is rather like the typical Coming-of-Age Story where a Magical Girl uses her powers in every day life.
- Sucker Punch is very Animesque (to the degree that a lot of people mistook it for a live action Sailor Moon at first). There's a Five-Man Band of girls who can do literally anything in the fantasy sequences, and they seem to fit the Magical Girl Warrior archetypes.
Interactive Fiction
- Yesterday, You Saved the World is a Twine game by Astrid Dalmady about a young magical girl named Lucy and how she copes after losing her powers in the final battle.
Literature
- Avalon: Web of Magic three girls, Emily, Adriane, and Kara, find stones/crystals - that come from a fantastical alternate dimension in need of help - that grant them magical abilities.
- Daughters of the Moon
- Hex Hall
- Twitches twin girls, Cam and Alex, who were separated at birth find each other, and learn that their odd behaviours are in fact the sign of mystical powers that reach their full potential when they're together. They fight off an evil force known as 'The Darkness'.
- The Witches of Bailiwick
- Magical Girl Pretty Dynamo from Jake And The Dynamo.
- Ximena/Selena of Walking On Dreams.
Puppetry
- Lavinia, the Cute Witch heroine of South African childrens' show Die Liewe Heksie, is a Magical Girl: her youth and cuteness contrast to the Wicked Witch qualities of the opposing GeelHeks
Roleplays
- Magical Goddess Girls From Outer Space is meant to be both a Parody and Straight example of this. It features Magical Girls who fight monsters and also have no idea what they're doing and will continue to have no idea what they are doing for a while because that's what happens when you spontaneously gain powers.
Tabletop Games
- Princess: The Hopeful is a Decon-Recon Switch of Magical Girls that's compatible with the New World of Darkness. Princesses are charged with improving the world, but doing so is going to take a lot of hard work, struggle, sacrifice, and more varied strategies than The Power of Love.
- Magical Burst is a mahou shoujo game that takes primary inspiration from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Magical girls in this game are tasked with killing enough youma to collect 13 Oblivion Seeds so that they can make a wish. But as in Madoka, things are not always what they seem, and the Mentor Mascots known as tsukaima keep horrible secrets from the Magical Girls they give power to.
- Sparks of Light is a rules light magical girl game that tries to be Lighter and Softer than preceding magical girl games. It has strong influences from Princess the Hopeful.
Video Games
- Magical Battle Arena, a Fighting Game starring Sakura Kinomoto, Nanoha Takamachi, Lina, Kukuri, the girls of Magic Knight Rayearth, Kirara and Sarara (heroines of an eroge Visual Novel of the same name), and Original Generation characters Lulu Gelad and Nowel Diastasis.
- Magical Cannon Wars is about Akira (also a magical girl) trying to stop all of the other magical girls from fighting.
- The Star Guardians are a Magical Girl team existing as a set of alternate champion skins in League of Legends, original just consisting of Lux (whose character was Magical Girl-themed from the start) but then being expanded to include Jinx, Janna, Poppy and Lulu. There's a modest amount of additional lore created for the team (despite them not being canon with the main story of the game) with them apparently being granted their powers to fight against the terrors of the Void.
- The Maid Of Fairewell Heights: There's a Magical Girl costume that is worn when in the Magic room.
- Nearly the entire cast of Rosenkreuzstilette are magi, are all part of a team, Calling Your Attacks is common, especially with main character Spiritia, both heroines of the series have a Fairy Companion, and The Power of Friendship is revealed to be the true source of her Mega Man-inspired Power Copying.
Web Animation
- Bee from Bee and Puppycat unintentionally finds herself working as one as a part time job. Her response was... less than pleased. The series as a whole can be thought of as an Affectionate Parody of the genre.
- The Diamond Girls, a Fanime.
- Kawaii Battle Stars
- Magical Fun Time Now
- RWBY mixes the Magical Girl genre with fairy tale motifs. As the series enters Volume 3, it gradually becomes a Darker and Edgier Deconstruction of the genre: it's a life or death war for survival against Eldritch Abominations hellbent on humanity's extinction, the four kingdoms humanity are sequestered into are fractured by past grudges and ideological differences even with the monsters banging on the doors, the Big Good guiding the heroines is a very shady man who the Big Bad might even have legitimate grievances against, and the girls themselves are really in over their heads with just how much more powerful, experienced and dangerous their adversaries are.
Web Original
- The entire Arcana Magi Universe feature Magical Girls.
- So far in Arcana Magi, Alysia Morales is a magical girl under unfortunate circumstances.
- Meanwhile in Arcana Magi Zero, Alysia Perez and Megumi Miyazaki are magical girls complete with Transformation Sequence, magical outfits , and random attack names.
- For The Spirit Of Creation
- Hachimitsu No Kissu
- Played with in various Improfanfic series:
- Magical Girl Hunters — So many girls are empowered as magical girls that they're starting to run out of sensible themes and names, and many magical girl groups are starting to target lesser evils like corporate greed. The protagonists are the eponymous hunters, hired assassins who eliminate magical girls who have become pests. Some featured deconstructions include Sailor H, the Sailor Shoggoths, and the 64 (later 128) Crayola Knights.
- Do Gooders — Two members of the eponymous band are magical girls. Several other magical girls appear in the series, including Sailor Becky who wields the power of the Otaku (ripping off attacks from various anime) and Sailor Exposition who holds the power of being able to put people to sleep by extremely long explanations. There are even two different flavors of Dark Magical Girl.
- Girls With Guns — Follows the somewhat nonsensical adventures of Pretty Deadly and Sailor Becky from the above two series as they take on a Crap Saccharine World by virtue of superior armaments.
- Lambda
- Magic Heart And The Magical Warriors
- The Magical And Mysterious World Of Lady Star.
- Magical Girl Rune, a Vapor Ware show.
- Mahou Shoujo Chaos Princesses
- Raya!
- Saga of Soul - A magical girl tries to apply the scientific method to her newfound powers, while defending her world from demons, the Elysium, the Circle of Wisdom, and more.
- Deconstructed hard in Sailor Nothing.
Web Comics
- The Adventures of Sailor Ranko, a webcomic version of the definitive Fuku Fic. Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo are sent to a new school in an attempt to get them to confess their feelings for each other and discover that Ranma's female alter ego Ranko is the reincarnation of Sailor Sun, a long lost Sailor Senshi. Ranma now has a triple life, one, as male Ranma trying to avoid the troubles he left behind in Nerima, two, as female Ranko who was accidentally enrolled at the same high school by her well meaning and oblivious-to-the-truth mother, and three, her role as Sailor Sun working with the Sailor Senshi fighting for love and justice. A Dead Fic, unfortunately.
- Agents of the Realm is clearly inspired by the genre, with parallel worlds, Monster of the Week and eponymous Agents being five Magical Girl Warriors whose Transformation Trinkets are shiny amulets.
- Americano Exodus is a rather unique take on the genre. Several of the main characters are young girls descended from the nobility of a parallel world, sent to earth in order to hunt down members of the Twilight Dawn organization, who are hiding out on our planet. While the girls do have magic and costumes, the magical girl elements end there. The main character, Amel, is actually a teenage boy who must pretend to be a girl in order to protect the integrity of his household and his own life. Since only women are supposed to be able to use magic, any men with the ability, while rare, are imprisoned and sometimes executed.
- Angel Moxie is both a parody and an homage of the genre. It is about Junior High student Alex (a fairly standard magical girl) and her two friends (each of whom have super powers but otherwise don't have many magical girl characteristics) as they fight off Lord Yzin and his servants. It can be found here.
- The backstory specifies that the magical girl motif was inspired by fiction.
- The backstory
- Apricot Cookies is a Deconstructive Parody of the genre. It chronicles the life, loves, and laundry of the titular heroine, the only magical girl in Japan who can't transform. It also deconstructs many other anime tropes and even some from general fiction.
- The Artist and the Machine is about a magical girl befriending a robot sent to kill her.
- Cardcaptor Torika, a doujinshi based on the Cardcaptor Sakura series featuring Sakura's daughter.
- Evil Diva, a webcomic about a devil girl who can't help doing good deeds for others.
- Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy, a somewhat violent parody of the genre's conventions - the heroine is somewhat chubby, has an alien disguised as a star-nosed mole for a Mentor Mascot, and is often severely injured in battle (luckily, she is a Human Alien with the ability to regenerate her body parts).
- The Hues
- Hi to Tsuki to Hoshi no Tama is about three magical girls with Mons.
- M9 Girls!, a Mad Science version of the genre. The eponymous girls gain Elemental Powers by means of genetic manipulation.
- Magical Boys!, another parody of the genre - the main character is a boy who is given magical girl powers (although he retains his gender) to battle against Dark Magical Girls who want to kill retired magical girls. As the story progresses, more magical boys are revealed.
- In Magical Girl Neil, Neil, the protagonist, becomes an Oni-fighting Magical Girl on his 16th birthday, due to coming from a long line of magical girls - magical boys are only born every 100 years or so.
- Magical How? is the story of two normal college guys who are approached by a talking golf ball who offers them magical powers - when one of them agrees, he ends up Dragged into Drag and forced to fight for love and justice as a magical warrior.
- Magick Chicks centers around Melissa, a former "queen bee" who finds herself fated to become a magical girl, after being transferred to Artemis Academy. Worse, she now has a mysterious wand for a conscience and a ditzy blonde do-gooder for a mentor, when all she wants is to overthrow Faith and become popular. What a world!
- Also parodied in Mahou Shounen Fight!.
- Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT parodies the genre with a Fangirl who becomes a (sorta) magical girl... and proceeds to apply large amounts of Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Nexus is about a magical girl chosen by destiny who gets her powers from a mysterious shopkeeper.
- Princess Chroma is a deconstruction of the genre. June Summers seems to be the The Chosen One for all the wrong reasons, much to the despair of her Mentor Mascot.
- Shattered Starlight features an ex-magical girl trying to live her life after the breakup of her team.
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice is an original work by Bwillett, the author of Cardcaptor Torika, about a girl in New England called Victoria who learns magic (with transformations included) in order to stop a series of monsters unleashed after she puts on an ancient ring. It takes a relatively realistic approach to the genre, both in terms of developing the magic system behind the transformations, and its focus on characterization.
- Sleepless Domain is about the Child Soldier magical girls who protect an unnamed city from its nightly siege by strange monsters, but don't worry - registered Magical Girls have a 70% lower risk of severe injury or death!
- To Prevent World Peace features a world where Magical Girls have been active since World War I. Cue Alternate History. The story follows a magical girl who believes she must become a Necessarily Evil in order to stop other girls from going too far.
Western Animation
- DC Nation's animated short Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld. Amethyst can be considered an early combination of both the Cute Witch and Magical Girl Warrior types.
- Angel's Friends
- Bee becomes a Sentai-esque one in Bee and Puppycat.
- Gwen from Ben 10. In the first series she found a magical trinket which granted her magic powers, donned a costume and called herself "Lucky Girl". The only thing she was missing was the Transformation Sequence. In Omniverse she replicates the costume with her Andodite powers.
- Ben himself is kind of a Magical Girl, except he's a boy. He has his own transformation sequences even.
- Manny Rivera, the hero of El Tigre, is essentially a Magical Boy.
- LoliRock, a French show about three girls who are publicly rockstars and secretly Magical Girl Warrior Princesses.
- Miraculous Ladybug, despite looking head-to-toe a CGI anime and is even made by the company that made one of the biggest MagicalGirl anime today, is created by a French studio and follows superhero tropes along with magical girl ones. It even has a Magical Boy in the mix as well.
- Miss Tickle from Mission: Magic!.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic starts with a two-part episode in which the six main characters become friends. They use a powerful ancient artifact to become magical girls and permanently defeat a Sealed Evil in a Can. However, despite gaining fashionable magical jewelry and the gratitude of the god-princess of the realm, the trope is almost completely absent from the rest of the show. Word of God from the show's creator (Lauren Faust, worked on her husband Craig McCracken's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and The Powerpuff Girls) is that good action-adventure episodes are harder to produce on a deadline and budget, and Myth Arcs have to be watched in a specific order, thus the series is more Slice of Life. This oddly means that Friendship Is Magic is probably closer to a "classical" Magical Girl series.
- The My Little Pony: Equestria Girls franchise plays this much closer, featuring human versions of the ponies gaining powers from magic leaking in from Equestria. From the second movie onwards the cast form a rock band and frequently transform during performances, the same applies to the Dazzlings who assume their siren forms in the climax. In the third movie, the human version of Twilight Sparkle of all characters becomes a Dark Magical Girl.
- Penny Crayon
- PJ Sparkles
- Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders
- Rainbow Brite was a 1980s series about a girl named Rainbow Brite who was the leader of a gang of kids called the "Color Kids" who controlled colors and nature. Rainbow had magic, rainbow-themed powers. The Market-Based Title in Japan was even Magical Girl Rainbow Brite.
- She-Ra: Princess of Power was an early western version (coming in the mid 80s). Given she was a Distaff Counterpart to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, more than a few fans have suggested He-Man fits all the magical girl tropes, too.
- SheZownote is a Deconstructive Parody of both superheroes as well as magical girls, as well as the legacies of both genres. The main character, Guy, even has two deliberately outlandish transformation phrasesnote . Furthermore, the equipment and powers he uses (e.g., a lipstick Laser Sword, and a super "slap" attacknote ) reflect various female social stereotypes as well. The creator claims that this wasn't his (yes, "his") intention, but whether or not this is in fact the case is up for debate.
- Sky Dancers, a French series.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil is about the princess of another dimension who has a magic wand powerful enough to destroy the universe. As a sort of Parody of the Magical Girl Queenliness Test, she's sent to Earth just to keep her from harming her home kingdom, since she's a somewhat ditzy Girly Bruiser. The show is mostly Slice of Life, but as the title suggests, evil forces sometimes intrude.
- Steven Universe, about a young, half-human boy with magic powers being raised by magical thousands-of-years-old, mineral-based aliens who just happen to look like women or girls and act as Magical Girl Warriors, defending Earth from the rest of their species and having a lot of emotional struggles.
- Shimmer and Shine
- Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic
- Trollz, a Canadian series.
- Reggie of Twelve Forever has magical powers, but ONLY when she's on Party Island. She has the power to turn her friend Shane into different things, and can use magical weapons given to her by a flying octopus to fight.
- When The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy had their Underfist: Halloween Bash special, Irwin pretty much was this trope. In the special, upon Bun Bun's provocation, he transforms into a mummy-vampire and gains dark powers.
- Winx Club where fairies and witches are these. They get several sets of transformation sequences of course.
- W.I.T.C.H..
Examples of the Magical Girl trope referred to in other works
Advertising
- Apparently, the new mascot for Microsoft Internet Explorer is a Moe Anthropomorphism personification of a magical girl, Transformation Sequence and all. She fights robots well enough, but the jury is still up on whether she'd succeed in attracting any audience to the "browser everyone loves to hate".
- Osame-tai, an advertising campaign parodying Pretty Cure on behalf of the Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan, to encourage people to pay their vehicle taxes.
- The "Metro Manners" Public Service Announcements star Anna Akana as Super Kind, who uses the power of music... and New Powers as the Plot Demands to punish monstrous "Metro Menaces" who act inconsiderate on the subway.
Anime & Manga
- Lampshaded : the DVD extras of Ah! My Goddess have a gag dub in which a student accuses Belldandy of being a Magical Girl. Belldandy insists that she is a Goddess, not a Magical Girl, and they then debate the crucial differences.
- This was likely inspired by a situation in the manga when Sayoko witnessed Belldandy's powers and accused her of being a witch. Sayoko specifically referred to Magical Girl tropes, including the Idol Singer.
- In Axis Powers Hetalia, France turns into Magic Strike, causing him to wear a frilly pink dress and carry a matching bullhorn. (By "Strike" he means not work and picket until your employer gives you what you want.)
- Barajou no Kiss has Anise, who summons the magical members of her Unwanted Harem via magical cards.
- In an episode of Best Student Council, one character is suspected of being a magical girl; both the Magical Girl Warrior and the Cute Witch (complete with Older Alter Ego) versions are brought up.
- One of the Omake of Black Lagoon makes Revy a Magical Girl, giving her a cheerful, Moe facade and More Dakka.
- Parodied in Bleach with Charlotte Cuuhlhourne who tries very, very hard to be one of these... and fails spectacularly.
- Pokomi from Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
- Sharanra's character design in The Brave of Gold: Goldran is built around this trope, though she cannot perform any magic.
- Cutey Honey is a forerunner of the Magical Girl Warrior version, which blended fanservice and fun battles in one tongue-in-cheek package. Fans are divided on whether she counts as a true magical girl or a superhero.
- New Cutey Honey is the sequel, set 100 years after the original.
- Cutey Honey Flash is a straight magical girl variant.
- Cutey Honey Tennyo Densetsu is set in 2005, and features a version of Cutey Honey who has time travelled from the 70s to battle Panther Claw in the new millenium.
- Cutey Honey Seed is set in an Alternate Universe, where a Cutey Honey Otaku finds a beautiful alien girl who, like all members of her species, develops any power necessary to protect herself and others. After watching several episodes of Cutey Honey, she develops "super powers" just like the "real" Honey's, even going so far as to shout "Honey Flash!"
- The Show Within a Show "Ai no Senshi Sweetie Millie" from Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!!
- Parodied in episode 9 of Gag Manga Biyori - among other things, it's the heroine's father who gets naked when she transforms, and her magical girl "outfit" is merely a different top and an antennae on top of her head.
- Galaxy Angel has an episode where they are told NOT to use a lost technology wand, as it has been known to start wars.
- From the same TV season, episode eight of H2O: Footprints in the Sand had an extended sequence revolving around Otoha as a magical girl. That was probably the least odd thing in that episode.
- The Haiyore! Nyarko-san short story "How to Defeat a Kind Enemy" (adapted as an OVA and released with the Season 1 boxset) has Nyarko undergo Training from Hell to become a Magical Girl after being inspired by a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Pretty Cure. What makes this really unusual is, she's already a Henshin Hero (in the Kamen Rider mold); in fact, her first transformation is a combined Shout-Out to Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kamen Rider Kuuga.
- Parodied in Haruhi Suzumiya; the main characters create a movie in which the protagonist is a bunny girl-waitress from the future whose attacks include shooting laser beams, rifle bullets, and micro black holes (the last two novel-only) from her eyes.
- Ayumi Kinoshita, a bespectacled Ill Girl from Hell Teacher Nube, learns from her teacher how to project her astral body as a physical presence, just so she can attend school with her friends. In the process, she learns to transform it into any shape she wishes... including an indestructible Magical Girl when said friends are kidnapped.
- In Higurashi: When They Cry Kira's second episode, Ayakashisenshi-hen, Rika Furude and Satoko Houjou become magical girls in order to battle the evil magic-using generals of the secret magic society, Tokyo Magika (Takano, Teppei, Okonogi & Nomura) and their Ritual Tool Devils with the help of the Rika Cheering Brigade (Keiichi, Rena, Mion, Shion, & Irie) as well as Hanyuu.
- In Kannagi, after viewing a magical girl on TV, Nagi immediately buys a toy wand and modifies it into an impurity-vanquishing spiritual weapon to compensate for her lack of power. Then she gets really into it and starts doing poses. It looks goofy on an ancient goddess, but Nagi's clearly enjoying herself.
- Kaze no Stigma had a one-shot antagonist which is somewhere blurred between the lines of a Magical Girl played straight or deconstructed, but she doesn't have enough screen time for it to matter.
- Key of Key the Metal Idol becomes more of a Magical Girl as the series progresses, though this used primarily to deconstruct the trope as Key's transformations into her more human form show just how harrowing the powers of a magical girl can be in unwitting (read Naive) hands.
- Kilala of Kilala Princess.
- Raichou from Kyouran Kazoku Nikki claims to be a magical girl.
- The same situation pops up in Love Hina, where Kaolla Su is compared to a Magical Girl because she eats a lot, talks to animals, and can change into an adult. Kentaro Sakata and one of Keitaro's highschool friends vainly struggle to convince the main characters that Kaolla was one.
- Mahou Sensei Negima! has the Show Within a Show, "Mahou Shoujo Biblion". The show's resident Cosplay Otaku Girl/Playful Hacker/Meta Guy cosplays as a character from the show. Said girl eventually gets a Magical Girl staff as her artifact. It gives her super hacking powers.
- Asakara, on witnessing Negi's powers for the first time, theorizes that he is a magical girl (boy version).
- Shuichi of Midori Days is a doll otaku, who always carries around a doll of the fictional magical girl Ultra-Marin.
- Nanaka 6/17 has Magical Domiko, a Show Within a Show that 6-year-old Nanaka likes.
- Ninin Ga Shinobuden has a parody in the final episode with "Magical Nin-Nin Shinobu".
- The main character in Otaku no Video is able to break into the anime industry with his magical girl series, Misty May.
- Behoimi in Pani Poni Dash. She's not really a Magical Girl, but that doesn't stop her from playing the role. She even gets her own Image Song about her Magical Girl-ness.
- She now has a spin-off manga, The Alternative Cure Magical Girl Behoimi Chan, where she is an actual magical girl.
- The main character in Penguin Musume Heart is obsessed with Takenoko-chan, a magical catgirl who protects the "holy place" from the evil Bamboo King. There's apparently a sequel as well, Takenoko-chan R.
- Re Creators has characters from different fictional works colliding in modern-day Tokyo, one of them being 'Magical Slayer Mamika', a naive magical girl from a show aimed at grade-schoolers.
- Episode 7 of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei focused on Art Shifts, with the title sequence and parts of the episode devoted to Kafuka, Chiri, and Meru as the magical girl team Model Warrior Lily Cure, and Nozomu Itoshiki as the Big Bad, The Teacher Of Despair. It even closes with an On the Next continuing the plot. This is a drastic change from the usual format of the show.
- The OVA of School Days features a parody on the Magical Girl genre, with several female cast members as magical girls.
- Parodied in the 21st episode of the second season of School Rumble, where Mai Otsuka becomes a magical girl.
- Angol Mois's true form in Sgt. Frog seems to be a parody of the Magical Girl; she has the Stock Footage transformation and special-attack scenes, the costume, and a cute personality, but she's the Lord of Terror from the prophecies of Nostradamus who came to destroy the world with the "Lucifer Spear".
- One of the fictional shows in SKET Dance is an anime called "Futari wa Nervous", which is obviously a parody of Futari wa Pretty Cure.
- Takuto from Star Driver could be considered a magical boy, due to his Galactic Pretty Boy form.
- Amuri in Star Ocean features elements of the Magical Girl Warrior subtrope.
- One of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's Parallel Works, Kiyal's Magical Time, mixes this with Humongous Mecha.
- The plot of one episode of They Are My Noble Masters is started when Ren discovers that Yume has written a story starring herself as a magical girl.
- To Love-Ru combines this with an Expy. Kyoko Kirisaki from Black Cat is turned into Magical Flame Kyoko, a pyromaniac magical girl.
- Also, two of Mikan's school friends presumably now believe she's a Magical Girl Warrior after they see her chasing down a criminal while wearing Peke.
- Also, two of Mikan's school friends presumably now believe she's a Magical Girl Warrior after they see her chasing down a criminal while wearing Peke
- The Show Within a Show Puru Puru Pururin of the anime version of Welcome to the N.H.K.. Only a few snippets are shown, in which we see that Pururin is accompained by a number of animated household objects, including a vacuum cleaner upon which she flies, and that her trademark is to randomly append the word "Purin" to the end of sentences.
- Dark Magician Girl in Yu-Gi-Oh! is largely based on this idea, with several of her summoning scenes looking similar to magical girl transformation sequences. Despite the name, she is not a Dark Magical Girl.
- Yugi himself uses a lot of tropes that usually indicate a magical girl — a Transformation Trinket, at least one confirmed named attack (Mind Crush), and a Transformation Sequence — that if it weren't for the Super-Powered Alter Ego, one could almost classify him as a "magical boy".
- Yurara has elements of this, as the main character is able to transform and battle evil spirits with powerful magic.
- Show Within a Show Majokko Mirakurun in Yuru-Yuri.
- One conversation in Daily Lives of High School Boys has the trio debate over magical girls and whether or not there were any magical boys within the genre. They eventually decided Harry Potter counted as one.
Comic Books
- Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld combines Magical Girl with Changeling Fantasy and High Fantasy.
- The Enchantress created by DC Comics in 1966, comes very close to being a proto-Magical Girl Warrior. Young woman June Moone goes with her slightly older boyfried to an alledgedly haunted castle for a party. Turns out that there are actual spooks. June stumbles into a secret chamber, where a mysterious being tells her she is The Chosen One and gives her a transformation word. June says it and gets magical powers, an appearance makeover (blonde to dark red), a miniskirted costume, and a kickin' witch hat. The Enchantress then battles a Monster of the Week and evacuates the civilians before the castle collapses. June reappears with a weak excuse and her boyfriend expresses an interest in her alter ego. There were two more stories where Enchantress fought random menaces, but the writers didn't have a good story arc beyond that, so she went into obscurity for years, including a phase as a Dark Magical Girl.
- The Gen¹³ miniseries Magical Drama Queen Roxy, which reinvents Freefall as a Magical Girl, is a parody of the genre. Turned out to be All Just a Dream.
- Comic book Superheroine Mary Marvel, who first appeared in 1942, possessed several similar characteristics to the Magical Girl Warrior sub-type: skimpy costume, magical Transformation Sequence into a super-powered form, a Destiny, and (if you stretch it to include Tawky Tawny) a Talking Animal friend.
- Queen Bee
Fan Works
- In A Hero, Dalek Sec implies that Kyubey and the Incubators have been manipulating humanity behind the scenes, and are responsible for the rise of the Magical Girl genre, in order to make it seem like a good idea to become a magical girl. If you know Puella Magi Madoka Magica, you'll know why this is very much the opposite of true. It turns you into a soulless Lich, and worse, you will eventually turn into a monster. All while your emotions are harvested by aliens to prevent the heat death of the universe.
- Friendship Is Magic, a DeviantArt comic based on the eponymous My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic takes on this genre in full force (almost to the point of parody), including a High School in an urban Japanese setting, Calling Your Attacks, magical forehead crystals, and even a litte Chibi Fausticorn sidekick.
- Rosalina Folium, or Mirabilis as she calls herself, in the Forest of Despair believes that she is a magical girl. She has a wand, outfit, spell names, flowers and everything needed except for actually magic.
- In Keepers of the Elements, the canonically non-magical Total Drama girls Gwen, Bridgette, Izzy, Heather and Lindsay each gain Elemental Powers of a different type, with the embittered Courtney later becoming an Evil Counterpart.
- In Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Nonokonote believes she will become a Magical Girl after her school trip. It actually happens even earlier, with Kyon's Badass Longcoat and Morph Weapon substituting for a dress and Magic Wand, and Achakura for Mentor Mascot.
- Meg as well as her daughter Rosie in The Spellbook.
- Rin of Blue Exorcist becomes a magical boy in Inheritance Of Cards And Demons, due to finding the chest containing the Clow Cards (as well as a few new ones Sakura created) and becoming the new Cardcaptor.
- The Cardinal King series is a Sailor Moon fanfic series in which the roles of Mamoru and Usagi are inverted - Mamoru is the Henshin Hero Cardinal King, the Shitennou are his fellow magical warriors and Usagi is the Mysterious Protector Jewel Tiara.
- In Magical Whip Girl Pretty Lotten-Chan Lotten (or more accurately Lotten-Chan) is a whip-wielding magical girl who has to defend Crashtown from the forces of evil.
- Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights is a Massive Crisis Crossover that brings together the casts of the five premiere series of magical girl-dom: Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, the first ten Precure continuities, Lyrical Nanoha, and Madoka Magica, uniting magical girls from across the spectrum to fight a war for the sake of all existence.
- Tentomu chu!! desu~ has the members of the AKB 48 Group as magical girls, specifically the members of the titular unit "Tentoumu chu".
Film
- Even the horror genre has nods to this trope. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master can be seen as a darker take on the Magical Girl story, since Alice's dream powers at first only serve to make everyone around her bigger targets for Freddy Krueger and they are Personality Powers received from their deaths. Nonetheless, it has the typical tropes: shy and insecure teenage girl receives magical powers one day (from Kristen, the previous Final Girl) and, over the course of the movie, overcomes her insecurities and matures into her role as the titular Dream Master, freeing the children's souls from Freddy while getting the hot guy and reconciling with her abusive father.
Live-Action TV
- Balala The Fairies, which is basically a live action Pretty Cure.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, oddly enough, can be seen as a Magical Girl Warrior show. The first season in particular looks quite a bit like a classic Magical Girl series viewed through a funhouse mirror. This is probably not a coincidence, since Joss Whedon is known to be a fan of Sailor Moon.
- H2O: Just Add Water an Australian TV show about teenage girls that turn into mermaids. Some episodes are just Slice of Life about the girls trying to hide their magic from their peers, while others will touch on parts of mermaid mythology.
- Once in Kamen Rider Wizard, in order to hide his identity from his Grandmother, Kamen Rider Beast refers himself as Magical Girl Beast.
- The Secret World of Alex Mack
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, The female character, Poppy Pipopapo (Asuna Karino) transforms into her disguised civilian form or her true Bugster form when she says, "Costume Change" that bares some Magical Girl elements and has a true bubbly and energetic personality like one of the protagonists from those magical girl series such as Serena (Sailor Moon) from Sailor Moon, & Emily (Glitter Lucky) from Glitter Force. Also, as Asuna, she has a mature and no-nonsense persona, although her normal personality will momentarily surface if she is addressed by her real name. But as Kamen Rider Poppy, she uses with the Gashacon Bugvisor II (Buggle Driver II) & the Tokimeki Crisis Gashat, given from Amagasaki Ren (Lovelica) (Lovelica Bugster) during her time with the Bugsters, & her transformation sequence has Magical Girl elements, like Sailor Moon, & Glitter Force.
Music
- South Korean girl group AOA has a sub-group called AOA Cream, who released a song titled "I'm Jelly BABY." In its music video, the girls transform into Magical Girl Warriors to get revenge on a cheating boyfriend.
- Vocaloid features a parody of this trope... with poor Len not as a magical boy, but as a magical kitty.
Tabletop Games
- The "Magical Child" archetype for the Vigilante class in Pathfinder can be of any age or gender, but draws heavily from the Magical Girl trope. They get spellcasting ability, a Transformation Sequence to activate their Secret Identity, and an animal familiar.
Tokusatsu
- In the 1980s and early 1990s, Shotaro Ishinomori had a hand in making the Toei Fushigi Comedy Series. While earlier series were kiddie Sci-Fi robot shows and friendly monsters, the later entries in the franchise were all live action magical girls, such as Mahou Shoujo Chuuka na Paipai, Fushigi Shojo Nile na Thutmose, Bishoujo Kamen Poitrine, and Yuugen Jikkou Sisters Shushutorian.
- Cutey Honey The Live is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - a live action version of Cutey Honey.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, a live action version of Sailor Moon.
- The toku series Seishoujo Senshi Saint Valkyrie, which appears to have been inspired by Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki.
- Even Super Sentai has an example. Gekisou Sentai Carranger, the parody series, had the kid sister of the series' main villainess transforming into White Racer, a racing-themed magical girl, to occasionally help out the heroes. Also, she had a cat/car-based mecha. Carranger was an odd year.
- Kamen Rider Ex-Aid's Poppy Pipopapo (Asuna Karino) transforms into her disguised civilian form or her true Bugster form when she says, "Costume Change" that bares some Magical Girl elements and and has a true bubbly and energetic personality like one of the protagonists from those magical girl series such as Usagi "Serena" Tsukino (Sailor Moon) from Sailor Moon, & Miyuki Hoshizora (Emily) (Cure Happy) (Glitter Lucky) from Smile Pretty Cure! (Glitter Force). Also, as Asuna, she has a mature and no-nonsense persona, although her normal personality will momentarily surface if she is addressed by her real name. But as Kamen Rider Poppy, she uses with the Gashacon Bugvisor II (Buggle Driver II) & the Tokimeki Crisis Gashat, given from Amagasaki Ren (Lovelica Bugster) & her transformation sequence has some Magical Girl elements, like Sailor Moon, & Smile Pretty Cure! (Glitter Force).
- The Girl x Warrior franchise directed by Miike Takashi and produced by Takara Tomy is a tokusatsu magical series that was created to rival the Pretty Cure franchise. The first season, Idol x Senshi Miracle Tunes premiered in April 2017, with the theme of Idol Singer magical warriors. The newest season, Mahou x Senshi Maji Majo Pures premiered in April 2018, with the theme this time being witches who protect children's dreams. The actresses for the main heroes double as idols, doing their own theme songs.
Video Games
- Battle Moon Wars features several characters from various Type-Moon shows dressed as magical girls.
- BlazBlue: Continuum Shift features Platinum the Trinity, who is absolutely a Magical Girl, complete with lampshading battle quotes.
Platinum: Magical Girl Pretty Luna... transform!
- Platinum's gag reel takes this into overkill territory, adding the other Pettankoes for a campaign against Boing Queen Litchi. You will die laughing so fast Hazama would be jealous.
- In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the Empire of the Rising Sun's hero unit, Yuriko Omega, is a powerful psychic who can flip tanks with her mind. She wears a schoolgirl uniform, and seems to be no older than 18.
- Midori from Devil Survivor seems to see herself as one of these, sadly she is in a Shin Megami Tensei game.
- Disgaea Dimension 2: Flonne's "Pure Flonne" form.
- The Mage class from Beat 'em Up MMO Dungeon Fighter Online.
- In the doujin fighting game Eternal Fighter Zero, Sayuri Kurata's fighting style is a reference to the Magical Girl genre, complete with a transforming Magic Wand.
- Final Fantasy X-2 owes much to the Magical Girl genre, with a Lighter and Softer approach, a all-female party, a Job System that necessitates a Transformation Sequence every few minutes (with all of the Fanservice that normally brings) and regular uses of The Power of Friendship (and Teamwork).
- Fantastic Fraulein Mumor. Final Fantasy XI, being a Japanese MMORPG, was bound to have this eventually.
- Shannon of God Hand is a villainous (though not exactly Dark Magical Girl) parody of this.
- Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star has a sequence where the human girl, Ryouta, and Professor Kazuaki turn into crossdressing bird magical girls to save the day. It's a parody, but you can still get everybirdy killed by messing up the incantation.
- Joan of Arc herself in Jeanne d'Arc.
- The trope is parodied in Killer7 with the boss Ayame Blackburn, with her over-the-top introduction speech and ludicrous soubriquet.
- League of Legends: The Star Guardian line of skins, including Lux, Jinx, Lulu, Poppy, and Janna.
- A second team was added later with Ahri, Miss Fortune, Soraka, Syndra, and Ezreal.
- Magical Girl Kirara And Sarara Dioskroi Of Starlit Sky
- MapleStory: The "Angelic Buster" Hero class.
- In Mega Man ZX Advent, Aile seems to have styled herself as a Magical Girl Warrior, if her Transformation Sequence is any indication.
- The CPU goddesses and candidates from the Neptunia series can transform into stronger, older-looking Hard Drive Divinity forms, complete with Transformation Sequence and obligatory Fanservice. Neptune in particular loves to reference Sailor Moon.
- A Show Within A Game within No More Heroes is Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly, apparently also a Super Robot show. We never see the anime itself, but the main character seems to be obsessed with it (he is, after all, an Otaku).
- No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle features what is apparently the intro of the show. It's now titled "Bizarre Jelly 5".
- No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle features what is apparently the intro
- Same deal with Panel de Pon.
- Arin from Pangya.
- The Nymphs of Rayman Origins.
- Gracia Hosokawa from Samurai Warriors.
- Silent Hill 3, of all places, contains a parody of Magical Girls with one of Heather's alternate outfits, complete with a Sailor Moon style Transformation Sequence. (Her power? The ability to shoot Frickin' Laser Beams.)
- The character MOMO from the Xenosaga series gains two different Magical Girl forms, each with their own extended (and fortunately skippable) Transformation Sequence.
- Lobotomy Corporation: One of the abnormalities you have to manage is a magical girl who believes she was created to fight evil. Let her stay in a bad mood for too long, however, and she'll transform into a giant light blue snake monster and start teleporting throughout the facility, attacking any employee she sees.
- Eiyuu Senki: The World Conquest: Nero's outfit screams this, and she can cast spells as well.
- Elodie in Long Live the Queen can become one of these.
- In THE iDOLM@STER: SideM, the boys of Mofumofuen and S.E.M. play the main characters of a neoclassical Magical Boy series during an event. One of the few instances where a Magical Boy premise is played completely straight, even if it was in-universe.
Web Comics
- Footloose At the school
- Last Res0rt has the Galaxy Girl Scouts (Sailor Moon meets Green Lantern Corps), as a major portion of Daisy's/Veled's Back Story.
- Megatokyo contains several of these, though the only ones seen so far are Meimi (retired), Yuki, and possibly Miho. It's been shown by the Tokyo Police and their actions that an unlicensed Magical Girl is a serious threat.
- Metacarpolis has a darker than normal take in Emiko, a former Magical Girl and Pop Idol who chucked it all, moved to America and works as a cleaning service maid. Her backstory makes her look like a Former Child Star with PTSD.
- In Nip and Tuck, one girl acted as one.
- Rain is huge fan of an in-universe, magical girl manga called "Black Wings Kaminari".
- Parodied in Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki, where the male main character is turned into a valkyrie by a Norse god hiding inside a Magical Girl anime, who had assumed that anyone watching it would already be female.
- Tsunami Channel has Magical Mina, a magical girl who, like Nanoha, has strong influences from shounen manga.
- In Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi, Bubbles first dresses as Sailor Moon as a gag but according to Grim Tales from Down Below, she might take up the title for real one day, and the outfit she wears while fighting insect robots looks like a magical girl outfit.
- Soft and Shattered features magical girls, or mahou, who make contracts with familiars and gain the usual ability to transform and fight Nightmares.
Web Original
- In The Impossible Man Yuki Shimizu is a Magical Girl, sent by her mother who leads a mysterious village of Magical Girls and Magical Women, to work as Michael Garcia's bodyguard at his store.
- In Monster Girl Encyclopedia, magical girl appear to be a class of heroine, with Fallen Maidens book features a magical girl named Mimiru Miltie. As hinted by name of the book, she got corrupted and become a witch of Subbath cult.
- The Mother's Basement's PSA Is YOUR Daughter a Magical Girl?! serves as a 'what to look for' guide to parents of magical girls.
Western Animation
- During the second Superhero Episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes, Heloise becomes Trouble Bubble Girl, a parody of this.
- The second season premiere of Megas XLR features a parody of the Sailor Moon model (complete with an Overly Long Gag of a Transformation Sequence and a blonde Odango haired leader). Interestingly enough, they fight by summoning Humongous Mecha that look just like them instead of anything that can be construed as "magic".
- South Park parodies this in "A Song of Ass and Fire" and "Titties and Dragons" when Kenny becomes one.
- Happy Peach Flower and her friends from Exchange Student Zero.
- Suki from ToonMarty.
Other
- The German audio drama series Bibi Blocksberg is about a 13 year old witch living in a small German town and going to school with other regular kids. The series started in 1980, long before anime shows or manga became popular in Germany.
- Though there had been numerous anime broadcast earlier in Germany - among others Heidi, Pinocchio, Captain Future, Maya the Bee and The Little Viking Wickie, they had been promoted as 'animated' or 'cartoon series', and the fact that they were Japanese animated series had been neglected to mention. Therefore many Germans believed that the series were Austrian, Belgian, French or American productions - as Germany dubbed these series, there was no tell-tale sound track.
- The German book series Lilly The Witch is about a girl named Lilly who finds a magical book which turns her into a witch, as well as a Mentor Mascot in the form of a little green dragon named Hector, and who has many adventures all over the world. The books have been made into an animated series on CBBC, as well as an animated movie.
- The Choose Your Own Adventure book Magical Girl Academy.
- Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls was an attempt by Lauren Faust to launch a toy line in this genre.
