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It doesn’t hurt that these powers often come with a killer transformation sequence, or that the girls are aided by impossibly cute familiars. Some series in the genre are light and fluffy, while others have lots of depth, deconstructing the very idea of what it means to be a magical girl and a hero. Here’s some of the best the genre has to offer.
10 Magical Girl Raising Project
For most of the girls in N-City,being a magical girl is something they can only do in the titular RPG Magical Girl Raising Project. However, Koyuki Himekawa is able to live her dream when she is selected to become her magical girl character from the game. The stakes are raised when the admins declare that whichever magical girl completes the fewest heroic tasks will be stripped of her powers.
Things only get worse when the girls realize that whoever loses their powers soon suffers a tragedy, turning their former game into a desperate struggle to survive. N-City might not be a fantasy world most viewers would want to inhabit, but Magical Girl Raising Project is an underrated gem.
9 Cute High Earth Defense Club
Cute High Earth Defense Club changes only one critical piece of the magical girl formula: the gender of its heroes. In this “magical boy” series, five ordinary boys are granted Loveracelets (and with them the ability to turn into Battle Lovers) by a pink wombat-like alien.
They then form the Earth Defense Club, using the power of love to combat the villainy of their enemies in the Earth Conquest Club, who in turn are led by a green hedgehog-like creature. Satirical, funny, and built on self-deprecating humor, Cute High Earth Defense Club is the perfect cozy show for those looking for a humorous anime with a slight twist on genre tradition.
8 Tokyo Mew Mew
Tokyo Mew Mew takes the magical girl genre and adds the one thing that could make it even cuter: catgirls. Protagonist Ichigo starts acting like a cat after a trip to the zoo, because her DNA fused with cat DNA. Of course, this means she must defend earth from aliens who possess and mutate animals.
Though wacky, its plot is novel, and every frame of screentime plants seeds of cuteness and joy. Ichigo and her friends use a maid cafe as a home base, and the series revolves as much around their everyday activities as their supernatural adventures. In its own way, Tokyo Mew Mew is one of the best magical girl anime to watch, because it shows off the genre’s best aspects.
7 Cardcaptor Sakura
Usually, the worlds of magical girl anime already have monsters running around before the protagonist shows up. In Cardcaptor Sakura, it is 10-year-old Sakura Kinomoto herself who accidentally releases Clow Cards into the world, and has to enlist the help of her friend and rival to retrieve them.
Cardcaptor Sakura is an archetypical magical girl anime in many ways: the magical girls are cute but daring, their abilities are cute but powerful, and the monsters are cute but deadly. It is, in a word, adorable, and a great anime to watch with kids. The self-aware lean into the tropes of the genre make it a great entry point for those new to magical-girl anime.
6 Wonder Egg Priority
After Ai Ooto’s best friend commits suicide, a strange entity gets her to purchase a mysterious Wonder Egg. While she sleeps, a surreal new world materializes, and when Ai breaks the egg inside it, she is tasked with saving people from various adversities. By doing so, she believes she may be able to save her friend from the tragic end that befell her.
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Wonder Egg Priorityis a beautifully animated blend of friendship, action, and the art of coping with trauma. The subject matter is heavy, but the series handles it effectively.
5 Kill La Kill
Kill la Kill includes clothing-based transformations, talking magical creatures, and a spirited female protagonist, checking off three basic magical girl criteria. However, it is otherwise a significant departure from the genre. As violent and sexual as it is stylized, Kill la Kill is a magical girl anime that’s not for kids.
While it may feel like culture shock to fans more accustomed to Cardcaptor Sakura and similar series, the series is most successful where it differs from most magical girl anime. It also doesn’t hurt that the fight animations are eye-popping. Anime fans who have yet to see Ryuko fight won’t be disappointed.
4 Yuki Yuna Is A Hero
Yuki and her middle school friends are members of the Brave Heroes Club, solving ordinary problems for their fellow students. Then a guardian spirit gives them magical powers via a phone app, and tells them to save the world.
Yuki Yuna Is a Hero grows darker the further into its story it gets, with the main characters suffering a series of hard losses. Yet even as their world grows bleaker, Yuki and her friends keep marching forward. Even if all the supernatural content were cut, Yuki Yuna Is a Hero would still be a successful slice-of-life anime, based on the strengths of its characters’ relationships alone.
3 Magical Girl Ore
Not all idol duos can be popular, something 15-year-old Saki Uno knows all too well as half of a hated group. Despite their unpopularity, Saki is happy to belong to her musical duo, because it means more time with her best friend Sakuyo.
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When a supposed yakuza thug breaks into her house, Saki learns that her mother was once a demon-slaying magical girl, and the “thug” is actually there to recruit Saki to fill her mother’s shoes. Saki refuses until she learns that her crush is in danger from squirrel-tailed demons. Her body is not prepared to fight demons, however, so her transformation sequence turns her into a beefy man in a pretty dress.
2 Puella Magi Madoka Magica
At once a subversion of and homage to every trope of the magical girl genre, Puella Magi Madoka asks a simple question: what will someone sacrifice to save others? An adorable cat-like creature named Kyubey grants Madoka and her friends magical powers at the price of enlisting them to help combat spectral monsters called Witches, which are the personification of depression, loneliness, grief, and other difficult emotions.
The story is multifaceted, with numerous spinoffs and tie-ins, but certainly not for kids. The animation is lush, the characters captivating, but it is the narrative twists that will break viewers’ hearts and leave them coming back for more, as the series defies virtually every trope of the genre.
1 Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Magical girl squads, sailor uniforms, elaborate transformations, color-coordinated powers, and a dozen other genre tropes tie back to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (often known simply as Sailor Moon). The series is one of the most iconic anime of all time, and even decades after its 1992 premiere and 200 episodes, it continues to influence the genre.
Usagi and her friends become Sailor Scouts, superpowered warriors themed after the planets, tasked with defending earth from intergalactic threats. If the plot sounds familiar, that’s only because innumerable anime have copied the formula that Sailor Mooncreated. The series is essential viewing for its influence alone.
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