chilitsukikawa replied to your post: oh wow the new voltron season is out

It’s not out till the 10th so we’re not safe yet lol

well then

@chilitsukikawa​  reblogged your photo:Hey y’all. For my next list this is… Magical Girls...

#this was interesting but half the characters listed arent even magical girls

#nor are they from magical girl shows...

Hi Friend! All the characters on my list meet my definition of a magical girl show. This is a definition I’ve come up with after consuming nearly 20 years and over 200 pieces of magical girl media. I’ve been paneling at Anime Conventions for nearly 5 years talking about magical girls and run over 4 different panels now. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right, it just means my criteria of a magical girl show differs from yours.

TV Tropes and Wikipedia define magical girls as basically “a girl that can do magic” this definition isn’t satisfying to me because it would count things like Strike Witches or even Harry Potter. So I define magical girls based on this criteria: 

 The piece of media must be about a girl, or a group of girls, who use magic or advanced technology to overcome their problems, go on adventures, and/or defeat evil.

I include things like tech because shows like Corrector Yui and Lyrical Nanoha and even Symphogear and Vividred Operation are very obviously all magical girl shows even though they don’t use magic- they use technology. I include go on adventures/solve problems because shows like Fancy Lala, Pri Para, Lady Jewelpet, Magical Emi, etc. are all magical girl shows where they don’t defeat a big bad evil.

 The story must be girl centric. Girls must be the heroes (and maybe even the villains). Over all the girls must be the focal point. Girls must be the driving force for progressing and expanding the plot.

I still include things like Steven Universe because even though Steven is the man character all the other important magical characters user she/her. This also allows me to eliminate things like Fate Stay Night or Harry Potter.

One or more of the girls must grow and develop as a character.

This is how I eliminate things like Strikes Witches where, in the confines of the show, the girls can’t technically grow and develop as characters.

New: Even if the girls are apart of a magical world, there must be some baseline of “normal” that they exceed.

I added this in to exclude things like Tinkerbell which fit all the other boxes. Even in Sally The Witch even though she comes from a magical world, she lives in the human world which means she is above the baseline of “normal”. Even in Mahou Girls Precure the Precure are still legendary magicians that are more powerful than all the other magic users.

There’s nothing about transformations because many early magical girls didn’t have transformation sequences and even some of the more popular pivotal series like Cardcaptor Sakura don’t include a constant transformation sequence. There’s nothing about mascots because shows like Day Break Illusion and Magic User’s Club are very obviously magical girl shows that don’t have mascots. There’s nothing about items because shows like Sally The Witch and Kiki’s Deliver Service didn’t really put a huge emphasis on items.

All the shows I mentioned on the list I provided check my boxes so I included them. You’re welcome to disagree! I’m not fighting you on your opinion to not include them. I’m not the gate keeper of magical girls, but at the end of the day neither are you.