#magilumiere is very good for many reasons

[jpedottxt]

finally caught up on magilumiere co. ltd. and was ecstatic to discover category 5 potential-yuri moments

[jjs-brainrot]

Anime season Fall 2024 finished. Decently strong season, though I'd definitely say it's probably the weakest compared to the previous 3 seasons this year. Not a fault of its own, mind you. All 3 of the previous seasons had multiple shows that just permanently altered my brain chemistry and this one just felt solid. Good shows all around with very few misses for me so I'd say it was still a positive season overall.

Biggest surprise for me was how many of the shows I was keeping up with instantly got a season 2 announced. Genuinely nice to see after being so use to seeing shows I enjoyed being one-and-dones.

A-Tier (Shows that I became obsessed with and were the highlight of my week)

Shangri-La Frontier S2 (Continuing into next season)

The greatest action series this year has returned once again. No fights quite top the high that was the Weathermon arc yet, but it randomly turning into a really solid high speed mecha anime for two episodes was absolutely wild.

I highly recommend giving Shangri-La Frontier a try if you haven't yet. it's easily one of the best MMO animes out there.

Puniru is a Kawaii Slime S1

Super hilarious slimegirl comedy that had some great overarching themes on not letting gender conformity and norms prevent you from enjoying what you like while also having ridiculous amounts of completely unique character designs for the MC that stick around for barely a minute before never being used again.

Easily the funniest show this season and definitely can't wait for season 2 if for no other reason then I want to see how high the character design counter for Puniru can go.

Magilumiere Co. Ltd. S1

A super neat corpo/tech take on the magical girl genre with 20 year old OL magical girls that also successfully fulfilled my yuri quota this season.

Easily the best magical girl show this season and I'm eagerly looking forward to more HitomixKana content in season 2.

Dandadan S1

Battle Shounen that's secretly a romance series. Had excellent chemistry between its main characters and Science Saru is operating at its peak yet again.

While I'd say I enjoyed the series a lot, the first season ending where it did basically makes it impossible for me to recommend picking it up until the second season starts in July.

B-Tier (Good shows that I can definitely recommend giving a try)

Natsume's Book of Friends S7

Another chill season of Natsume for the pleasant iyashikei vibes and hard drinking rotund kitty cat adorableness.

All of the episodes were pretty solid though I feel like it was a bit weaker then some of the previous season. Not too much to say honestly, Natsume is good and you should give it a try if you need a 7 season iyashikei.

C-Tier (shows I liked but were very flawed)

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Little Witch Academia this was not. It was an extremely pretty series with possibly some of the most beautiful backgrounds this year. But the writing was pretty barebones with a lot of the characters being extremely one note. It's serviceable and enjoyable but ultimately pretty forgettable.

(S)pecial-Tier (For series that I've already read the source material. Can be either positive (+) or negative (-).)

Nothing

(D)ropped/Do not Recommend Tier (only counting anime I've watched 6+ episodes of)

Acro Trip (dropped after 6 episodes):

While it had a promising start, pretty much all of my initial worries came to fruition. What possible yuri there was to be had got immediately extinguished at every turn. It constantly had plot points that go nowhere or outright get dropped without warning. It's a magical girl show but 60% of the screen time gets dedicated to adult dudes.

As a series, it felt like it had absolutely nothing interesting to say about anything and just felt like fluff. I felt like it wasted my time and the general gist I got from mutuals that finished it was that it didn't get any better.

[ladyloveandjustice]

I do agree the genre was never dead, but it's strange when someone's like "actually there's a lot of this around" and it's always like ten shows over the course of the last ten years and some of them aren't actually magical girl shows (Shy had magical girl vibes but it's very firmly presenting and marketing iitself as a Western-style-superhero show. and is one).

I do think it's GREAT that you spread awareness about that these anime, though!

When people are talking about the subgenre Madoka is in, they're also generally thinking magical girl warriors, not majokko series like Little Witch. And I think it's also okay to be mad there isn't a lot of anime when that's the medium that's most talked about online, even if there is more manga. When people complain about this kind of thing, I don't think they should have to put a million asterisks.

But again, I do agree it was never dead, and things have been changing positively lately! Demon Girl Next Door is great and we got an absolute WAVE of great magical girl anime this season. We haven't see a Madoka-rip off anime in quite a while so I think that trend is dying, so maybe the next big dark magical girl thing we get won't be mindlessly hyping a trend and actually have something to say.

Recs not mentioned in the OP: If magical girl adjacent stuff like SHY counts, I'd say give Healer Girl a look, it's very cute. Also for another majokko series, The Stories of the Girls Who Couldn't Become Magicians is airing this season and Witch Hat Atelier is upcoming. Some past mg stuff OP didn't mention that I haven't seen yet is Blue Reflection Ray and Girl in Twilight, might be not on here bc they might be darker but didn't seem like Madoka-alikes. They're on my list.

Anyway, thanks for the list, reblogging it for followers. I'm gonna note which of the list I think is good and I think is bad since I imagine a lot of followers share my taste

Great: Demon Girl Next Door, Flip Flappers (warning for some disquieting fanservice stuff infrequently), Little Witch Academia, Acro Trip so far, Magilumiere

Good/interesting: Artistwitch. Definitely variable and weird but it's interesting and experimental and worth a watch.

Bad: Urahara (SO boring), The Magical Girl and Lieutenant (no disrespect to the recently passed mangaka, but the mg was too moe-ified, and I heard there was a lot of SA jokes after I dropped it, NOT my thing, but it does look pretty)

Not Seen But Not interested: I've Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl makes me viscerally uncomfortable just from the image, looks like pedo bait, Six Hearts Princess also has a pedo bait design for one of them to the point it had to be censored on someone's Youtube and apparently produced only 7 eps in six years, Magia Wars...doesn't seem to exist anymore? google isn't finding it...I think I might have watched that one and it was too boring to keep up with though..Fantasista Doll...oh they're LITERALLY dolls...robots...they have masters...no.

Interested and Might check out:

Kuromajo- jeez we really are going back ten years...it's a 7 minute ep one. more of a witch show but I might check it out.

Somehow never heard of Matoi the Sacred Slayer! Potentially work checking out,

Magical Girl Kurumi: we really are scraping the barrel here budget wise, this is barely animated, not great proof the genre was thriving but yeah looks fine might check it out.

Mewkledreamy: ah it's a sanrio thing. Looks cute but probably not my cup of tea. Worth checking out

Magical Girl Aiko: it's a short, that's why nobody picked it up. The R+ rating is slightly alarming but I am curious now.

I should note the reason many of these series weren't talked about is they were never picked up for liscencing, which isn't any audience's fault.

and I didn't even include magical boy anime (which isn't as rare as some people think)

look. a subgenre going in a direction you don't like for a while doesn't make it "dead". reboots, sequels, prequels, and stuff like that are the trend in all sorts of media, not just magical girl anime.

also, there are all sorts of cool magical girl works that aren't anime, and i don't just mean manga and light novels. there's live-action stuff, VNs, webcomics, written works, cartoons from countries other than japan...

and guess what? i'm not against dark magical girl stuff by any means. madoka magica was what got me into magical girl stuff in the first place! i love all sorts of magical girl media, both light and dark, though i don't claim to be an expert by any means. there's still so much stuff i haven't watched/read/played...

anyway, the anime listed here include Artiswitch, Kuromajo-san ga Tooru, Little Witch Academia, Fantasista Doll, Magia Wars, SHY, Hina Logi: From Luck and Logic, Matoi the Sacred Slayer, I've Had Enough of Being a Magical Girl, Urahara, Flip Flappers, Six Hearts Princess, Magical Girl Kurumi, The Demon Girl Next Door, and Mewkledreamy. The upcoming ones are Magical Girl Aiko, Princess Session Orchestra, Acro Trip, Magilumiere, The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Enemies, and an unnamed magical girl anime from Studio Pierrot

[bergeronprocess]

10/7/24

Thinking a little bit about why magical girl anime holds such appeal for me.

I’m a millennial, which is to say that I’m somewhat of an oldhead in the world of Western anime fans. I got into anime through Sailor Moon way back in the day. I can’t clearly recall the first time I ever watched the show, but whenever it happened, I was hooked right away. Part of the appeal for me back then was the exact same as it is for me now: I love the empowering idea of girls being the ones to save the boys, save the day, save the world, save the universe. Oftentimes it’s a group of girls working together even with their very different personalities and abilities and I love that sort of thing too, that unity of purpose. I also enjoyed picking out a favorite from the team - it’s Sailor Mercury and it always has been for me, though Jupiter has grown on me too. 

I also love the aesthetics, the bright colors, the inventive magic, the theme songs and, but of course, the transformations. Sometimes I find myself getting a bit emotional when I watch a transformation sequence. I might even tear up or cry a little bit, but I’m not sad. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m happy! I’m moved! Maybe there’s just something about the magic of it all - an everyday girl (or boy, shout out to Cure Wing) becoming someone magnificent and spectacular through the use of a special stick or brooch or cell phone or what have you. Maybe part of it is the imaginative feeling that, hey, maybe this could happen to me too. Maybe I just have to find the right object. Maybe I just need to stumble across a talking cat. I have a cat, but alas, she lacks the ability to speak English and thus to be able to instruct me on the mission I must now undertake.

I’m eating pretty good this season because there are, by my completely unscientific count, three currently airing magical girl shows. Wonderful Precure continues its yearlong run and, even though it isn’t going to top my list of favorite Precure seasons I’ve watched, it’s got its nice moments. (I do wish they’d go ahead and make Satoru and Daifuku into Precures though. Yes, I’ve heard about what happens in the movie and no, that is not good enough.) Acro Trip is a ton of fun and has some interesting rules about how Berry Blossom can and cannot use her magic. Magilumiere takes a cool “what if adults were magical girls and used a combo of magic and technology” angle and shows adults transforming - instead of reverting to their teenage selves and then transforming as in Power of Hope -Precure Full Bloom-. The plot reason for that reversion made perfect sense, but it was a bit of a letdown at first!

There’s also The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Become Magicians, with its fun pastel palette, but that’s about witches, not magical girls. (I’m somehow picking up a “What if Utena, but candy-colored and much less traumatic” vibe from it, too, which may make some modicum of sense because it’s a JC Staff production just as Utena was.)

These are the kinds of shows that tend to appeal to me most. I don’t often go for the Big Shows of the Season, the ones that all the critics are excited for or the Shonen Jump adaptations. All of the cookie-cutter isekai “what if I was just a normal dude in this world but the most overpowered guy ever in a fantasy world and every girl was all over me” shows bore me - the only interest I hold in them is to see how the critics are going to skewer them. No matter how many years pass since my first viewing of Sailor Moon, though, magical girl shows continue to hold my interest and I am so glad for that!