Introduction
In the previous post, I examined the history of magical girl fiction from the '60s to the '70s. I explained that Toei Animation prepared the essential elements of the genre. After the end of Maho Shojo Lalabel, however, the Toei Majokko brand went on a hiatus. In this part, I would like to describe how other '80s creators expanded the genre.
Plus, the '80s magical girl genre obtained new media such as hentai/ pornography or OVA. I introduce some of them.
1. Maho Shojo: Successors of Majokko
1-1. Magical Princess Minky Momo: New Standard of Magical Girls (1982)
1-1-1. The Story of Minky Momo
Two years after the end of Toei Majokko, Ashi Production released Magical Princess Minky Momo, restarting the history of the magical girl anime.
Minky Momo is the story of Momo, a magical princess from Fenarinasa. She comes to the earth and magically becomes the daughter of a human couple who runs a veterinary hospital.
Momo has a secret mission. In the old days, Fenarinasa and the earth were one. They became separated because people lost hope and dreams. If she lets people regain hope and dreams, the earth can reunite with Fenarinasa. To reunite the two worlds, she helps people with magical powers. During the adventure, she becomes various types of professional ladies by using a magical stick and casting a magical spell.
1-1-2. Minky Momo's Contribution to the Genre
Minky Momo inherited common elements of the magical girl genre, such as magical items, spells, transformation, mascots, etc. In that sense, it is a successor to the Toei Majokko franchise. It is a very basic magical girl anime.
However, Momo also added a new idea to the format. That is the stock footage of the transformation.
When Momo transforms, she brings out a magical stick and casts a magical spell. The pink magical effect comes out of the stick and wraps her. Then, she grows up and becomes naked. At the end, she wears a costume and poses. That footage repeats in every transformation scene.
Each element had already appeared in other magical girl anime. Sally had magical spells. Akko-chan had a transformation magic. Cutie Honey became naked and wore costumes. However, Toei Majokko anime did not have particular stock footage for those tropes. Minky Momo gathered and mixed those ideas into stock footage. It became the most common trope in later magical girl anime. Minky Momo set the new standard of the genre.
1-1-3. How Momo Was Made
The Minky Momo project started with a toy company's request. As I mentioned in the '70s part, BANDAI's subsidiary company named Popy developed a toy lineup for girls in Candy Candy and expanded it through the Toei Majokko franchise. That is the starting point of Minky Momo. Popy had connections to an advertising agency called Yomiuri Advertising. Popy and Yomiuri Advertising teamed up and developed a new project for girls together. The project leader was Producer Minoru Ono.
In other words, the demand for merchandise business gave birth to Minky Momo. Ashi Production was chosen as their anime studio because Yomiuri Advertising had a connection to them. *1
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In the preproduction phase, they had a few other plans than the magical girl. After repeated discussions, they combined a pet shop plan with a magical girl plan. *3 That is why Momo is a magical girl and becomes a daughter of a veterinarian. Playing doctor or playing stores is a typical game for children. Plus, it is a very toyetic idea. The veterinarian was a merchandisable idea to Popy.
The sponsors had such requests about toys and the basic format, but they gave freedom to the creators in other parts. According to the chief writer Takeshi Shudo, the president of Ashi Pro said, "You don't need to mind Toei's earlier works. Do it as you want. *4
The sponsor's concept suited Shudo's old idea. In his high school days, Shudo wrote a fairy tale musical. When he joined the Minky Momo project, he thought it was a perfect opportunity to retry that idea. The original musical was under the influence of Mary Poppins *5. As a result, Minky Momo became another Mary Poppins-inspired magical girl just like Comet-san.
Toyoo Ashida and Studio Live joined the crew and contributed to the visual quality. Ashida refined Noa Misaki's original character design in a cartoony and adorable art style. Moreover, Hiroshi Watanabe from Studio Live drew the OP and joined many episodes. *6 Episode 36 shows a perfect harmony of animation quality, script writing, and director's skills.
Plus, the voice acting is pretty unique. Mami Koyama brilliantly played both the child version and the grown-up one of Momo. When she plays the grown-up version, especially in the preview, she talks in a very natural and smooth flow, just like a radio show host. It brought a fresh and trendy atmosphere to the show.
Since they intended to sell Minky Momo in the global market, they omitted Japanese elements from the show as much as possible. The stateless (mukokuseki) style can also be seen in Megu-chan, but Minky Momo did it more thoroughly. It is a very non-Japanese magical girl anime in that sense.
Overall, Minky Momo is a very basic but up-to-date magical girl anime. It inherited many pre-existing elements from the Toei Majokko franchise, but the staff successfully updated it to the '80s style. Young creators made high-quality visuals. They grew out of Toei Majokko's traditional style.
1-1-4. The Emergence of Otaku and Lolicon Boom: Two Layers of Anime Consumption
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Since Minky Momo started in the early '80s, it was consumed by grown-up anime fans called otaku too. In those days, publishers came to release anime magazines for such mature fans, and Minky Momo became those mature fans' favorite anime. Animators' unique styles drew fans' attention. Plus, some creators put anime references/ easter eggs into some episodes. Otaku fans enjoyed finding those easter eggs too. In that sense, Minky Momo had a similar situation to the Urusei Yatsura OG anime.
In the early '80s, otaku had a movement called "Lolicon Boom." Lolicon is a shortened form of "lolita complex." In the '70s, there was a fad of little girls' nude photobooks and Lewis Carroll in some subculture genres. That was initially called "Alice Boom." Some underground porn magazines reacted to that boom and started to release child nude photobooks.
Manga and anime's "Lolicon Boom" started under that context. Under the influence of some subculture magazine editors, some authors began to make pornographic manga in cute art styles. The anime magazines immediately noticed that movement and featured Lolicon Boom in their articles. Through that trend, anime fans came to share a taste for 2D art of cute girls. That is what we call "lolicon" today. Minky Momo was the perfect material for those fans. Many male fans consumed Minky Momo in the lolicon context. They visited events and made a lot of dojin/ fanzines. Not all the fans wanted pornographic media, but all of them were labeled as "lolicon" in those days.
The creators of Minky Momo were aware of such fans. *8 Since there were anime magazines and anime-related events, the creators had opportunities to see the otaku's reactions. Minky Momo sometimes has sexy shots, such as a panty shot from episode 8. It seems that some creators reacted to the otaku fans through those scenes. However, as I mentioned above, the purpose of the show was still merchandising for little girls. There was a gap between the otaku's desire and the anime's marketing goal.
Plus, not all the creators were happy about otaku's reactions. Takeshi Shudo wrote about that in his online essay *9:
Since I am a father of Minky Momo, I want such guys to stay away from Momo. Any person would say the same thing. In the middle of Minky Momo, I decided to omit any coquettish scene from the script.
As time passed, lolicon or "moe" characters became common in the anime business. Still, I believe Minky Momo has nothing to do with them. I admit that fictions belong to consumers. It's up to them to say that Minky Momo is the originator of lolicon anime or something. However, as a creator of the series, I have to say they are disgusting.
Shudo was not the only person who was against the otaku's context. Osamu Kamijo, the animation director of episode 8, subtly mentioned it *10:
I am not satisfied with the quality of episode 8. We did it as we wanted, in a good sense. It became a popular episode, but I was unhappy about the panty shot and some anime references.
After all, Minky Momo reluctantly accepted otaku fans/lolicons even though some staff members were disgusted or confused. While the exposure in the anime magazines probably satisfied some creators, it did not change the main toy business. The lolicon otaku survived as parasites. Such "reluctant co-existence with otaku" was repeated in other '80s magical girl anime.
1-1-5. The Cancellation, Resurgence, and Grand Finale
Minky Momo gained popularity with the otaku audience, but Shudo heard that the toy sales were declining in those days. He stopped writing the script in episode 42 because of that. He wanted to keep some episodes to prepare a finale. *11
As Shudo predicted, Popy told them to finish the show. The reason for the cancellation is unclear. Shudo mentioned the problem of toy sales in his essay, but there is no official explanation. The deadline was episode 42, even earlier than Shudo's prediction. Producer Minoru Ono worked hard to extend the deadline. Thanks to Ono's effort, they got four extra episodes.
Shudo was angry at Popy's decision. He decided to express that anger in the final episode. In episode 46, Momo dies after getting hit by a toy shop's car. Momo's parents hold a funeral for her. It is a sad and shocking episode. Let me quote Shudo's essay about the scene *12:
Minky Momo gets into a traffic accident. I prepared that plan from the beginning so that I could finish the show at any time due to the sponsor's decision or rating problems. I did not want to use that plan, but I also thought it was the only way to keep Minky Momo in the audience's heart without giving a sense of rupture. Of course, I knew that some people would hate it.
Momo's death in the traffic accident was a way to make the audience accept the end of the show. Shudo thought he would not be able to convince the audience without it.
Since the traffic accident scene is so controversial, not many people discuss the rest of the episode. Episode 46 also depicts Momo's reincarnation. In the baby Momo's dream, she sees a future vision: People will regain hope and dreams, and they will reunite with Fenarinasa.
The design, direction, and soundtrack make a perfect chemistry in that sequence. At the end of the episode, all the characters appear as if they were from musical greetings. The cast and the staff members sing the theme song together. It is an indescribably touching episode.
Takeshi Shudo, Director Kunihiko Yuyama, and all the staff members put everything into episode 46. However, Popy suddenly told them to restart the series. That happened because of Popy's new product. They just made a new toy dragon but did not have a good IP for advertisement. That is why they decided to extend Minky Momo and bring the toy into the series. *13
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It was a difficult situation for the staff. Many creators had already moved to other projects, so Director Yuyama had to redevelop the team. Thanks to the story writers' efforts, they successfully reorganized the story. In the end, the forcefully inserted dragon became a meaningful character. I recommend watching the final arc from episodes 49 to 63. It is a very satisfying finale.
Minky Momo exists thanks to the toy company, but it also suffered from the company's random requests. It was a happy and unhappy project at the same time. In that challenging situation, the staff conveyed a consistent and high-quality series.
1-2. Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel: The Beginning of Magical Idols (1983)
1-2-1. The Story of Creamy Mami
Creamy Mami is the story of an ordinary girl named Yu Morisawa. One day, Yu meets fairies in a spaceship and helps them. As a token of gratitude, a fairy named Pino Pino gives her a magical stick. When she uses the stick and casts a magical spell, she transforms into a beautiful 16-year-old girl. When she is walking in that mature form, a talent agent meets her. He makes her debut as a pop idol singer, Creamy Mami. Yu starts a dual life as Yu Morisawa and Creamy Mami.
1-2-2. How Creamy Mami Was Made
After the end of Minky Momo, the producers thought it would be difficult to continue the same format due to some production problems. *15 Producer Minoru Ono and Toru Horikoshi launched a new project with a different TV network and a different anime studio. And thus, the Creamy Mami project is partly linked to Minky Momo.
Because of that background, Momo and Mami share common genre elements, such as magical items, magical spells, transformation, and mascots. However, the directors of Creamy Mami did not like the idea of transformation footage. That is why Creamy Mami did not inherit that trope from Momo. *16 When Mami transformed, they always drew new animation.
Studio Pierrot, the main studio of the Creamy Mami series, was a very young studio launched by former members of Tatsunoko Production. When Mami started, they were well-known for the Urusei Yatsura series. Both the character designer Akemi Takada and the writer Kazunori Ito are from Urusei Yatsura. Compared to some Toei Majokko anime staff, the creators of Mami were very young. *17 Younger generations overcame Toei Majokko's tradition by making a new mode of magical girls.
According to Akemi Takada, the idea of the magical idol was probably created by BANDAI. Idol singers were prevalent in those days, and idols looked pretty toyetic. *18 In those days, BANDAI was reorganizing its subsidiary companies. Popy used to release girls' toy lineups for magical girls, but BANDAI consumed them. Popy's girls-toy business was brought to BANDAI's new brand called Remy. Remy made the toys for the Creamy Mami series.
Remy, Yomiuri Advertising, and Studio Pierrot became the core of Creamy Mami.
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1-2-3. The Idea of Magical Idol: Star Tanjo
As I wrote in the previous part, the idol culture became huge in the '70s. A reality show called Star Tanjo played an essential role in that process. Star Tanjo created a mindset that ordinary girls can suddenly become superstars. Creamy Mami utilized that mindset. Yu Morisawa is an ordinary girl, but a talent agent turns her into a national celebrity. Magical power helps her a little bit, but other parts show just an ordinary idol's debut story. In other words, pop idols' way of life is miraculous/ magical.
The show business also functioned as a field for Yu/ Mami's socialization. Even the earlier magical girls had communication with grown-ups and strangers, but most of them were guest characters. Each situation and each guest appeared only once. The protagonists' daily lives were based on their usual schools and families. On the other hand, the TV and music industry are regular fields for Creamy Mami's life. In other words, Mami made the audience experience a different lifestyle.
Yu's life in her school and family is realistically depicted as well. Since both the idol's life and school life gained such reality, they made a good contrast throughout the series. For example, Yu needs her parents' permission to go out while Creamy Mami shows great live performance by herself in a night concert. The dual reality of the two different lifestyles created the unique tone of Creamy Mami.
Plus, Creamy Mami starred Takako Ota, a real pop idol, for Mami's voice. Instead of using a professional singer or a voice actor with singing skills, they collaborated with the real rookie idol from Star Tanjo.
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It was a pretty risky decision. I cannot say Ota was a good actor. Her performance failed to convey emotion in some scenes. Yet, it is also true that the sweet tone of her voice is irreplaceable. It is a long series with 52 episodes, so the audience got used to her acting anyway. Plus, the writers, directors, and side cast supported her throughout the series. Creamy Mami successfully showed "the way of idol" in the '80s style.
1-2-4. The Fresh Design of Creamy Mami
Akemi Takada made various character design sketches in the preproduction process. The sponsor chose one with blue hair. Since Minky Momo has pink hair, they wanted a color different from pink. *21
The Creamy Mami anime project has a rich color palette compared to other anime thanks to Studio Pierrot's origin. As I mentioned above, Studio Pierrot was launched by Tatsunoko Production's staff. Tatsunoko's color palette was more affluent than those of other studios. *22 The rich pastel colors gave a distinctive style to the show. It helped the series grow out of Toei's old images.
Plus, Akemi Takada designed various costumes for each episode. Since Mami does many stage performances and idol jobs, she needs a lot of costumes. Takada designed them all. And thus, Mami's design is more advanced than the variety of Majokko Megu-chan's clothes.
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Takada says that Seiko Matsuda is the source of inspiration for Mami's costumes. *24 Seiko Matsuda is one of the most famous pop idols in Japanese history. In those days, she had a yellow one-piece dress called "hiyoko"/ chick. I suppose Mami's main costume was influenced by Seiko's hiyoko look.
Takada also says that the costumes are based on her memory of piano concert costumes in her childhood. When she learned piano in the old days, her mother bought fancy dresses for her stage performance. *25 That is another source of inspiration for Mami's costumes.
Mami also has quite an impressive hairstyle. It is similar to Momo's hairstyle but more wavy and soft-looking. According to Takada, it was made just by accident. She drew a dancing Mami in one of her sketches. In that sketch, Mami's hair was momentarily blown by the dance movements, but the higher-ups saw it and chose it as Mami's regular hairstyle. *26
1-2-5. AJIADO's Photorealistic Animation in Creamy Mami
Many anime fans talk about Creamy Mami's "photorealistic" direction, especially about Tomomi Mochizuki's storyboarding. An anime journalist Yuichiro Oguro wrote about that in his essay series *27 *28:
Simply put, they made Creamy Mami as if they shot real people and objects with a camera. To achieve such visuals, they put much effort into composition/ layout.
It was not only Chief Director Osamu Kobayashi's style but also that of the whole AJIADO. Many creators from AJIADO joined the Creamy Mami project. Later, in an interview about Kimagure Orange Road, I asked Kobayashi about their direction style. He said, "I'm not sure what people think about this series, but I want to make it just like World Masterpiece Theater."
When you look at AJIADO's production process, you notice that their layout system is the point. In AJIADO's Creamy Mami episodes, directors and animation directors always checked layouts. In TV animation, except the rare cases like World Masterpiece Theater, the layout checking process was not established until the middle of the '80s. AJIADO's method was progressive in those days.
The rookie director, Tomomi Mochizuki, developed Osamu Kobayashi's method and completed Creamy Mami's direction style. His episodes have high-quality visuals and sharp direction. In the original airing, those episodes made me consider anime's "imaginary cameras."
When you watch Mochizuki's Creamy Mami episodes, you probably notice that he uses POV, top-angle shots, and glass reflections in interesting ways. Anime did not often use cameras in such ways. Mochizuki's camera angles made anime fans notice the directorial intentions. As you keep watching his episodes, you realize that even ordinary shots include interesting ideas for framing and editing (cutting.) It is difficult for me to pinpoint the characteristics of Mochizuki's direction. That is beyond my ability. Episode 46, My Wonderful Pianist, typically shows the impact of his direction, so please check it out.
Just like Studio Live's animation quality and some easter eggs drew otaku's attention in Minky Momo, Tomomi Mochizuki's photorealistic direction and AJIADO's power in Creamy Mami gained mature fans' popularity.
1-2-6. OVA and Music Clips: The Advance of Magical Girls for Otaku
In 1983, BANDAI started original anime programs in the home video format. Such direct-to-video anime products are called "OVA." Creamy Mami released its first OVA spin-off, Forever Once More, in 1984. It is an epilogue of the main TV series. It opened the gate for magical girl OVAs. Creamy Mami released four OVA products including two music clip collections.
The '80s OVAs were not cheap items. The retail price of Forever Once More was 12,800 yen. It is difficult to imagine that many parents bought it for their daughters. Maybe some kids had access to the OVA through rental video shops, but I suppose magical girl OVAs were basically targeted toward grown-up fans/ otaku. Yuji Nunokawa says that male adult fans influenced the OVA projects. *29
The visual quality of the OVA improved even more than the TV series, and the style was slightly adjusted to the otaku audience. The third OVA, Long Goodbye, includes otaku-oriented elements, such as girls in powered suits.
In Minky Momo's part, I mentioned that the '80s magical girl anime reluctantly accepted "co-existence with otaku." Creamy Mami expanded that idea. Or I should say the OVA media has prepared a niche field for such customers. It also allowed some creators to pursue their vision without the limitation of kids' anime.
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In the first place, the main director Tomomi Mochizuki was a hardcore otaku. In his amateur era, he was a core member of Waseda University's anime club. With some other members, he wrote articles about lolita girls in their club magazines.*31 In Minky Momo's part, I wrote that not all the creators were happy about otaku's reactions, but young otaku were already coming into anime production in those days. In that sense, Creamy Mami and Pierrot Magical Girls typically show the situation of '80s anime fans.
1-3. The Development of Pierrot Magical Girl Franchise
After Creamy Mami, the project team continued magical girl anime in the same programming slot. It became Pierrot's original magical girl brand. As I explained in the post about the genre name's history, Pierrot started to call it "maho shojo" during that process. In other words, Pierrot popularized the term "magical girl" through their anime brand. In this part, I check how Pierrot developed the magical girls in the '80s TV anime slot.
1-3-1. Persia, the Magic Fairy: Well-made But Unbalanced Series (1984)
After Creamy Mami, Pierrot started a new series in the same programming slot. That is Persia, the Magic Fairy.
It is the story of Persia, a girl raised in Africa. When Persia comes to Japan, she meets some fairies from another world. The fairies ask her to collect energy of love to save the fairies' world. She gets a magical hair band and a magical baton from them. She grows up into various professional ladies when she uses those items and casts a magical spell. With magical power, she helps people around her.
Before launching Persia, Pierrot intended to make a different fantasy anime called Hodge Podge. They made a pilot film of Hodge Podge, but the project was canceled for unknown reasons. A rumor says that it was canceled for the production of Forever Once More. *32 After the cancellation, they launched another project and brought mascots from Hodge Podge into it. That new project is Persia, the Magic Fairy.
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Takako Aonuma's Persia ga Suki! was chosen as a source material for the new project. It is a shojo gag manga about a transfer student from Africa. She is not used to the Japanese lifestyle and causes many troubles. It is a very heartwarming and humorous series. Wild girl or Tarzan girl was not a new idea in shojo manga. For example, Masako Watanabe depicted such a girl in Futago no Princess (1975.) Persia was a traditional shojo manga in that sense.
The original manga Persia ga Suki is not a magical girl story. There is a noticeable gap between the manga and the anime. While the manga depicts conflicts between wild girls and Japanese lifestyles in a comedic style, the anime focuses more on Persia's sentiment in a calm way. Maybe it watered down the uniqueness of the original manga. However, the original manga also has many touching episodes. Those episodes depict Persia's emotion in a decent shojo manga style. In that sense, the anime version was faithful to the "spirit" of the original manga.
In terms of quality, it may not look as outstanding as some Creamy Mami episodes. Still, Takashi Anno and Kazuyoshi Katayama showed solid direction in some episodes. Some skilled animators, such as Yumiko Horazawa, Atsuko Inoue, and Yoshiko Takakura, contributed to the animation. It is a pretty well-made anime, without a doubt. I recommend watching Kazuyoshi Katayama + Yumiko Horazawa's episode 42. Plus, Toyoaki Emura's direction for the first OP is outstanding, even compared to all the other magical girl anime.
The main character's voice acting is well done and stable. Unlike Mami, a professional actor named Mina Tominaga played Persia. I suppose anime fans remember her for Noa Izumi from the Patlabor series. Tominaga was just 17 years old at the time of Persia, but she had a 13-year career as an actor. She showed professional acting ability throughout the series.
A child actor named Mariko Okamoto sang the first OP theme song. She was juts 13 years old at that time, but her singing voice is so impressive. As I mentioned above, the quality of Persia's first OP is outstanding. I suppose Okamoto's song contributed to some parts of that impression.
Persia was/ is not often talked about compared to other magical girls. However, I must emphasize that it earned pretty good ratings in the original run. The fact that the sponsor continued the series for one year shows it was a pretty successful/ marketable program. Persia fulfilled its role as a successor of the epoch-making show.
1-3-2. Magical Emi, the Magic Star: Lolicon Boom and Realist Magical Girl (1985)
After Persia, Magical Emi, the Magic Star started. It is the story of Mai, an 11-year-old girl aspiring to be a stage magician. One day, Mai meets a fairy from a mirror world and gains magical power. When she uses a magical bracelet and casts a spell, she transforms into Magical Emi, a genius stage magician. A TV producer sees Emi's performance and makes her debut as an idol. Mai starts a dual life as an elementary school kid and an idol magician.
1-3-2-1. The Link to the Lolicon Movement
The Magical Emi project started with one lolicon manga author. In the middle of the '80s, manga creator named Kei Kazuna was making both lolicon manga and coloring books for little girls. *34 In Magical Miri, one of his coloring books, Kazuna mixed the idea of a stage magician with the magical girl genre. He brought that book to Studio Pierrot to get a job.
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Studio Pierrot checked Magical Miri and told Kazuna to rewrite it into a TV program. It became a proposal document named Maho no Shojo Fantastic Emi. During the project development, however, Kazuna was purged from the project. Pierrot refused to put Kazuna's author name in the credit. Instead, they credited his real name (Michihiro Nemoto.) In other words, Pierrot hid the link between Magical Emi and the Lolicon Boom.
1-3-2-2. The Peak of Realist Magical Girl
In this series, Tomomi Mochizuki and AJIADO came back to the franchise. Plus, other directors started to show their styles in each episode: Chief Director Takashi Anno, Mitsuru Hongo, Fumihiko Takayama, etc. The direction gets better and better after episode 26. Plus, rookie animators from Anime R joined the crew and contributed to the visual quality.
As I mentioned in Creamy Mami's part, Pierrot Magical Girl was more realistic than the Toei Majokko franchise. That realism becomes remarkable in Magical Emi. Especially the reality of the side characters' episodes is noticeably different from that of traditional magical girls.
For example, episode 27 depicts a TV director trying to have a relationship with a stage magician girl and getting rejected. When the main heroine sees silhouettes of the scene behind a curtain, she mistakes it for a murder case. Her misunderstanding spreads out and causes panic. As you can see, the magical transformation ability has nothing to do with the plot of the episode. In other words, the creators of Magical Emi realistically depicted the characters' lives without focusing much on magic.
Such high-brow direction reaches a peak in an OVA episode named Semishigure. Takashi Anno filled that OVA with montages of characters' summer days without explaining the context. For example, in one scene from Semishigure, the heroine hears a cicada sound and looks back, but it does not suggest what kind of emotion she has. It conveys only atmosphere and nuance through sound and camera movements.
Such a vague direction style gained the attention of the otaku audience. As I mentioned in Creamy Mami's part, Pierrot Magical Girl started to pursue the creators' vision rather than entertainment for kids. By expanding that mature style, Magical Emi became an iconic '80s anime. Some critics even say it is one of the most important piece of work in the anime history. *36 However, we can also say that it lost mainstream feelings during that process.
1-3-2-3. What Emi Inherited from the Predecessors
We should not ignore the fact that Magical Emi also brought back some tropes from older magical girls:
The first trope is the transformation stock footage. Even though Osamu Kobayashi and Tomomi Mochizuki avoided stock footage in Creamy Mami, Magical Emi recycled that style. Maybe some schedule problems led to that decision, but it is a satisfying transformation sequence.
The second trope is the collab with an idol. A debut idol singer named Yoko Obata played the heroine and sang the theme songs. I suppose the cast worked much better than Mami in terms of acting and singing skills.
1-3-3. Pastel Yumi, the Magic Idol: Basic Style and Fatigue (1986)
After Magical Emi, Pastel Yumi, the Magic Idol started. It is the story of Yumi, a 10-year-old flower-loving girl. One day, she meets two flower fairies and gets a magical stick. When she draws art with magical power, that art becomes tangible objects or creatures for a short time. She helps other people with the magical power.
Pastel Yumi is a very "basic" magical girl anime in many ways:
1. It inherited many magical girl tropes from older series, such as magical spells, mascots, stock footage, another world, and a family's slice-of-life.
2. The heroine does not transform. It went back to Toei's style in that sense.
3. Cutting-edge and mature directions like Mami and Emi are not there.
Since the series was axed in 2 cour/ 25 episodes, many people remember it as a badly-received anime. However, it does not mean that the series lacks production value. Skilled animators, such as Yumiko Horazawa and Michitaka Kukichi, joined the team and contributed to the high and stable quality of animation. The design and direction are praiseworthy as well. The stylized background art creates a cozy atmosphere.
The stories are basic, but the directors made great efforts to make them enjoyable. I recommend checking out episode 8, which depicts the '70s Japanese streets.
However, Pastel Yumi also has some questionable parts:
First, maybe its fanservice was too much for little girls. The heroine shows her naked body in the first episode, and her bath scene is often depicted throughout the early episodes. Chief Director Akira Shigino said, "We will show a bath scene in every episode, so please check it out."*37
The creators seemed to aim for otaku's reactions. It is debatable if such fan service was necessary or not. Even the '80s mature fans said, "What kind of target audience does it have?" in magazines. *38 I suppose the staff tried to appeal to the lolicon fanbase, but I cannot say it worked perfectly.
Second, the latter half of the series is pretty messed up due to the cancellation. It has many disappointing recap episodes in that part. Plus, the finale is unnatural and anticlimactic. The main characters suddenly go on an adventure to a fairyland, and it is disconnected from the other parts of the show.
Overall, it is not a bad show, but it has some noticeable damages from the franchise's fatigue and the cancellation.
1-3-4. What Pierrot Magical Girls Achieved
It is difficult to pinpoint differences between Pierrot and Toei. In a sense, Pierrot kept it faithful to Toei Animation's pre-existing format. They followed the business structure of Majokko and inherited the basic tropes.
At least, we can say that Pierrot expanded the styles of girls' shows. As I mentioned in the '70s part, Toei's early magical girls had very vernacular visuals and settings. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe the colors and lifestyles in Pierrot Magical Girls were much closer to the '80s target audience's reality. Japanese culture, including fashion, food, technology, and many other things, had already changed in the '80s, so magical girls needed to update the styles. Pierrot perfectly played its role in that process.
Plus, we should not underestimate the importance of Pierrot's business continuity. They kept making the genre for four years. Many people experienced magical girl fiction through Pierrot's anime, and some of them became the next generation of magical girl creators. In that sense, Pierrot was undoubtedly the biggest genre supporter. Their contribution is important when we analyze the '90s magical girls.
They also reinforced the connection between magical girls and lolicon/ otaku, but that connection was not necessarily the project's goal. There was still a considerable gap between the franchise image and the desire of the creators + otaku. In an interview from a memorial booklet, Yuji Nunokawa, the founder of Studio Pierrot, said this*39:
We have the resurgence of Creamy Mami these days. When we checked fans' reactions to it, we realized that most of them are former girls who watched Mami in their childhood. In other words, Mami was properly conveyed to the target audience. I am relieved to know that. Back then, female fans' voices didn't stand out. Male fans were overwhelming. The anime events were full of male fans. Girls could not easily visit those events, so it was difficult for them to raise their voices.
If the idea of transforming cute girl was animated today, it would be the so-called "moe" anime or CGDCT. That is what otaku and some creators were aiming for. However, Pierrot Magical Girls did not fully step into such expressions.
2. Majokko Revival: '80s Remakes of Toei's Magical Girls
2-1: The Factors Behind the Remakes
The Pierrot Magical Girl franchise went on hiatus in the middle of the '80s. However, in the late '80s, Toei Animation started remaking their Majokko classics. There are several different factors behind those remakes:
First, nobody was making a magical girl anime in those days. As I said above, Pierrot's Magical Girls went on hiatus, so there was a blank of magical girl anime. Toei Animation filled that blank.
Second, there was a wave of classic remakes caused by Shogakukan. In the '80s, TV Asahi teamed up with Shogakukan and released many anime adaptations of Fujio Fujiko's manga. According to an anime researcher named Masahiro Haraguchi, Kodansha made a plan for the Fujio Akatsuka franchise to compete with Shogakukan's Fujio Fujiko brand. *40
Third, the former girls who watched Toei classics became adults and had children in those days. If a girl was 10 years old at the time of the original Akko-chan, she would be about 30 years old at the time of the remake. Toei Majokko anime were perfect materials for those mothers and their daughters.
Fourth, Toei Animation got younger generations of producers and creators in those days. Hiromi Seki, a legendary producer of kids' TV programs, started to get involved in anime around the middle of the '80s. Plus, Toei Animation hired 15 creators as their first trainees in 1981. *41 Those creators became core staff members of the remakes.
The Toei Majokko remakes renewed the images of their traditional magical girl anime. I check those magical girl anime in this part.
2-2: Himitsu no Akko-chan: The Aggressive Remake (1988)
The 1988 version of Himitsu no Akko-chan is a remake of the 1969 original anime. The new Akko-chan obtained a very happy and trendy style compared to the original version. Especially the character design and some characters' backstories are very modern. According to Kazumitsu Takahashi's research, Fuji TV and Yomiuri Advertising's requests led to that style. *42
The new Akko-chan showed the power of some young staff. For example, Hiromi Seki joined the project as an assistant producer. Seki did not like the sentimental aspect of the original Akko-chan. When she told that to Producer Kenji Yokoyama, she was allowed to change any part. That is why the new Akko-chan became much more comedic and unhinged than the original. Episode 2 typically shows the new style.
Yoshio Urasawa's involvement in the scenario is important, too. He did not fully pursue his style in this series, but episodes 5 and 22 show the absurdity of his storytelling. I would like to touch upon Urasawa's style in the '90s part.
Plus, some young animators from subcontracting studios contributed to the visual quality. Junichi Hayama and the Monsieur Onion animators' skills shined in some episodes. Their action-oriented animation style added fresh slap-stick feelings to the series. And Hayama's sakkan made sexy and sophisticated aesthetics.
I should also describe the huge success of TAKARA's toys. According to Kazumitsu Takahashi, TAKARA's first compact was always sold out at toy stores. It sold about 1.5 million copies. *43
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Like other anime and tokusatsu, TAKARA thought of updating the compact. They developed a new toy and asked Fuji TV to extend the series. However, Fuji TV declined that offer and ended the show in five cour even though Toei depicted TAKARA's new compact in the anime. Thus, the new compact was used only for a short period. *45 They received a lot of complaints from parents because of that decision. Sponsors' intentions were not necessarily definitive factors in TV shows.
2-3: Sally the Witch: The World Development of Sally (1989)
After remaking Akko-chan, Toei also made a new anime of Sally the Witch. There are several differences between the Sally remake and the Akko-chan remake:
First, Sally the Witch aired on TV Asahi, just like the original Sally did, while the Akko-chan remake aired on Fuji TV. They were under different programming schemes.
Second, the new Sally is a sequel to the original version while Akko-chan is a reboot. The story of the new Sally starts from the end of the original series even though it has some inconsistencies.
Third, unlike the Akko-chan remake, the new Sally's style and tone were not drastically different from the original. Sally avoided '80s bright aesthetics or overwhelming gags.
Sally also had some changes and updates compared to the original version:
First, the world of Sally the Witch was expanded. Sally's magical power gained some backstories and development. For example, some episodes show that a goddess named Spica of Virgo is the guardian of Sally. Sally experiences some power developments throughout the interactions with Spica. The remake also added various magical stories to the Sally the Witch universe.
Second, many skilled animators from subcontracting studios joined the project like Akko-chan's case. Hisashi Kagawa and Monsieur Onion's animators proved their skills in some episodes. Some sakuga fans may remember the series for Yoshihiko Umakoshi's early genga works. Those young animators also became the core staff members of later magical girl projects.
Plus, the Sally remake produced much more toys than the original did. Since the original Sally was the starting point of the genre, the merch business was still in its infancy. On the other hand, the remake got so many items designed by BANDAI, and the new items were utilized in some plot points. Sally the Witch was updated to a much more merchandisable series.
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2-4. What the Remakes Achieved
Compared to Pierrot Magical Girls, Toei's remakes had a more traditional atmosphere. However, they were not made for nostalgia value. As mentioned above, young animators joined the projects and showed up-to-date animation quality. They renewed the series' tone.
The remakes also improved the toy quality to a pretty high level. I suppose TAKARA's involvement caused that change. As I wrote in the '70s and '80s parts, Popy and BANDAI developed magical girl toys in the old days. While BANDAI was known for its high motivation for TV merchandising, TAKARA concentrated on the original toy lineup. *47 However, TAKARA also got involved in the merchandising business when they could. Akko-chan's new compact is one of their most successful cases. They brought competitions in the magical girl toy business by achieving huge success.
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TAKARA's compact was more "realistic" and mature than older magical girl toys. They did not put the title logo or character stickers on the compact. Some parts still feel plasticky, but it looked just like the one Akko-chan used in the show. That is a pretty important point when we consider BANDAI's efforts in the Sailor Moon franchise.
Plus, TAKARA's involvement in Akko-chan can be regarded as the starting point of their magical girl TV shows. Later, in the middle of the '90s, TAKARA teamed up with Ribon and started their own magical girl business. Much later, in the 2000s, they merged with TOMY. TAKARA TOMY makes magical girl toys in the Pretty Series even today. The Akko-chan remake was the beginning of TAKARA's magical girl lineage.
3. Other Magical Girls
There were many other magical girl fictions in the '80s. Plus, some new magical girl media appeared in those days. In this part, I would like to check the genre from the non-anime media.
3-1. Magical Girl Coloring Books: SEIKA's Contribution to the Genre
3-1-1. The Basic History of Magical Girl Coloring Books
This image is from an issue of Otenba Majo Twilight Mary. It looks like an anime, but it is an original franchise made for this coloring book series. Some creators from Studio Pierrot made the character art, but it does not have any anime series.
From the '80s to the '90s, there were some original magical girl franchises for coloring books. Those books were made by a stationery maker named SEIKA. To explain SEIKA's magical girls, I must describe the history notebook merch. Tetsuya Tsutsumi's Nihon Natsukashi Chara Note Taizen includes explanations of that genre *49 :
According to Tsustumi, some Japanese stationery makers started to put character illustrations on their notebooks in the late '50s. After Gekko Kamen's big hit in 1958, Kokuyo Note put an illustration of Gekko Kamen on their notebook covers. After that, various stationery and toy makers joined that business. In 1963, Showa Note released the Tetsujin 28-go notebook, and Seika released the Astro Boy notebooks. Those makers also started to sponsor TV anime around that time. It is the origin of anime's franchise business.
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The makers made various types of character notebooks and paper toys. SEIKA got involved in Toei Animation and Sunrise's '70s anime, such as Getter Robo. In the '80s magical girl genre, SEIKA developed its own brands and characters without depending on the pre-existing anime series. Professional animators designed the characters for those items, so the illustration quality was pretty good.
As you can see, the link between the character notebooks and the magical girl coloring books is pretty vague. Not many people focus on the history of such a niche merch genre, so I cannot find much information about them. I leave it to future research.
3-1-2. Fashion Lala: Another Pierrot Magical Girl
Fashion Lala is probably the best-known magical girl coloring book series. The original series title was Little Stars. The heroine is an ordinary girl named Miho. One day, two fairies come out of Miho's picture book and give her magical power. With the power of a magical penlight, Miho makes costumes and grows into Lala.
Later, they changed the mascot characters and restarted the series as Fashion Lala. The series includes not only coloring books but also paper fashion dolls. Interestingly enough, some issues include amateur fashion art made by little girls. Such user-generated content has been typical in kids' media, so Fashion Lala utilized that method.
In 1988, Pierrot adapted Fashion Lala into an OVA named Harborlight Story. I suppose Pierrot targeted it toward mature audiences. The story is totally different from the original coloring books. It depicts a fashion contest, just like the original version did, but Pierrot added very dark and sad stories about bullying, biker gangs, political corruption, etc. It is not a recommendable anime quality-wise, but it is an interesting media-mix attempt from the current viewpoint.
3-1-3. Lyrical Rena: Potpourri and Lucky Charm, '80s Casual Magic Culture
While making Twilight Mary and Fancy Coco with Pierrot, SEIKA also collaborated with other anime studios, such as Toei Animation and Ashi Production. I cannot cover all of them in this post, but I would like to introduce Toei's Lyrical Rena.
Omajinai Idol, Lyrical Rena is the story of Rena, a time traveler from 2088. She comes to the past to find Lucky Charm Angels and to make Lucky Charm Potpourri. When she is walking in Harajuku, a talent agent finds her and turns her into an idol singer. She overcomes hardships as an idol with the help of magical lucky charms.
That plot includes two interesting ideas from the '80s pop culture:
First, it suggests that "potpourri" was popular among girls in the '80s. Actually, a certain shojo manga was the direct trigger of the handmade potpourri fad. In 1980, Mariko Sato and Mizue Sawa released Akogare Nijusho in the Nakayoshi magazine.
In Akogare Nijusho, Sato and Sawa depicted girls experiencing romance and overcoming hardships with the help of handmade potpourri. It has the style of the so-called "otometic" shojo manga. It is not so outstanding storywise, but the potpourri recipe part is pretty unique and enjoyable.
Girls' or women's cultures have their own DIY and homemaking genres. Clothes and sweets are typical examples, but many other genres exist. Potpourri was not a common item in the early '80s, but an aromatherapy company called Tree of Life started distributing herbs to girls. The company's president says many girls read Akogare Nijusho and visited their shop in those days. *51 Potpourri gradually became common thanks to those people's efforts. Lyrical Rena linked the handmade potpourri trend with the magical girl fiction.
Second, Lyrical Rena depicted "lucky charms" (or "omajinai" in Japanese.) Lucky charms have a unique and interesting history. They became popular through a spiritual magazine and developed their own culture. They are also important for the analysis of the magical girl genre. I describe the history of that genre in the next chapter.
3-2. Fortune Telling and Lucky Charms: My Birthday's Impact
3-2-1. What Is My Birthday
In the previous part, I mentioned that Western divination and fortune-telling became popular in the '60s. Many shojo magazines have featured divination since then. In the late '70s, Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha released "an information magazine about love and fortune telling." That is My Birthday.
My Birthday is a magazine dedicated to fortune-telling and magic, but its contents are not that different from those of other magazines for girls. It includes zodiac fortune-telling, current affairs journals, dating advice, fashion, interviews with celebrities, etc. The unique part of the magazine was that it hired fortune-tellers as advisers and gave magical lessons to girls.
According to sociologist Mizuho Hashisako, the first adviser appeared in a late '70s issue. A fortune teller named Rene Van Dale Watanabe taught girls how to cast a spell and live as a "white witch." His lessons covered girls' daily lives and magical training methods. *52
Rene's lessons were sometimes a bit high-brow. For example, he taught about meditation and "spirits in higher dimension" in his section. However, his successors in the magazine gave more grounded lessons and casual lucky charms. Their advice mostly covered girls' romance and school life, such as "how to get a nice boyfriend" or "how to break up with a boy."
The interesting thing about My Birthday is that the consumers started making their original lucky charm methods. Such user-generated contents and communication in magazines were pretty common back then. My Birthday's magical culture shifted from semi-witchcraft to girls' daily routines by adopting casual fans' contributions. For example, in My Birthday's book, a girl says you can get various magical effects by bandaging your fingers. You can get a mutual love relationship if you bandage your middle finger and ring finger. As you can see, that is unrelated to real witchcraft. Magic became a sort of casual jinx in those days.
My Birthday also recommended crafting original lucky charms. As I wrote above, homemaking is important to girls' culture. It can be seen in shojo manga magazines as well. My Birthday linked it to magic and developed their own homemaking culture.
My Birthday and its influences are important when considering how lucky charms and fortune-telling have been depicted in manga and anime. I suppose many people have seen some kind of casual magic or jinx in Japanese fiction. Plus, some magical girl stories are under the influence of My Birthday's casual magic culture, without a doubt. I will touch upon those magical girls in the '90s part.
3-2-2. Lucky Charm Manga
Under the influence of My Birthday's casual magic culture, some shojo manga about fortune-telling and lucky charms appeared. Some were released by Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha themselves.
The most typical example of lucky charm shojo manga is Mariko Sato's Ufufu no Hosoku (1989), which was serialized in Omajinai Comic. As I mentioned above, Mariko Sato is the author who popularized potpourri in Japan.
Ufufu no Hosoku is an omnibus of various girls' romances. One day, the girls get a mysterious necklace. The necklace has a glass ball with a miniature witch in it. When the girls wish good luck in their romantic relationships, the witch in the necklace magically solves their problems. At the end of the stories, however, all the girls stand up and obtain love on their own, without depending on the necklace's power. It is a heartwarming and empowering manga.
Kaya Urakawa's Osekkai na Majo-tachi is a short shojo manga released in Margaret. It is the story of a high school girl. One day, the protagonist learns that she is a daughter of a witch family. She tries to obtain her love interest with a magical potion. In the end, however, she rejects magic and wins his heart without magic.
As you can see, My Birthday and lucky charm shojo manga encouraged girls to take action and solve their problems by themselves. What really matters is how girls can live positively in school. Magic is just a helper for their happy school lives. The casual magic culture and the magazines' messages were very sincere to their consumers.
3-3. Other Magical Girl Shojo Manga
Magical girl was not necessarily a popular shojo manga genre in the '80s, but some authors and publishers tried it.
Yumiko Igarashi's Magical Mami (1984) has Toei Majokko-like plot and style. The heroine learns that she is the daughter of a witch. However, she also notices that a bully classmate is a witch. She enters a magical battle against the rival. The plot is similar to that of Majokko Megu-chan. It is a short but satisfying magical girl manga.
Interestingly enough, other shojo did not necessarily follow the styles of Toei Animation, Ashi Production, or Studio Pierrot.
For example, Fumika Okano's Happy Talk (1989) is a mystery adventure set in Victorian London. The heroine is a little girl named Daisy. She is a descendant of a legendary wizard. She comes to London to bring back her village's elm tree. She meets a friendly journalist and goes on an adventure in London.
The depictions of cityscape and fashion are praiseworthy. The story is complicated and intriguing. It can satisfy mature readers as well.
Mutsumi Hagiiwa's Arabian Hana-chan (1989) is a Jeannie-like, or Akubi-chan-like fantasy manga. The protagonist gets a magic lamp and meets a cute little jinn. He names her "Hana-chan" and becomes friends with her. Hana-chan causes panic in the town with the magical power. The story is simple, but Hagiiwa's light-hearted art is impressive.
Plus, Hideharu Akaza made another child-friendly magical girl manga, Doremifa Doremi (1987), just like he did in the '70s.
Those magical girl shojo manga did not cause a big wave, but the authors kept their niche field of fantasy. When we consider the '90s successful magical girl shojo manga and their media mix, we should not forget that there were some predecessors in the '80s shojo magazines.
3-4. Magical Girlfriend
3-4-1. How Shonen Authors Reacted to Magical Girls
Shonen manga did not have rom-com manga in the early '70s. Shojo manga preceded in that genre. However, some shonen manga authors started to follow shojo's trend in the late '70s. Kimio Yanagihara's Tonda Couple (1978) is one of the earliest examples.
I suppose it's safe to say Shonen Sunday and Shonen Jump were the big two of shonen rom-coms. In Shonen Sunday, Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura (1978) opened the gate for shonen rom-coms with supernatural heroines.
Under the influence of Urusei Yatsura, some authors released rom-com shonen manga in the magical girl format or the I Dream of Jeannie format. Those manga are called "magical girlfriends" in English. In Japan, they are sometimes called "ochimono" /falling-heroines because heroines come out of nowhere as if they fell from heaven.
Hisuwashi's CAN CAN Everyday (1982) is a pretty early example of magical girlfriends. It is the story of Can, a witch from a magical world. She comes to the earth for magical training and meets a high school boy named Mitsuru. While Can cause a lot of troubles in the human world, Mitsuru falls in love with her. It is a basic but enjoyable shonen rom-com.
Kenichi Kotani's Scandoll (1983) is a unique magical girlfriend manga. The protagonist is a high school boy named Yusuke. One day, he meets a cute witch named Risa. When he visits Risa's house, however, he gets seduced by Risa's sister named Rika. He has a triangle relationship with Risa and Rika.
As the story continues, however, he realizes that Risa and Rika are dual personalities in one person. When Rika/ Risa sees herself in a mirror, her personality switches. Yusuke also learns that Risa and Rika will enter a spiritual conflict and that one of them will disappear. To prevent their conflict and save them, Yusuke must obtain love from both.
Kotani's art is high-quality and erotic. If you like shonen rom-coms, it is a pretty recommendable series.
Knife Senno's Kurakunatte Majo (1987) is an interesting magical girlfriend manga reeleased in Weekly Shonen Champion. It is the story of Kyoko, a daughter of a monster from hell. While going to an ordinary high school, she often becomes a nude model for her father's painting art.
Knife Senno was a very famous lolicon manga author in those days. In the '80s, Weekly Shonen Champion sometimes featured authors from the Lolicon Boom, such as Aki Uchiyama and Knife Senno.
The plot and visuals of Kurakunatte Majo suggest various inspiration sources, such as Tokimeki Tonight and ESPer Mami. Kyoko's costume is reference to Vampirella. Vampirella was translated into Japanese in the '70s Starlog, so it was well-known to sci-fi fans.
There is also a magical girlfriend manga from the gekiga's lineage. It is Kazuo Koike + Seisaku Kano's Mamonogatari: Itoshi no Betty (1980.) Unlike other magical girlfriend manga, it is a seinen manga serialized in Big Comic Original.
Itoshi no Betty is a Bewitched-like erotic comedy. Some parts of the art seem to be under the influence of Vampirella. The protagonist is a yakuza guy named Tanpei. One day, Tanpei happens to help a nude girl on a street. After some troubles, the nude girl turns out to be a witch from a magical world. She tells her love to Tanpei and marries him.
Many authors kept making ochimono/ magical girlfriend manga even after the '80s. As you can see, magical girlfriend manga emphasized erotic aspects compared to magical girl fiction for little kids.
3-4-2. Shojo Manga's Magical Girlfriends
Some shojo manga creators made magical girlfriend manga, too.
Mayume Aida's Bye-bye C-BOY (1982) is an erotic rom-com serialized in Hana to Yume. It is a romantic story about a young illustrator and an alien girl. I suppose Urusei Yatsura influenced the plot. At the end of the series, it depicts a theme of pure love and maturity.
In Min2 Panic (1986), Ryo Hitaka depicted a romance between a high school boy and a Chinese water god. Chinese girls became common in both shojo and shonen around the early '80s. The plot is a basic rom-com with a triangle relationship, but Hitaka's expressive characters make it entertaining.
Even shojo manga had romantic stories depicted from male characters' perspectives in the '80s. Those examples show that shojo rom-coms had a broader spectrum than we remember today.
3-5. Magical Girl Porn and Parody
As I mentioned above, there was the so-called Lolicon Boom in the '80s, and it led to the rise of various 2D porn genres. Plus, anime fandom and fanzines became big in that era. The anime parody dojin came to dominate original manga dojin in those days. Some commercial magazines covered anime parodies as well. During that process, some '80s magical girl porn and magical girl parody appeared.
3-5-1. Magical Girl Porn Anime
I suppose Maho no Rouge: Lipstick (1985) is the first magical girl porn in commercial media. There were famous lolicon OVA, such as Wonder Kids' Lolita Anime or Fairy Dust's Cream Lemon, so the idea of lolicon anime was nothing new to fans. *53 The Lipstick project was planned by Byakuya Shobo, a publisher known for a lolicon + subculture magazine called Manga Burikko. Chief Editor Eiji Otsuka wrote the story. The character design was done by Usagi Morino, a lolicon manga pioneer. *54
The anime was made by a very famous dojin group called AWAKE (Studio Awake.) Many popular dojin authors gathered and launched the group to make an original anime. Lipstick is one of their projects. *55 In other words, Lipstick is closer to indie amateur anime than to TV anime. Yet, the visual quality in some action scenes is praiseworthy. It shows AWAKE's incredible skills.
It is a genre parody, so there is little to say about the story. The heroine gets a transformation item from an alien and magically grows up. Then, she enters a weird mecha battle and has sex with an older boy.
The interesting thing about Lipstick is that some scenes are under the influence of DAICON III Opening Animation. The heroine wears a powered armor and fights against her rival. I will explain the powered armor culture later in this article.
Shin Cream Lemon: Futari no Heartbreak Live (1987) is probably the best '80s magical girl porn in terms of quality. It was released from Fairy Dust's Cream Lemon brand. The animation was made by AIC (Anime International Company), so the visual quality is pretty good, even compared to ordinary TV anime and OVA.
The style of Heartbreak Live is obviously a parody of Studio Pierrot's Magical Girl anime. It is the story of an ordinary girl who has a crush on an older boy. She gets a transformation ability from a mascot and grows up into an idol. Then, she has sex with the love interest. Unlike other genre parodies, it depicts the heroine's emotion through montage and camera angles, just like Magical Emi did. It is a recommendable OVA.
3-5-2. Magical Girl Porn and Parody Manga
There were not only magical girl porn anime but also manga.
Knife Senno's Majokko Märchen (1988) is a lolicon magical girl manga released from the France Shoin Comic Bunko brand. It is an omnibus of a cute loli devil named Manome. A Hitler-like artist summons Manome for his revenge on the whole world, and Manome causes panic with her magical ability. Each chapter is a parody of a famous manga. Its unhinged gag is enjoyable even today.
Minato Koio's Maho no Shiho-chan (1989) is the most important example of magical girl porn. It starts as an ordinary genre parody. The heroine gets a transformation ability from a mascot. The mascot says she has to save the world by having sex and collecting "amour" energy. She transforms into a mature girl and has sex with many men and women.
However, as the story goes on, it becomes an epic battle like Kazushi Hagiwara's Bastard. The art gets unbelievably gorgeous as well. More importantly, it is probably the first example of "fighting magical girls" in manga and anime. As mentioned above, Pierrot's Magical Girl franchise popularized the term "maho shojo"/ magical girl. Koio utilized that term in Shiho-chan. The heroine calls herself "maho shojo" in the story. No other manga and anime tried the combination of battle and "maho shojo" before Shiho-chan. *56 Shiho-chan is a significant example when we consider why female warriors are called "magical girls" today.
There was also a non-pornographic parody. Kei Ikeda's Magical Ensign Blaster Mari (1989) is a Gundam parody manga serialized in Cyber Comix.
It is the story of Mariko, an ordinary girl living in Side 3. One day, she gets a magical carpet beater from Char Aznable, a rival character from Mobile Suit Gundam. With the power of the carpet beater, she transforms into a magical ensign Blaster Mari and fights the Federation's mobile suits.
It is a very parody-heavy series, but the manga quality is professional. It is an enjoyable series for Gundam fans.
3-5-3. Magical Girl Porn Game
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In the videogame media, Natsume released Majoriko Inbizone (1989) for PC-8801 and PC-9801. Tadashi Makimura and Dynamic Planning directed it, so it is from Go Nagai's lineage.
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The game genre is a simple platformer with some RPG elements. Erotic art is sometimes inserted, but I suppose it was not so satisfying to the hentai fans.
Lipstick and Heartbreak Live followed the basic tropes of the genre, but other magical girl porn and parody deviated much from the genre and developed their own styles. Especially Shiho-chan shows that the "twists on the magical girl genre" was already seen in the '80s parodies.
3-5-4. Magical Girl Porn Novel: The Birth of Juvenile Porn
In the '80s, another new media became popular among otaku. That is the light novel/ LN. Some light novel brands were launched around the middle of the '70s. During the so-called Anime Boom, they collaborated with anime and gained popularity among anime fans. Asahi Sonorama's "Sonorama Bunko" is a typical example. It's a sort of pulp for young adult anime fans.
The most popular genre was space opera in the early '80s. However, D&D and Record of Lodoss War set the new trend in the middle '80s. Fantasy came to dominate LNs after that. Fujimi Shobo became one of the most popular publishers during that change.
After joining the fantasy LN genre, Fujimi Shobo got started lolicon LNs. They collaborated with the Cream Lemon series and released some novelized versions. That is the starting point of the novel genre called "juvenile porn."
Fujimi Shobo's juvenile porn, especially original novels without source material, left some interesting cases. Yuko Kurata's Datenshi MITO series (1989) is one of those examples.
Datenshi MITO is a story of a fallen angel called Mito. Mito becomes a human being and enjoys human life. She chooses prostitution as her profession. As she sleeps with various men, she sometimes meets depressed souls and cures them.
Since the author was from fine literature, the tone and characters of her novels were pretty different from other pornography novels. And thus, Datenshi MITO and her other novels did not become the direct originators of the current juvenile porn. However, that is the very reason why MITO is interesting. Such a magical girl porn was never made after MITO. It remains a unique example of the magical girl porn even today.
3-6. Children's Literature with Little Witches
Magical girl fiction appeared in children's literature around the '80s. In those days, the media's style was gradually changing from education to entertainment. From the pre-WW2 era, there was a tradition of modern children's literature called "dowa", but some authors and groups criticized it in the '50s. Those groups argued that Japanese children's literature lacked "children's perspectives" and that they should bring it back to the media. *59 Plus, publication of classic collections calmed down around the '60s*60, so publishers started to release Japanese authors' original works. Some of them even became best-selling books in the '80s. During that process, some magical girl juveniles appeared.
The important thing is that those works of literature are not necessarily similar to Toei Majokko and other magical girl anime. That is because they were not sponsored by merch companies. Both the magical girl anime and the magical girl literature have similar plot ideas, but the absence of merchandising business gave a pretty different tone to the literature.
The earliest and most famous example of magical girl literature is Eiko Kadono's Kiki's Delivery Service (1982.) It is a story of a teenage witch called Kiki. She goes on a journey for magical training with a black cat called Gigi. In a new town, Kiki experiences communication with various people and learns how to live in the society.
Kadono's message was how girls can call on their wisdom and imagination no matter how limited their talents are. *61 Kiki's only magic is flying, but she uses that skill for a living, and she learns what her job can do for other people. It is a very touching coming-of-age story.
Machiko Fuji is probably the most prominent author in this genre. She has collaborated with Mieko Yuchi and released two big series named Majoko and Watashi no Mama wa Majo.
Majoko (1985) is an omnibus about a mysterious magical girl named Majoko. The story is told from ordinary people's perspectives. One day, those ordinary people meet Majoko and experience weird phenomena. They are panicked at first, but they communicate with Majoko and become happy in the end.
The Majoko series does not have a particular message or big narrative. It just makes you soak in the cozy atmosphere and excitement of magic. It is recommendable to little girls.
Watashi no Mama wa Majo (1988) is a Bewitched-like story. The protagonist's mother is a witch from a magical world. She has been separated from her daughter and the human world for a long time. She finally comes to the human world and tries to live as an ordinary mother, but she causes much trouble.
It depicts how the protagonist loves her mother despite her many flaws. It has a universal theme about communication between mothers and daughters.
Magical girl literature in the '80s tended to have more low-key visuals than anime. Magical girl anime did not often feature the traditional dark robes, but the literature did. Plus, the literature tended to avoid some entertainment tropes, such as serious battles against villains. I suppose those differences partly came from the absence of sponsors. They could take a distance from commercialism.
Some authors and publishers kept creating magical girl literature even after the '80s. Although magical girl authors are often ignored in discussions, they are a very important part of the genre even today.
4. The Genre Development in Shojo Manga
As I mentioned in the previous post, shojo manga magazines of the '70s published some reincarnation fantasy fiction and psychic battles, such as Bride of Deimos and Cho Shojo Asuka. Those ideas were expanded in the '80s and made some milestones in the genre. In this part, I examine those shojo manga.
4-1. Reincarnation Fantasy and Magic in Shojo Manga
In 1982, Koi Ikeno started Tokimeki Tonight in the Ribon magazine. It's a long-running saga about supernatural girls. The story begins with Ranze Eto, the daughter of a vampire and a werewolf. She hides her identity and goes to an ordinary high school. She secretly has a crush on her classmate, Shun Makabe. As the story continues, Ranze learns about her past life and spiritual bond with Shun.
Before Tokimeki Tonight, shojo manga magazines had a trend called "Otometic." Around the late '70s, some authors made pure romantic school stories with Ivy fashion and dominated shojo manga. That was called Otometic. A-ko Mutsu, Yumiko Tabuchi, and Hideko Tachikake are the big three of the genre. Koi Ikeno was undoubtedly a successor of that style. The school rom-com aspect was utilized in Tokimeki Tonight as well.
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However, as the story continues, the main characters' past lives are revealed. In a chapter released in 1984, Ranze and Shun find out that they have been lovers since the ancient era. In their past lives, they fought against an evil sorcerer in the magical world and lost power. Two thousand years later, they reincarnated for the reunion. After realizing their spiritual bond, they enter a battle against the sorcerer again.
As I described in the previous post, shojo manga had such reincarnation fantasy and destined partners in the '70s. Tokimeki Tonight inherited that format. The unique part of the series is that such a serious story is combined with high school rom-com and comedic scenes. It merged the otometic rom-com with the reincarnation fantasy.
In other words, Tokimeki Tonight was a melting pot of various shojo manga genres and styles. It provided total entertainment for girls. While maintaining the school rom-com format, it also gained epic fantasy vibes. That duality is essential when considering how the '90s magical girl fiction depicted school girls' fantasy.
4-1-2. Warrior Symptom: Monthly MU's Influence
As I decsribed in the '70s part, pop-occultism trended in the '70s and prepared some new media. Monthly MU is the most famous example. It is a magazine dedicated to occultism. Like other magazines, Monthly MU had a pen pal ad section. Around the middle of the '80s, some girls started to write something like, "I am a reincarnation of a mythical entity" or "I realized that I have a secret mission" in that section.
In other words, girls started role-plays with the concepts of reincarnation and spirituality. That phenomenon is called "past-life girls" or "warrior symptoms." They were influenced by reincarnation manga, psychic battle fiction, and various pop-spiritualism culture.
The Warrior Symptom shows that girls came to be interested in the idea of hidden identity. "Maybe there is another self in this world. You're just not aware of that." Such ideas spread out through the '70s and '80s fiction. It was just a power fantasy for girls, but it also synchronized with some trends such as New Age and apocalyptic fiction.
4-1-3. Please Save My Earth: The Peak of Reincarnation Fantasy (1986)
Under the influence of Monthly MU and the warrior symptom, Saki Hiwatari started Please Save My Earth in Hana to Yume magazine. It is a shojo manga about high schoolers who have memories of their past lives as aliens. The early part depicts an occultist magazine that looks pretty similar to Monthly MU.
Saki Hiwatari has written psychic stories and sci-fi since her debut. Before Please Save My Earth, she made a futuristic psychic detective series, Vivid Remembrance. Hiwatari developed her psychic ideas in that series.
After Vivid Remembrance, Hiwatari mixed those ideas with the reincarnation fantasy in Please Save My Earth. She also took in some psychic tropes from Katsuhiro Otomo's Domu. Moreover, her art skills improved so much in that process. As a result, it went beyond her previous shojo manga framework and achieved an incredible level of manga storytelling. I think it is safe to say Please Save My Earth is the peak of this genre.
4-1-4. Ten yorimo Hoshi yorimo: Japanese History-based Reincarnation (1986)
In 1986, Michiyo Akaishi started Ten yorimo Hoshi yorimo in the Ciao magazine. It is the story of a high school girl named Mio. One day, Mio sees a vision of her lover in her dream. After that dream, she loses her family in a fire accident. Only she survives by unconsciously using water superpower.
After the incident, she is adopted by a wealthy family and meets a high school boy named Tadaomi. As the story goes on, Mio finds out that Tadaomi is a reincarnation of Nobunaga Oda, a lord from the feudal era. He also has fire superpower. While Tadaomi tries to obtain Mio as a love interest, Mio meets another boy named Sou and falls in love with him. She enters a triangle relationship + superpower battles with Tadaomi and Sou.
The storytelling of Ten yorimo Hoshi yorimo is pretty solid. It shows the author's confidence and the genre's popularity. Plus, Akaishi's depictions of supernatural power with screen tone work are pretty high-quality. The reincarnation fantasy shojo manga obtained visual epicness through the middle of the '80s.
4-1-5. Aries: Mythical Battles in Shojo Manga (1987)
In 1987, Rurika Fuyuki started Aries in Monthly Princess. It is the story of a high school girl, Arisa, and a high school boy, Sho. They are reincarnations of Persephone and Hades, but Arisa does not know that. Only Hades knows their spiritual bond. As the story goes on, it is revealed that other Greek gods, such as Zeus and Poseidon, were reincarnated in Japan too. They get into epic superpower battles against each other. During the battles, Sho protects Arisa without telling her about their past to her.
The plot and the characters are probably inspired by Bride of Deimos, another popular manga from the same magazine. However, Bride of Deimos was a romantic horror, so it did not have superpower battles. In those days, Masami Kurumada was releasing Saint Seiya in Weekly Shonen Jump. I suppose that shonen manga partly inspired Aries's battle scenes.
Unlike Tokimeki Tonight, Aries does not focus much on school life. It concentrates on the epic sagas and tragic relationships of the gods.
4-1-6. Ruri-iro Princess: Princess and Magical Item (1987)
In 1987, Mito Orihara started Ruri-iro Princess in Omajinai Comic. Omajinai Comic is a magazine released from Jitsugyo-no-Nihonsha. As I described in Chapter 3, they were making books about fortune-telling and magic. Omajinai Comic is one of them. However, Ruri-iro Princess was not an ordinary school rom-com.
Ruri-iro Princess is the story of a high school girl called Ruri. She looks like an ordinary girl, but she has one weird part. She was born with a Prussian-blue piercing on her left ear. One day, Ruri visits a rock band concert and meets a celebrity musician named Shin. Shin takes Ruri to his room and reveals her hidden identity.
Shin says that Ruri is a princess of another world called "Prussian Moon." Ruri's late father was actually the true successor to the throne of Prussian Moon. He fell in love with a human being/ Ruri's mother, and abandoned the throne. The inborn piercings are a sign of the Prussian Moon bloodline. The blue piercings are the signs of noble lineage. They also give magical power to the Prussian people. Shin says that Ruri should become the new ruler of the Prussian Moon.
After a power struggle over the throne, Ruri enters battles against a demon king called Zyra. During the battles, the series depicts various magical items: Moon Tear, magical glass shoes, and the Sword of Prayer.
As you can see, Ruri-iro Princess covers basic elements of the '90s fighting magical girls. I think it is the most similar example to Sailor Moon among all the '80s shojo manga. Interestingly enough, the series is not directly linked to Toei's '70s magical girls or Pierrot's '80s magical girls. It came from different lineages, such as the fortune-telling culture and fantasy shojo manga. That is another important point when we analyze the '90s magical girls.
4-2. The Successors of Psychic and Battle Shojo Manga
As I described in the previous post, some authors released battle manga in the '70s shojo manga magazines. Those authors kept making such manga in the '80s. Plus, some younger authors appeared in the genre.
4-2-1. Chie Shinohara and Shojo Comic: Battles and Eroticism
In the '80s, Chie Shinohara released two successful series in Shojo Comic and became one of the most popular authors.
Purple Eyes in the Dark (1984) is, in my opinion, a successor of Masahiro Shibata's battle manga. The heroine is an ordinary high school girl with a leopard-like birthmark on her arm. As the story continues, she realizes she is a mutant with transformation ability. She gets into a battle against an evil scientist. She meets another mutant during the battles and gets into a triangle relationship.
Umi no Yami, Tsuki no Kage (1987) is a horror battle manga about twin sisters who obtained psychic power from a virus. One of them becomes evil and starts a battle over their love interest.
Twin sisters have been a common theme in shojo manga since the old days. For example, Masako Watanabe made a famous suspense series, Glass no Shiro, in 1970. Umi no Yami, Tsuki no Kage is a traditional shojo manga in that sense, but the psychic battle part shows influences from the newer trend.
The interesting thing is that both of those two manga have sexual scenes and sometimes sexual violence. In the '80s psychic and battle shojo manga, villains or dark heroes try to obtain the heroines, sometimes in forceful ways. Later, in the '90 and 2000s, Shojo Comic pushed the trend forward and became a pretty hardcore erotic magazine. Shinohara's examples are much more modest than those 2000s examples, but I think she was at the starting point of Shojo Comic's erotic style.
Regarding the depictions of sexual violence in shojo manga, a manga researcher, Yukari Fujimoto, described the background in her book and an interview. *63 According to Fujimoto, sexual violence functioned as a sort of warning for girls in the '70s-80s shojo manga. When teenage sex was not as casual as today, the expressions of sexual violence were used as preparation for readers' sexual consciousness. Considering how the '90s magical girl fictions depicted sex, those predecessors help us understand their context.
4-2-2. Karura Mau: Shojo Manga Horror and Denki Roman
Takakazu Nagakubo's Karura Mau (1986) is a horror battle shojo manga serialized in Halloween. Halloween was a new magazine dedicated to horror shojo manga.
Karura Mau is a story of psychic sisters Maiko and Shoko. Maiko has spiritual fighting power, but she cannot see spirits. On the other hand, Shoko can see the spirits but does not have fighting power. When they combine their powers, they become powerful exorcists.
As I described in the '70s part, the history-based fantasy novels called "Denki Roman" became popular in the '70s. Karura Mau inherited the style of Denki Roman and turned it into a superheroine manga. The author put a lot of information about Eastern spiritualism into the series. Some panels suggest that Hiroshi Aramata's Teito Monogatari inspired him.
Such Japanese-style exorcist stories were still rare in manga. In the '90s magical-girl and fighting-girl fiction, Denki Roman and Eastern spiritual elements became popular. Karura Mau is a pioneer in that sense.
4-4. What Shojo Manga Achieved in the '80s
In this part, I divided shojo manga's '80s trend into "reincarnation fantasy" and "psychic battles." Those genres appeared in the '70s shojo magazines, and their expressions expanded in the '80s.
The interesting thing is that those manga tended to thematize revelations of the heroines' secret identities. For example, Ruri-iro Princess's heroine does not know her noble bloodline at first. As the story continues, she accepts her destiny and gets involved in spiritual battles. The point is that she is unaware of her identity at first.
The "secret identity" plot had been common since the old days. In the old shojo manga, many authors depicted poor girls who are actually princesses or wealthy families' daughters without noticing it. The '80s shojo superheroines were successors of that cliche.
However, the secret identity gained another important function in the '80s. That is the bond between school life and psychic battles. As I described above, many heroines from the '80s fighting shojo manga are ordinary school girls at first. That premise makes it easier for readers to get emotionally invested in them. However, ordinary school girls do not have a reason to fight. Then, their secret identities brought them into epic battles.
Since the late '60s, rom-coms had been the most popular, almost dominating, genre in shojo magazines. While inheriting the '80s rom-com style, Tokimeki Tonight also connected it to epic battles. At that time, the heroine's "secret identity" functioned as a bond between those two styles.
The mixture of battles and school rom-coms is standard today. The reincarnation fantasy and psychic battle shojo manga show how that idea was developed in the '80s shojo magazines.
4-5. Other Reincarnation Fantasy and Psychic Battle Shojo Manga
The '80s shojo magazines made some other reincarnation fantasy and psychic battle stories. I would like to show them in this section quickly.
In 1981, Junko Sasaki started Nayuta in Shojo Comic. It is an epic story of a high school girl who happens to get psychic power and fight against aliens. The art style is closer to dojin or college manga clubs' manga, so it feels pretty different from other shojo manga.
Ryo Hitaka's Hisho Densetsu (1982) is a reincarnation fantasy based on Japanese history. Ryo Hitaka's signature style with an aggressive heroine is pretty impressive. It is one of the '80s battle shojo manga with the "birthmark" trope.
Hitaka also released Konya wa Lunatic (1985) in Weekly Margaret. The protagonist is a high school girl. She is a daughter of a werewolf. When exposed to moonlight, her hair becomes blonde, and her werewolf superpower awakes.
Chiho Saito's Tenshi no TATTOO (1989) is a spiritual battle manga serialized in Weekly Shojo Comic. The protagonist is a high school girl with a wing birthmark. In the future, her child will have a mighty spiritual power and dominate the world. While a demonic man called Kira comes from the future world and tries to rape her to control her bloodline, another man from the future world protects her. They get into a triangle relationship and spiritual battles.
Hiromi Kobayashi's Hi no Emblem (1989) is a spiritual battle manga serialized in Petit Comic. The protagonist is a university student with a moon birthmark. One day, she learns she is a chosen one/ holy woman of the "Scarlet Clan" and must fight against the "Blue Clan."
The interesting thing about this series is that the heroine has a Romeo and Juliet relationship with the main villain from Blue Clan. Another interesting thing is that she loses her power during her menstrual period. It was serialized in a josei magazine, so its style is different from the psychic shojo manga.
There was a rise of otaku in the '80s, and it caused a rise of superheroine fiction for mature consumers. They became predecessors of the current otaku's superheroine media. I describe how their media was developed in the '80s
5-1. The Rise of Powered-Suits Heroines and Mecha Girls
The so-called powered suits were the most popular superheroine genre for the '80s otaku. In this chapter, I describe how that genre was established.
5-1-1. How the Powered Armor Came to Japan
Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers was translated into Japanese in 1967. Since then, sci-fi fans have known the idea of powered armor or "powered suits." In those days, there were younger generations of the sci-fi fandom in Japan. Some of those hardcore fans gathered and launched a sci-fi artist group called SF Central Art (Studio Nue) in 1970. Naoyuki Kato drew an original design of the powered armor from Starship Troopers in their fanzine called Crystal. Later, in the 1977 edition of Starship Troopers, Kazutaka Miyatake from their group officially drew their version for the cover art. That is the starting point of "powered suits" in Japan. *64
5-1-2. DAICON FILM: Powered Armor and Cute Girl
In the early '80s, the animanga + tokusatsu fandom became big and developed its own culture. Parody was a big part of it from the early days. In 1981, an iconic example of otaku's parody culture was released at the Japan SF Convention. That is the DAICON III Opening Animation.
In DAICON III Opening Animation, the creators featured Studio Nue's powered armor. The protagonist is a cute girl inspired by the Lolicon Boom. That cute girl fights against the powered armor and various kaiju + mecha.
DAICON III Opening Animation was a very early and iconic example of the powered suit + cute girl combination. The cute girl did not wear the suit at that time, but a sort of taste or philosophy was shared through the short animation.
5-1-3. Mecha Girls and Armored Heroines in Mainstream Media
Some mechanical armored heroines appeared in the '80s mainstream manga and anime.
In 1982, Jiro Gyu + Minoru Kamiya started Plawres Sanshiro in Weekly Shonen Champion. It is a wrestling battle manga with computer-controlled plastic models. In that manga, the main heroine uses a metal-armored girl called Sakurahime.
I suppose Sakurahime is a very early example of heroines in mechanical armor. In terms of fan service and fetish, it includes necessary elements of the mechanical heroines for boys' media.
Like other sci-fi heroines in the '80s, the mechanical armor covers limited parts of Sakurahime's body. That design had a pretty big impact on the otaku. Many '80s dojin show that she was a very influential character in those days.
In 1988, another armored heroine came from the lineage of Go Nagai and Masakazu Katsura. That is Yoshihiro Kuroiwa's Hengen Sen-nin Asuka. Under the influence of Nagai, Kuroiwa depicted a ryona/abused heroine in the series.
Tatsunoko Production's Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (1984) was an interesting attempt to bring the idea of powered armor into the mainstream mecha anime, but I think the armor design was a bit too classic by the '80s standard.
If I include non-main heroines, there are more examples like Apple from Zillion (1987) or Anise Pharm from Sonic Soldier Borgman (1988.) However, those mainstream TV anime were not the main field for the '80s powered suits heroines. The powered suit heroine genre grew in more obscure media.
5-1-4. Dojin, Lolicon Magazines, and Anime Parody
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In the '80s, some popular dojin authors, such as Kenji Tsukiwa and Kenichi Sonoda, depicted erotic girls in powered suits. During that process, powered suit heroines became a very popular dojin genre. Later, Kenichi Sonoda became a professional anime artist and got involved in the very famous OVA, Bubblegum Crisis (1987). The obscure expressions grew up in dojin/ the alternative media and came into the mainstream media.
There was another type of alternative media for the powered-suits heroines. That is the lolicon magazine. After the late '70s explosion of lolicon manga, some publishers released magazines dedicated to lolicon fans. Lemon People is probably the most typical example. Interestingly enough, so many manga in those lolicon magazines featured powered-suit heroines.
An early example can be seen in Ryu Hariken's Gekisatsu! Uchuken (1982.) It is a very parody-heavy gag manga. It depicts parodies of anime, tokusatsu, and kung-fu films. Powered armors appeares in those gag scenes.
The powered suit heroine genre had serious stories too. In 1986, BIRTHday (Bunta Hachi) released VARIABLE SHALDY in Lemon People. It is a story of battles between the heroine and aliens from outer space. Unfortunately, it was never collected into a book.
Ryukihei released high-quality art of powered-suits heroines in the DRAGON BREEDER series (1987.)
Like those examples, lolicon magazines included so many powered heroines. Because the lolicon manga media was pretty young at that time, creators were allowed to make anything as long as they depicted cute girls and erotic scenes. That freedom raised the early mecha girls and their creators.
That trend came to lolicon anime too. In Kei Kazuna's Magic City Astalot (1989) from the Cream Lemon brand, the heroine wears magical powered-armor in the final battle.
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I should also mention Mika Akitaka's MS Girls. Akitaka was originally a professional anime mecha designer. After getting involved in Z Gundam, he released an illustration called "Z Gundam Lady" in The Anime magazine. Z Gundam Lady wears a half-naked armor that looks like Z Gundam. Since then, he has released many illustrations of girls in Gundam-like armors.
Even before Akitaka's illustration, such Gundam-like cute girls sometimes appeared in parodies or fan art. However, Akitaka is a professional anime artist, not a dojin creator. By releasing the illustrations of Gundam girls in magazines, he broke the boundary between the parody/ fanart and professional art. In that sense, he is a pioneer of the mecha girl genre.
There are so many examples of the '80s mecha girls/ powered armor girls. I cannot list all of them. As I mentioned above, the important thing is that the trope was developed in alternative media like dojin, lolicon magazines, or anime parody. Just like the Lolicon Boom influenced some of Studio Pierrot's magical girl anime, the otaku media gradually became autonomous and started to change other media in the '80s.
Female warriors in bikinis are another famous cliche in otaku media. However, it is not easy to pinpoint the starting point.According to VAMPIRE BLOG, female warriors in metal bikinis were common in the '30-40s sci-fi pulp. In the '70s, Red Sonja started to wear the iconic bikini scale mail.
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I suppose some creators saw those Western sci-fi/ fantasy artworks in Japanese sci-fi magazines or imported books. I cannot specify how the trope came to Japan. At least some manga creators, such as Rumiko Takahashi and Hideo Azuma, depicted metal bikinis from the late '70s to early '80s. In other words, it was a trend in the late '70s sci-fi fandom. That trend gave birth to some '80s bikini heroines.
5-2-2. Bikini Heroines in anime
After the fad in sci-fi fandom, some creators started to depict metal bikini heroines in anime.
Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko (1985) is probably the most iconic example of the '80s metal bikini fad. It is the story of an ordinary high school girl, Yoko. One day, Yoko is transferred to a fantasy world and gets the Armor of Leda and superpowers. She becomes a warrior and fights against villains. Mutsumi Inomata's splendid character design and animation shine in the OVA.
Dream Hunter Rem (1986) is another entry from OVA. The character designer is Kazuaki Mori. The first volume was released as an R-18 hentai anime but later became a normal OVA. It is the story of a detective girl who can get into other people's dreams. She wears a metal bikini armor in the dreams and fights against dream monsters.
5-2-3. Bikini Heroines in Games
Metal bikini heroines appeared not only in anime but also in games.
SNK's ATHENA (1986) is a side-scrolling platform game. The protagonist is a princess called Athena. She enters a fantasy world and fights against a demon lord called Dante. The package art of the bikini heroine is pretty impressive, even though it is not a metal bikini.
TELENET JAPAN's Valis: The Fantasm Soldier (1986) is another platform game with a bikini heroine. Yuko, the heroine of Valis, is another ordinary high school girl who comes to the magical world and transforms into a bikini warrior. She became so popular that many remakes and sequels were made later.
5-2-4. What '80s Bikini Heroines Achieved
As I described in this part, '80s fiction had many fighting heroines in metal bikini costumes. What was the point of that trend?
First of all, they developed a female warrior genre for male consumers. There were many fighting heroines in older fiction, but they did not have a particular genre. By utilizing sexy costumes, the bikini heroine fiction made a shared format.
Second, bikini heroines appeared in some mainstream media. Since the costume was linked to the heroic fantasy genre, it suited video games and their power development gimmicks. As I wrote above, the powered-suits heroines were limited to obscure media such as lolicon magazines. Compared to them, bikini heroines appealed to broader consumers.
6. Sukeban Deka and Action Heroine TV Shows
In 1985, Fuji TV and Toei adapted Shinji Wada's '70s shojo manga Sukeban Deka into a live-action TV series. It became a pretty successful series and led to many sequels. Plus, under the influence of Sukeban Deka, NTV and Union Eiga started another action heroine series called Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance. They do not have a particular genre name, so I call them "action heroines" in this chapter. I would like to check the context of the '80s action heroine TV shows.
6-1. The History of '80s Action Heroines
6-1-1. What is the TV Version of Sukeban Deka
Fuji TV's Sukeban Deka (1985) is a live-action adaptation of Shinji Wada's original manga. The basic premise is faithful to the original. Saki Asamiya gets a yo-yo weapon from an agent called Jin. She becomes a secret detective and enters suspicious high schools to fight against evil teachers and students.
However, the TV series also changed many parts:
First, they always put the sailor uniform on Saki, even in battle scenes. In the original manga, she changes her clothes based on situations. On the other hand, Producer Tadashi Oka from Fuji TV emphasized her sailor uniform. *68 In other words, the TV version interpreted her sailor uniform as a special combat costume.
Second, they simplified Saki's story. The original manga had a pretty complicated story about the hatred and love of Saki's mother, but the TV version omitted that part. Her tragic side was weakened while her heroic side was emphasized.
Third, Saki got a signature phrase in the TV series. In the original manga, she did not often show the police symbol, but the TV version changed it into a part of the episode format. She repeats the same pose and the same line in the climax of each episode. Plus, she repeats this signature phrase in those scenes:
"I was once a head of delinquents, but now I have degenerated into the police's pawn. You can laugh if you want. But I'm not filthy to the soul as you guys."
To sum it up, the TV crew changed many parts to put it into the repetitive TV show format.
6-1-2. The Background of the Show
Before Sukeban Deka started, Fuji TV and Toei released a tokusatsu comedy, TV Obake Telemonja (1985), in the same programming slot.
Telemonja is a spin-off of Toei's long-running comedy franchise, Toei Fushigi Comedy. After the end of Telemonja, the same crew moved to the Sukeban Deka project. The former comedy creators started to make a serious detective story.
Thus, the directors needed to learn how to control such a serious show. The main director, Taro Sakamoto, said, "I can't do such a (serious) thing." at first. However, he understood the series's style when he saw Producer Tadashi Oka's music direction. *69 Since Oka was once a rock band musician, he had a particular musical taste. *70 He actively got involved in the project and determined the style of the show. When Sakamoto saw how Oka put the soundtracks in each scene, he understood Oka's intention.
Plus, Ono Kenyukai's involvement is important too. "Ono Kenyukai" is a stunt team known for the Kamen Rider series. The heroines of the Sukeban Deka series were not experienced martial arts actors, but they showed memorable action scenes thanks to Ono Kenyukai's coaching.
In short, Toei's comedy crew, the TV network's active participation in the production, the producer's philosophy, and the veteran stunt team's efforts made the unique style of Sukeban Deka.
6-1-3. The Sequels and Followers
After finishing the first series of Sukeban Deka, the staff released Sukeban Deka II and Sukeban Deka III in the same programming slot. Since the first Saki was gone in the original series, they changed the protagonist in each series. They also took a distance from the source material and started to make their own stories.
Especially Sukeban Deka II gained high ratings and became a very successful series. However, due to some creative issues, Sukeban Deka III caused a conflict with the manga author. That conflict made it difficult to continue the franchise. Thus, they canceled the Sukeban Deka series and restarted the concept in another show called Shojo Commando IZUMI (1987.) However, IZUMI could not gain popularity. Fuji TV canceled IZUMI and never made a similar show. Fuji TV's action heroine genre ended sooner than expected.
When the Sukeban Deka franchise was getting popular on Fuji TV, another TV network called NTV inherited the concept and made an epigone called Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance (1986.) It became more kitsch, cheesy, and sexier than Fuji TV's shows. In Sukeban Deka, Producer Tadashi Oka intentionally avoided sexy or excessively violent shots. On the other hand, Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance instead emphasized the sexy aspects of the heroines in some scenes. The initial concept was a copycat of Sukeban Deka, but it became a pretty different show in the end.
Plus, JAC/ Japan Action Club's stunt improved the quality to a pretty high level. Compared to Sukeban Deka, Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance utilized body doubles by JAC's actors more often and filmed them in distant shots. That style has both merits and demerits. In Sukeban Deka, the teenage heroines' facial expressions and beautiful look give a very powerful impression though some action movements are stiff. In Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance, JAC's doubles make some memorable moments while the heroines' faces are not so impressive.
Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance did not last long. Overall, the action heroine TV show did not cause a big wave. However, those TV shows played an important role in the history of fighting heroines. In the next chapter, I describe why such a short-lived genre is essential in this analysis series.
6-2. The Context of the Show
The action heroine TV shows were actually under the influence of the '70s-80s jidaigeki TV shows.
In the first place, the idea of Saki's police symbol is a reference to TBS's popular jidaigeki series, Mito Komon (1969.) During the early seasons of Mito Komon, the crew developed a repetitive format for the TV program. In the climax of every episode, a main character shows the Tokugawa family's symbol to the villains.
Mito Komon has more than one thousand episodes. The Tokugawa symbol trope was repeated in almost every single episode. Not only the symbol but also many other parts of the show were repetitions of pre-existing ideas. However, Mito Komon became the most popular TV show and dominated the jidaigeki genre. After Mito Komon's success, many other jidaigeki TV shows adopted such repetitive styles.
Of course, the staff of the Sukeban Deka TV series noticed that reference. Since Sukeban Deka was a TV series, it fit Mito Komon's episodic and repetitive style. As I wrote above, Saki often does the same roll call in front of villains in the TV series. Some might think it is tokusatsu superhero's style, but it came from the '70s-80s jidaigeki TV shows.
Moreover, the two sidekicks in Sukeban Deka II is a reference to Suke and Kaku from Mito Komon.
Some staff members of Sukeban Deka franchise admit that they intended to follow the style of TV jidaigeki. *71 The TV jidaigeki vibes were even reinforced in Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance. After all, the action heroine genre was a modernized version of jidaigeki heroes.
Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance has a Mito Komon reference as well. The main fighters of the series are three girls: Yumi, Ruri, and Kei, but there is another main girl called Miho. Miho does not join the main team, but she secretly helps them. When the protagonist is in a pinch, Miho throws rose flowers to villains, which reminds us of a particular hero from a '90s magical girl anime.
That rose-throwing is actually a reference to a character from Mito Komon. Since the beginning of the series, Mito Komon has depicted a side character named Pinwheel Yashichi. Yashichi is a ninja in disguise. When Komon's team is in a pinch, he helps them by throwing pinwheel shuriken.
6-2-2. In the Name of Lord Heaven: Jidaigeki Roll Calls
Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance inherited the roll call trope from Sukeban Deka and even reinforced the jidaigeki vibes.
In the climax of every episode, the three main heroines wear combat sailor uniforms and say these signature phrases:
"You scoundrels lurking in the darkness."
"We will never forgive scum like you."
"In the name of the Lord Heaven, we will punish you."
That part is presumably a reference to a popular jidaigeki TV show called Momotaro Zamurai (1976.) In every episode of Momotaro Zamurai, the hero wears a costume and appears in front of villains. During the battles, he utters this signature rhyme:
"One, sucking the blood of folks."
"Two, committing every evil act."
"Three, the ugly evils in this world. I, Momotaro, will exterminate them all."
Plus, the main heroine's phrase "In the name of Lord Heaven" was common in those '80s jidaigeki. The phrase itself has been common since the feudal era, but it perfectly fit the repetitive format of the '80s heroic jidaigeki. Yabure Bugyo (1977,) The Unfettered Shogun (1978,) and Choshichiro Tenka Gomen! (1979) are typical examples. The protagonists of those series say, "I will punish/ slay you in the name of Lord Heaven" before the battles.
In short, the "In the name of lord heaven" trope came from TV jidaigeki to the action heroines. That is an important point when we consider Sailor Moon's episode format. And that is the reason why Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance is an unskippable example of the '80s fighting heroines.
6-2-3. Yakuza Film Heroines: Innocence and Outlaw
During the '60s fall of jidaigeki films, Toei came to depend on TV production and cheaper films. Yakuza films played an essential role in that process and supported Toei's finances. Toei could make such films because they had a producer who knew much about yakuza's world. *72 During that process, they also started to make yakuza heroines. The most popular celebrity in that genre is Junko Fuji. She played Oryu in the Hibotan Bakuto series (1968) and became a movie star. After Hibotan Bakuto's success, film studios, mainly Toei, made many yakuza films featuring fighting heroines.
I suppose some parts of Sukeban Deka were under the influence of such yakuza film heroines. For example, Okyo's introduction from Sukeban Deka II is obviously a parody of Hibotan Bakuto's introduction.
Moreover, Yoko Godai, the protagonist of Sukeban Deka II, speaks in the Tosa dialect. That is a reference to Hideo Gosha's very famous yakuza film Onimasa (1982.)
I suppose those yakuza heroines became inspiration sources when Toei's TV show creators imagined "fighting heroines."
6-2-4. Toei Porn and Sukeban
As I wrote above, Toei shifted to cheaper takuza films around the '60s. In the era of yakuza films, they also prepared another way to get a stable income from the theaters. That is sexploitation. Shin Toho Eiga and OP Eiga were making big profit from pornographic films called "Pink Films" in those days, so Toei followed the trend. Toei labeled their sexploitation films as "Poruno" (porn,) which popularized the word "porn" in Japan.
The Toei Porn films included jidaigeki and exploitive documentary, but the action heroine genre was popular too. Some call it "Toei Pinky Violence."*73 Interestingly enough, sukeban/ delinquent girls played big roles in that genre. Or rather, I should say that the word "sukeban" became popular through those films. Noribumi Suzuki's Sukeban series (1971) and Kyofu Joshiko series (1972) are famous examples. The main actors were Reiko Ike and Miki Sugimoto. Some may also remember Shunya Ito + Meiko Kaji's Female Prisoner Scorpion series (1972.)
Since Sukeban Deka thematized sukeban/ delinquent girls, the staff could not ignore the influence of those Toei Porn films. However, that was not necessarily the purpose of the series. Producer Tadashi Oka talked about it in an interview*74:
I suppose Shinji Wada-sensei's manga was deeply linked to gekiga and the '70s atmosphere. Some may think Yuki Saito's Sukeban Deka Part 1 was under their influence. However, I did not intend such a style. I guess Toei's spirit unconsciously affected the series's atmosphere. In the early phase of production, I repeatedly said that was not what I was aiming for.
I suppose Oka meant Toru Shinohara or Taro Bonten when he said, "Wada-sensei's manga was deeply linked to gekiga." Those creators' gekiga were sometimes used as source materials for the sexploitation films. Anyway, the producer did not want to follow the style of Toei Porn, but they could not unsee the similarity between them.
6-2-5. Idol Films and Idol TV Shows
As I wrote in the Creamy Mami part, the '80s was an era of pop idols. Many amateur girls suddenly became national celebrities in those days. Of course, that trend also reached the film and TV industries.
In 1984, Toho started the Toho Cinderella audition, and Yasuko Sawaguchi debuted. In 1987, Oscar Promotion started the Japan Bishojo Contest. Needless to say, the idols came from record companies, talent agencies, and publishers' auditions, too.
Yuki Saito, Yoko Minamino, and Yui Asaka. All the main actors of Sukeban Deka are from idol auditions. Fuji TV and Producer Oka were totally aware of such a business structure. Like the Pierrot Magical Girl franchise utilized the '80s idol business, Sukeban Deka was partly a commercial for the pop idols. The same goes for Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance.
6-3. What the '80s Action Heroines Achieved
The '80s action heroine TV shows are not directly linked to the magical girl genre and female warriors from manga and anime. However, I need to describe the details of those fictions for three reasons:
First, as I mentioned in the jidaigeki part, they prepared the fighting heroines' roll call format. Sailor Moon's roll call is often discussed, but the TV jidaigeki's influence and popularity are sometimes ignored. The action heroine genre is a perfect opportunity to explain that lineage.
Second, I needed to show the breadth of fighting heroines' inspiration sources. We tend to explain the history of fictional genres in linear forms, but the '80s action heroines typically show that creators bring materials from various genres and pieces of fiction.
Third, Sukeban Deka became an important inspiration source for the late phase of the Toei Fushigi Comedy. As I wrote above, Sukeban Deka was made by the staff of Fushigi Comedy's spin-off. However, after the end of the action heroine genre, Fushigi Comedy re-imported the ideas from the action heroine genre and changed their style.
The first "fighting magical girl" called Maho Shojo Chukanapaipai began in that process. I will describe those Fushigi Comedy heroines in the '90s part.
7. What Was the '80s Magical Girl
7-1. The Characteristics of the '80s Magical Girls
The '80s magical girl fiction basically followed the format made in the '70s, but they got some new ideas and materials:
1. Transformation stock footage
2. The '80s idol fad
3. Young creators' new styles of direction and animation
4. Advanced magical girl toys and the newcomer, TAKARA
5. Connections to the Lolicon Boom and otaku
6. Parody in otaku media
7. Children's literature
7-2. The '80s Fighting Heroines
The '80s fighting heroines can be roughly divided into these three types:
1. Shojo manga's fighting heroines: reincarnation and psychic
2. Otaku media's fighting heroines: powered suits and metal bikini
3. Action Heroines: Sukeban Deka and its followers
They all play essential roles when we analyze the '90s magical girl fiction.
7-3. Fighting Magical Girls
By the definition of this analysis series, only two cases of "fighting magical girls" appeared in the '80s. The first example is Maho Shojo Chukanapaipai. I will explain that series in the '90s part. The second example is Maho no Shiho-chan.
The first one is a comedic tokusatsu. It seldom uses the word "maho shojo" in the show. The second one is a magical girl parody hentai that happened to get battle scenes. And thus, they are not directly linked to the current fighting magical girl genre. There was still a clear boundary between magical girls and female warriors in the '80s.
As the magical girl fiction obtained a new media called OVA, they expanded the range of their consumers. However, OVA was not big enough to support the entire genre. There were also other otaku media, such as lolicon magazines and dojin, but they did not have a stable business structure. After all, the '80s magical girls still depended on the toy business, just like the '70s anime did.
Video games became popular enough in the '80s but did not play a significant role in the magical girl genre either.
7-5. The '90s
In the '90s part, the genre becomes more chaotic and makes it difficult to show linear historical views. I suppose I will need to write it in a more chronological style.
Of course, Sailor Moon and its followers play the most crucial role in the '90s. I will need to touch upon hentai games' development too.
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