I Seem To Be What I'm Not, You See

Principally because like, stern and serious right-and-wrong Ch’en is also a total romantic and kind of a dork. She’s embarrassed about it. It’s great.

But also because this event shows her doing all sorts of romantic adventurer things, despite the seriousness of her conviction and the dire situation. She shows up in Baizao and saves a beautiful stranger, picks a lady up and does a huge flying leap to take her where she needs to go, gets involved in and solves a strange situation in this new place, uses a pinnacle martial technique she developed in a climactic moment to overcome her own father…

1. canonically female (no variation)

2. canonically the protagonist of her story (if it’s an ensemble cast you have to say you can legitimately see her as The main character)

3. your personal #1 favorite character in that story (ties are acceptable)

But leaving aside all the actual discussion there, I'm now amusing myself by picturing the conclusions about What Magical Girl Shows Are Like one could get to by drawing exclusively from a reference pool of a couple random shows with absolutely no broader knowledge of the cultural imprint of magical girls. Like,