Magical Girls beyond Japan!

Loco del Lápiz

Loco del Lápiz

MGF Member
Oh, our dearly majokkos... all those cute, cool, fluffy and enjoyable stories made only in Japan...
...wait... there are mahou shoujo stories made by authors from other countries?

As weird as that might sound for some, others probably already know this is a reality.
From the well-known italian Winx Club animated show, to american Star vs. the Forces of Evil, passing through french LoliRock or Miraculous Ladybug. Even Disney has noticed that magical girls can be quite popular, trying to get into this genre with examples such as the W.I.T.C.H. comic series and the aready mentioned Star. Other examples are indie (but high quality) webcomics like Sleepless Domain, Zodiac Starforce or the satirical (and my personal favourite) Apricot Cookie(s).
Revisiting the classic mahou shoujo tropes seems to be a trend outside the Rising Sun Nation...

So, what other non-japanese magical girl series do you know? Which ones do you like the most?
 
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koyu

MGF Member
I remember watching a bit of the Winx Club on television in my childhood and it was one of my favorite tv shows. :)
The Winx Club was one of my first magical girl shows too.

This is kind of off topic but I also used to have these Korean sticker books that my mom used to buy for me and some of them had magical girl themed ones (back before I even knew what they were and before I started watching anime) like tokyo mew mew and ojamajo doremi. I think if it weren't for my childhood I wouldn't have taken interest or known about the magical girl world. (Which I'm thankful that I actually did).
 
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koyu

MGF Member
Loco del Lápiz said:
That was a really unusual way to discover the genre, but a fascinating one too!
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Yeah haha! Well when I went into middle school and began watching anime (after I got introduced to it by my best friend), I started to take interest in what the sticker books I had were actually from (the characters) so I searched it up on the internet and somehow fell into it lol
 
harvester rose!

harvester rose!

MGF Member
Ooh, I know one!

It's actually a Nigerian webcomic (written in America but at least set in and written by people from Nigeria), it's called Adorned by Chi! It's partially made to promote a clothing/lifestyle brand, so some of the character's clothes are sold on the website. The plot is pretty standard magical girl stuff; the bond to the underworld (or wherever) is broken and now monsters are escaping, and 5 college students are given magic in able to defeat them. The art is also fantastic, especially if your thing is monster designs.

Also all the issues are free on the website right now, so go read them if you want :3
 
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Loco del Lápiz

Loco del Lápiz

MGF Member
Magical Girls are living a new golden age thanks to webcomics! A lot of creators influenced by 90s anime are now using this medium to present their stories, and majokkos play a great part on this...
 
Mikan

Mikan

MGF Member
Another Western magical girl series I know is Angel's Friends which is an Italian magical girl cartoon series like Winx Club and W.I.T.C.H. My favorite Western magical girl series are Winx Club, W.I.T.C.H, Angel's Friends, Lolirock, Miraculous Ladybug, and Jem and the Holograms.
 
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Akamarak

Akamarak

MGF Member
So many series I'm not familiar with! I'll have to look them up.

Adding to the list, I haven't really it, but I heard Steven Universe has some Magical Girl sort of elements to it. Powerpuff Girls is fun, though I'm not sure if it would be characterized as a Magical Girl show (the non-anime version, of course).

My Little Pony FIM gets pretty Magical Girl-y from time to time too. They don't use it very much, but they even get a magical girl style transformation at one point.
 
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Loco del Lápiz

Loco del Lápiz

MGF Member
I'd say Steven Universe is heavily inspired by magical girl tropes... but it might be due to this show getting influenced by several anime tropes in general.
My Little Pony does feature some mahou-shoujo-esque stuff more often than not: magic does exist in that universe, the main characters are a group of quite different girls with unique skills, there is an ancient, wise and extremely powerful queen (Celestia) that grants some power to the main characters, the light vs. darkess trope is used to... well, yeah, from time to time, MLP gets inspiration from our dearly magical girls.
 
Mikan

Mikan

MGF Member
There's another Western magical girl series that I forgot to mention on here which is also one of my favorites and I'm sure everyone is familiar with this series. It's called She-Ra Princess of Power and I'm talking about the original 80s cartoon, not the reboot.
 
Akamarak

Akamarak

MGF Member
Mikan said:
There's another Western magical girl series that I forgot to mention on here which is also one of my favorites and I'm sure everyone is familiar with this series. It's called She-Ra Princess of Power and I'm talking about the original 80s cartoon, not the reboot.
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I'm definitely aware of She-Ra (my brother was into He-Man growing up), but I've never seen it. What's it like?
 
Mikan

Mikan

MGF Member
Akamarak said:
I'm definitely aware of She-Ra (my brother was into He-Man growing up), but I've never seen it. What's it like?
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It's pretty much like He-Man, but except with a female protagonist. She-Ra is He-Man's twin sister and she's royalty too just like him.
 
Nika

Nika

MGF Member
Let's start with Western Magical Girl shows... My adventure with Magical Girls started with Winx Club and I also watched W. I. T. C. H. and Lolirock. And for the Eastern and non-Japanese Magical Girl shows... I'm planning to watch Balala Fairies.
 
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Loco del Lápiz

Loco del Lápiz

MGF Member
Know the first ones, definately. As for W.I.T.C.H., did you read the comics or watch the animated show?

Also, Balala Fairies? First time I heard about it. What's is it about?
 
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