#youchien

The title, for example, was the preliminary Chou Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach and original artist Konomichi Ayumi tried to lend an anime style to designs that would end up not being used in the actual anime at all (given it didn't begin until 1995).

But part of what I find so fascinating about this incarnation of the series is how solidly it presents itself as a story for very small children to enjoy. I say all this because the chapter shown in the July 1994 issue of Shougaku Youchien is just so fundamentally something for a kids' magazine that it made me smile just thinking of how smartly it utilises the medium.

Bound into the magazine is a sheet of "henshin seal(s)" which can be removed and applied to the appropriate pages of the comic included in the issue. These seals are a core part of the story, with young readers invited to use them to help Peach and her friends transform and fight back against the devils, rather than just serving as cute extras for decorating accessories.

If the seals aren't used Momoko doesn't visibly transform into Peach as she normally would and the story doesn't progress as it should. Child readers are being asked to complete the visual storytelling of the narrative here and while Wedding Peach was hardly the first or last child's story to use these techniques to involve readers, I appreciate that it did this and that I now have a copy in my collection.

I love this kind of thing, and I imagine plenty of kids and parents today would enjoy something similar with their favorite series! I am sharing it partly because I wanted to highlight it (I always enjoy when a story draws in its audience through simple and time tested ideas). But also because it underscores just how young the intended audience for Wedding Peach really was. It was not aimed at tweens or teens but at small children, and the older otaku audience the anime later attracted didn't factor into shaping these original core elements of the media mix.

By this point, magical girl is an established fantasy archetype unto itself; however, there are plenty of magical girls based on other mystical beings such as mermaids, angels, and in this case, fairies. Fairy magical girls range from strong and stylish, like in Winx Club, to tiny and adorable, like in Rilu Rilu Fairilu. Today, we'll take a look at what is probably the first fairy-centric magical girl series, and examine its' ties to other magical girl firsts.

Yousei Nana-chan (yousei being the Japanese word for fairy) is a 1969 children's manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama (Yes, THAT Mitsuteru Yokoyama. We'll get there.) about, well... a fairy named Nana-chan. As a flower spirit, it's Nana's responsibility to keep the peace in the forest, but a variety of bad guys try to ensnare Nana, make life miserable for the critters who call the forest their home, or both. Thankfully Nana is always able to thwart them with her trusty magic wand.

There doesn't seem to be any overarching story. This is another one where I only have access to scattered page scans but as far as I can tell, none of the villains ever come back. This manga is geared towards a very young audience, and to that end all of the text is written in hiragana. This manga also has rather large panels and was printed in color.

Yousei Nana-chan began publication in Yoiko, a Shogakukan publication, starting with the November 1969 issue. Yoiko would change its' name to Youchien starting with the January 1970 issue. Yousei Nana-chan ran for a total of nine chapters, with the final chapter being published in the July 1970 issue of Youchien. These chapters were quite short, with the whole series running for a combined total of only 44 pages. The manga has never been officially republished outside of its' original magazine run, but unofficial reprints have been published by the Mitsuteru Yokoyama fan club, first in 2009 as a black and white collection of five chapters, and then in 2015 with all nine chapters in their original full color.

As for Yokoyama himself, the man is best known for pioneering the giant robot/mecha genre with titles such as Tetsujin 28-go and Giant Robo. Tetsujin 28-go specifically is both the first manga of his to receive an anime (in 1963) and the work of his to be most recently adapted to anime, with a reboot in 2013 (titled Tetsujin 28-go Gao!). Within magical girl fan communities however, Yokoyama is known as the creator of Sally the Witch, that series people (including myself) keep name-checking as the first magical girl anime, which began airing in late 1966.

Due to Sally's popularity, there is a bit of a misconception that she is the first magical girl. Himitsu no Akko-chan technically came before her with a manga that started in 1962, even though her anime wouldn't come until 1969. As well, even Akko-chan is predated by Super Rose, a 1959 manga that, despite not being nearly as well known or influencial as Sally or Akko, could be argued to be a magical girl series nonetheless.

Yousei Nana-chan would be Yokoyama's third magical girl manga, following Sally the Witch in 1966 and Comet-san in 1967. Comet-san didn't get an anime in its' own time; however, it would be reimagined as Cosmic Baton Girl Princess Comet in 2001. While the plot of this anime is somewhat similar to the original manga, the title character was heavily altered to appeal to young girls of the time and utilize magical girl tropes that had become staples of the genre in the intervening decades. So Comet-san technically has an anime, which is part of why she didn't get her own post here on Mahou no Manga. The other reason is the manga was adapted the same year it began, as a live action drama. Starting in 1967, the Comet-san TV series is the first live action Japanese magical girl series, and if you don't count Bewitched, Comet-san is the first live action magical girl, period.

“Don’t worry, you’ll always be the best elf assassin in the world!”

Full Bokko Youchien English (RPGVeir)

Another horror game made by Charon

HAppy summer!!!

But did you know that Viento and Peach also have a unique dual attire swap in the final chapter of the Youchien manga version of the series?

This transformation, complete with angelic wings and robes, is used in place of Viento and Peach's usual attire during the final battle with Reine Devila.

Series animator Watanabe Mayumi provided the artwork for this chapter, resulting in visuals that are notably high quality and closely aligned with the anime’s style, even with the costume change.

Not everyone finds joy in the differences between entries in a media mix, but I do. I love seeing how the same core ideas are reinterpreted depending on the medium, the intended audience, the artist, and all the other production factors involved.

Do I have preferences? Sure, there are aspects of Yazawa’s version of the Wedding Peach manga that I enjoy more than how they’re handled in the anime (I am 100% pro-Wedding Swords, for example). In a media mix full of countless interpretations of the same core ideas, I feel the mere existence of one version doesn’t inherently diminish another. Instead, each offers an alternate perspective on the story’s key themes, and as an audience we can decide how much weight to give each in shaping our own interpretations of the story.

I’m keenly aware that capitalism sits at the heart of media mix development, especially with properties like this that were created with market saturation and profit in mind. Still, even though it all comes from such a cynical starting point, I can’t help but find the different versions of Wedding Peach endearing in their own ways.