Remember Madoka - the consilience lab

Remember Madoka
Transgressing the Magical Girl
Simon Gough, B.Comm (Media)
School of Media and Communication
RMIT University
Remember Madoka: Transgressing the Magical Girl
Simon Gough, B.Comm (Media)
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Bachelor of Communication (Media) (Honours)
Supervised by
Prof. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald
School of Media and Communication
RMIT University
Australia
October 2011
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Table of Contents
Statement of Authorship
p. 3
Abstract
p. 4
Acknowledgements
p. 5
Notes
p. 6
Chapters
1. Introduction
p. 7
2. Animation, genre, and girls
2.1
Japanese animation
2.2
Genre and conventions
2.3
Shōjo and the magical girl
p. 13
p. 13
p. 14
p. 20
3. Magical conventions
3.1
Early magical girls
3.2
Contemporary magical girls
p. 25
p. 25
p. 27
4. Two views of transgression
4.1
The fight against Charlotte
4.2
The girls’ nature revealed
p. 37
p. 37
p. 46
Conclusion
p. 59
Index of figures
p. 63
References
p. 69
Filmography
p. 74
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Statement of Authorship
This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other
degree or diploma in any tertiary institution, and that, to the best of my knowledge
and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person,
except where due reference is made in the text of this thesis.
Signed,
________________________________
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Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the Japanese anime series Puella Magi
Madoka Magica both confirms and transgresses the conventions of the magical girl
genre.
Genres shift as audiences, creators and critics develop, mature and reform. Texts that
transgress established conventions within their respective genres in turn shift
perceptions of the possibilities of the genre, and thus influence the development of
future works.
Through analysis of several contemporary magical girl series, conventions that are
commonly found within the genre are established, and then used as points of reference
for a deeper analysis of the series Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
This series utilises many of the conventions within the genre, but also takes them
further and transforms them. It is thus a profoundly important contribution to anime in
Japan.
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Acknowledgements
To my supervisor, Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, for her constant
encouragement and unfailingly helpful advice.
To our honours program director, Adrian Miles, for his unique brand of tough love
that has allowed our cohort to survive this year (relatively) unscathed.
To my parents, Annette and Noel, for their love and support throughout my academic
endeavours.
To my peers in the honours program, for their hard work and camaraderie that pulled
us all across the finishing line.
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Notes
The Romanisation of Japanese in this thesis follows the Hepburn system, with
macrons used to indicate long vowels.
Japanese names have been ordered in the Western format, with surnames second.
All films, series, and episode titles, unless otherwise noted, are identified by their
commonly accepted English language titles within the text, with the original Japanese
titles noted in the filmography.
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Chapter 1:
Introduction
The anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica appears, at first sight, to exemplify the
conventions associated with contemporary narratives of the Japanese magical girl
genre. This thesis explores the possibility that this series not only utilises these
conventions but also transgresses them in ways that might be significant for the
critical reception of future works in this genre.
Debuting in January 2011 and running until April of the same year (including a
delayed completion due to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami), Puella Magi Madoka
Magica presents the story of Madoka Kaname, an ordinary adolescent schoolgirl
residing in the city of Mitakihara. In the first episode, Madoka and her friend Sayaka
Miki are introduced to a small creature named Kyubey, who makes them an offer: if
they agree to become magical girls, he will grant each of them a wish. Homura Akemi,
who is already a magical girl, urges Madoka not to agree to Kyubey's contract, but
Kyubey insists that by taking his offer, Madoka will become the most powerful
magical girl of all time. Conflicting influences on her decision include her
introduction to two other magical girls, Mami Tomoe and Kyoko Sakura, who offer
different perspectives on being magical girls. Madoka is also troubled by the grim
realities of the lives of magical girls, including risks of isolation and death, and she is
especially disturbed by discovering that the monsters which the magical girls fight
were themselves once magical girls. With all her friends becoming - and suffering as magical girls, Madoka has to decide whether becoming a magical girl is worth the
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trouble it causes, especially after she learns the awful truths behind their powers. In
the final episode of the series, Madoka agrees to Kyubey’s contract, using her wish to
end the cycle of suffering for all magical girls, past and present. However, this does
not end the fighting for the magical girls; rather, it removes the threat of them turning
into monsters, with their ultimate destination being a new afterlife, over which
Madoka reigns as a goddess.
The title of this thesis, “Remember Madoka”, is inspired by one of the final sequences
in the series. After the credits have rolled on the twelfth and final episode, we see the
character Homura striding across a barren wasteland, with the following words (in
English) superimposed across the screen:
— Don’t forget.
Always, somewhere,
someone is fighting for you.
— As long as you remember her,
you are not alone.
By themselves, these words are standard magical girl fare: despite the evil forces that
exist in the world, you are protected by a heroic maternal figure. But these words also
stand in stark contrast with the relentlessly dark narrative of Puella Magi Madoka
Magica. Throughout the series, we witness the girls being beaten, crushed,
decapitated and otherwise destroyed, both emotionally and physically. It is only in the
final episode that hope emerges as a possibility for these girls and, even then, they
still must fight on behalf of everyone else. In my mind, this postscript epitomises the
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key achievement of Puella Magi Madoka Magica: despite utilising and transgressing
the key recognisable characteristics of the magical girl genre as it moves toward a
ruthlessly grim conclusion, it still manages to conclude on a hopeful note, typical of
the genre and fulfilling the audience’s expectations for a happy, even hopeful,
conclusion.
Origins and motivations
My motivations for writing this thesis arise, in part, from my personal history of
involvement with Japanese popular culture in general and with anime in particular.
My engagement with anime in any serious sense began in 2001, when I watched the
series Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 as it was broadcast weekly on SBS. Although I
had previously watched Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon, they had always appeared to me
to be cartoons, albeit visually distinctive and idiosyncratically Japanese. Bubblegum
Crisis Tokyo 2040 introduced me to a world of new terms, new concepts and ideas
that drew me more deeply into the cultural milieux of anime and manga. I became one
of those boys who watched Sailor Moon without any sense of irony; I debated with
friends regarding the differences between the original Japanese Cardcaptor Sakura
and the American version that was edited and rebranded as Cardcaptors; I began to
identify with fans who sneered at those who insult a work by watching versions
dubbed into US English, rather than listening to the Japanese original. Although I am
now somewhat loath to admit it, I was very much what Antonia Levi (2006) refers to
as a “Japanophile” (p. 57), complete with an active resentment towards the
Americanisation of anime and manga. While I never delved deeply into fan
communities, such as those overviewed by Susan Napier (2001) or Dunlap and Wolf
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(2010), my interaction with these groups nevertheless influenced my then and current
interest in anime.
My enthusiasm for anime peaked in 2007 when I became a member of the organising
committee for the Melbourne Anime Festival, then one of the largest anime
conventions in Australia. However, I resigned from the committee in 2008, in part
because I found myself no longer enjoying anime, or identifying with the local fan
community that supported it. I continued to read popular and academic literature on
Japanese culture writ large, but beyond this level of amateur research interest I
became somewhat detached from anime as a genre. This connection is important to
establish because, as noted by Henry Jenkins (2006), it is good research practice to
establish any potential bias a researcher may have if they are both a fan and utilising
fan community resources as part of an investigation. Despite this thesis not being a
direct investigation of fan communities, some fan resources are used as part of the
analysis and argument. These are taken directly from their sources, in order to
eliminate any potential bias that could be found.
Three years later, I was introduced through my internet friends to Puella Magi
Madoka Magica. Despite only five episodes having been released at the time I heard
of it, the internet anime communities were talking up the series as the next big thing,
with blog posts describing the series as “a magical girl cartoon that’s dark, gritty and
unpredictable” (Martin 2011). The intensity of these discussions intrigued me enough
to begin watching the series myself, albeit with some hesitation. The fact that I have
progressed to writing a thesis about the series is testimony to how powerfully this
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series has engaged me, and has revitalised my interest in anime as both a fan and an
aspiring academic researcher.
Structure of the thesis
In Chapter 2, I review relevant literature, outlining current scholarship pertaining to
anime studies and genre, with a particular focus on the intersections between these
areas of research. I also present working definitions of the key concepts that I deploy
in this thesis. I focus on the terminology that circulates within studies of media
narrative and genre theory.
In Chapter 3, I describe the history of the magical girl genre, from its beginnings in
the 1960s to its more recent representation in three of the most popular series that
appeared in the 1990s. I outline these three series and analyse the conventions and
themes that they share, so as to establish the qualities that unify these works as
examples of the magical girl genre.
In Chapter 4, I examine two key sequences from Puella Magi Madoka Magica as
springboards for my investigation of the series. Using conventions outlined in the
previous chapters as a framework, I examine how the series both deploys narrative
and thematic devices similar to those observable on other series within the genre, and
simultaneously transgresses the conventions that support these devices. I argue that
this resides in and aspires to darker representations of what constitutes the magical
girl.
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In my conclusion, I review the arguments advanced in my investigation, finding that
when compared with contemporary magical girl narratives, Puella Magi Madoka
Magica makes significant transgressions upon the conventions established as
belonging to the genre. Thus, the series generates similar potential to that found in
previous anime that have changed the overall development of the medium.
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Chapter 2:
Animation, genre, and girls
The literature relevant to Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the question of genre
transformation encompasses three areas. First, I provide an overview of the early
history of anime, and how anime is argued to form a distinctive medium separate
from that of Western animation. I then explore conceptions of genre, including how it
has been defined, and question how a work can both fulfil and transgress the
expectations of a genre. Finally, I discuss the idea of shōjo, including what it means in
Japanese popular culture, and how it relates directly to the narrative construction of
the magical girl.
2.1 Japanese animation
Japanese animation, or anime (the term appears to be derived from the French dessin
animé, meaning “animated design” [Harper, 2011]), emerged in the early 20th century,
with early pioneers such as Junichi Kōchi and Seitaro Kitayama generating work
using technologies and techniques derived from Western animation (Baricordi et. al.,
2000). Although Japanese artists used animation in a variety of ways throughout the
early to mid-20th century, anime began its journey towards cultural icon status in the
1960s with the work of Osamu Tezuka, creator of the Astro Boy series. While not the
first serialised anime, Astro Boy was both wildly popular both in Japan and overseas
(being the first anime series to be broadcast internationally), leading to a developing
interest in the potential of anime as a medium by Japanese production companies
(Clements and McCarthy, 2006). In the decades that followed, anime developed as a
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major cultural product, gradually developing into the multi-billion industry that it now
comprises (“Research Firm…”, 2010).
The developmental history of Japanese animation is different from Western animation,
in terms of both the technologies used in its production and the cultural specificity of
its content. According to Hu (2010), Japanese animation up until the 1990s was
widely perceived as being cheap, due to its consistent use of limited animation, where
there might be as few as two animated frames per film second. Thomas Lamarre
(2009) argues that this contrasts sharply with the full animation associated with
Disney films, where the goal is to provide the characters full continuous movement,
faithfully emulating live-action motion. From the 1990s, however, anime was given a
new name in Western circles, “japanimation”, which signalled a shift from
perceptions of Japanese animation as cheap and primitive towards “something more
imperative and expansionistic” (Hu, 2010, p. 2). Anime, in Hu’s assessment, has
become a medium-genre, having acquired unique and recognisable characteristics,
such as character design, production work practices, and types of “audienceship”, that
separate it from other forms of animation. (2010, p. 3)
2.2 Genre and conventions
Although genre is a well-known and frequently used term, the processes by which
genres are created and defined are more loosely conceived. Bordwell and Thompson
(2010) contend that the concept of genres is problematic because they emerge from
shared – and often tacit – understandings among creators, critics and audiences as to
the commonalities between various texts. Geraghty and Jancovich (2008) add to the
complexity of this issue by arguing that time, place and historical reference also
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contribute to understandings of how genres are defined and how the concept is
applied to specific texts. Paul Wells (2002) provides several broad interpretations of
genre, which includes recognising them as a “discrete ‘category’ or ‘type’ of film
which is defined by its visual, technical, thematic or subject-oriented consistencies” (p.
43) and “a framework which simultaneously invites complicity with traditional
models, but encourages re-definition through pastiche, exaggeration, intertextual play,
re-configured signifiers and so on” (p. 44).
Many of the perspectives on what constitutes a given genre are predicated on liveaction film. Although there are often links between animated and live-action film
texts, Wells argues that “animated films pose particular questions of these generic
definitions by virtue of their intrinsic difference as a form and as a mode of
production” (2002, p. 44). That is, although animated texts may be associated with
established live-action film genres, they ultimately form their own generic terms and
conditions. In Wells’ view, “animation transcends these [live-action] paradigms and
insists upon models of its own” (2002, p. 45). Furthermore, as Gilles Poitras (2001)
argues, “Japanese and American animation genres don’t exactly parallel one another;
nor are the expressions of genre in Japan quite like those found elsewhere in the
world” (p. 34). This is supported by Dani Cavallaro (2006), who argues that the
distinct qualities of anime “can only be adequately grasped in the context of a
specifically Japanese approach to storytelling, representation and staging” (p. 13)
In terms of relevance to this thesis, Wells’ Genre and Animation (2002) provides
some useful ways of approaching genre, but many of his arguments are couched
within technical and Western animation discourses. For example, the seven categories
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of animation genres he identifies are primarily predicated on the use of the medium
and construction of animation itself, such as relying on how a work utilises “the
premises of its own construction” (Wells, 2002, p. 67). Similarly, Lamarre’s The
Anime Machine (2009) offers significant insights into anime as a medium, but he
focuses on how the technical construction of anime texts is important to
understanding them. While covering a wide range of topics, Lamarre’s discussion of
animation is heavily based on separating the construction of live-action from
animated texts, and how “animation brings with it a different set of possibilities and
conventions vis-à-vis movement and perception” (2009, p. 8)
For the purposes of this thesis, I adopt Stuart Kaminsky’s (1985) definition of genre,
in which a given genre is “a body, group, or category of similar works, this similarity
being defined as a sharing of a sufficient number of motifs that we can identify works
that properly fall within a particular kind of film” (p. 9). Additionally, Jonathan
Rayner (2003) argues that genre labelling “prompts patterns of expectation and
interpretation within the viewer” (p. 5). In this light, genre categories, such as comedy
and crime, are descriptive rather than evaluative terms that allow prospective
audiences to anticipate what will be contained in a text. According to Bordwell and
Thompson (2010), the source of these common identities between different texts
comes from the notion of shared genre conventions.
Drazen (2003) defines a convention as “an acceptable device that is intrinsically part
of the narrative or character design and which, although old, can still be used in fresh
ways” (p. 18). Drazen’s idea of a convention’s potential freshness enables its
differentiation from the concept of a cliché. For Drazen, a cliché is a device used by
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artists who do not approach a concept creatively, and therefore do not contribute
“fresh uses for the conventions that inform a work at its best” (p. 18). From this
perspective, a cliché results from a convention being overused, or replayed without
any new interpretation within the fiction.
The term “convention” is not limited to structures such as plot devices and character
design, but can refer to a wide variety of textual elements. Drazen (2003) and
Bordwell and Thompson (2010) demonstrate that visual and auditory cues also
constitute conventions that are used by artists to further define their works within
specific areas. These include culturally specific cues, such as Neon Genesis
Evangelion's usage of incessant cicada chirps in background sequences to establish a
sense of otherness. They also include stylised vanishing backgrounds during critical
moments of character focus in several of the magical girl series that I discuss later in
this thesis. Such conventions are significant in the overall presentation, understanding
and reception of a text, because they draw attention to specific elements that the
audience is intended to focus on and interpret within the larger narrative frame.
Although some anime texts can be seen to be formulaic in plot, character and content,
this does not necessarily mean that they lack expressive depth. MacWilliams (2008)
argues that anime relies on easily digestible constructs to develop audience
identification with characters in the fiction. The use of recycled plots and conventions
becomes a powerful communication tool, as repeated exposure to these elements
allows the audience to not only learn their codes quickly, but also facilitates powerful
emotions in response. Rather than collapsing these elements to the realm of cliché,
their "familiarity does not breed contempt, but rather facilitates intelligibility"
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(MacWilliams, 2008, p. 10). Bordwell and Thompson (2010) agree, noting that as
with film in general, conventions provide pathways of accessibility to audiences,
which “allow the genre movie to communicate information quickly and
economically” (p. 330). The use of recycled convention does not mean that creators
are stuck with the same plots and characters but, rather, that the conventions provide a
framework through which new material can be explored.
The fan community that has grown around Puella Magi Madoka Magica describes the
series as a “genre deconstruction”, a term which carries a somewhat different meaning
in this context from the ways it is deployed in academic literatures. Deconstruction in
academic disciplines (such as literary studies and philosophy) usually refers to the
poststructuralist theorising of scholars such as Derrida and Heidegger, whereas fan
communities use the term to refer to approaches wherein the fictional elements of a
text are questioned and examined. This form of criticism can be performed at a
number of levels within a text, including examining the genre as a whole:
The genre is basically boiled down to a set of tropes, conventions and a
typical premise. All of these features are then played straight; without
shying away from any unpleasant consequences and/or causes of these
features. Basically, the heart of the genre is laid bare, warts and all. It
is not solely done to denote how unpleasant a genre or trope is, but to
break away from the clichés and stock themes said genre or trope has
acquired. (“Genre Deconstruction”, 2011)
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Texts that fulfil this notion of “deconstruction” are therefore inherently reflexive, as
they use the conventions of a genre to comment on the genre itself. Furthermore, the
fan communities often predict that these “deconstructive” works will be highly
influential on future works, claiming that such texts “will change a genre forever”
(“Genre Deconstruction”, 2011). The use of “deconstruction” in this way is not
limited to fan circles. For example, Susan Napier (2007) argues that the series Neon
Genesis Evangelion manages to “deconstruct the mecha1 science fiction genre, calling
into question the more simplistic motivations typical of earlier works such as Yamato”
(p. 110). To substantiate the significance and relevance of these fan-driven definitions,
I will briefly explore the critical scholarship that surrounds Neon Genesis Evangelion,
lauded by some commentators as “the single greatest anime series ever made”
(Redmond, 2007, p. 184).
Released in 1995, Neon Genesis Evangelion presents the story of Shinji Ikari and
several other teenagers as the pilots of giant robots, who through teamwork must
battle monsters in each of the twenty-six episodes of the series. Although it is readily
recognisable as a conventional heroes-versus-monsters narrative typical of 1980s and
1990s Japanese children’s programming, MacWilliams (2008) argues that this old
formula is used as the starting point to “explore all sorts of disturbingly new
questions” (p. 10). This is supported by Redmond (2004), who argues that the series
takes the traditional elements of the mecha narrative and transgresses them by
“disrupting both its patriarchal gender codes and crude technological determinism” (p.
129). That is, Neon Genesis Evangelion uses the conventions of a mecha narrative not
1
The mecha genre is based around the use of giant robots, generally piloted by the main characters in
order to battle their enemies. While mecha works rely upon the use of robots as a central device, they
are not restricted in terms of theme or audienceship, with mecha works running the gamut from lighthearted comedy to hard action. For further details, see Clements and McCarthy (2006).
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only to establish its generic positioning but also to question and disrupt the genre’s
narrative assumptions.
The purpose of this thesis is to explore how Puella Magi Madoka Magica approaches
the magical girl genre in a similarly transgressive way, thus confirming critical
opinion that it can be seen as “the Evangelion of magical girl anime” (Oppliger,
2011b). Although I do not intend to draw a direct comparison between these two
texts, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a useful reference point for elaborating the ways in
which Puella Magi Madoka Magica transgresses the magical girl genre.
2.3 Shōjo and the magical girl
The magical girl genre, or mahō shōjo, has been described as being a sub-genre of the
older shōjo genre of storytelling. The term shōjo has multiple meanings: it refers not
only to an age range of pre-adult girls, but also indicates a specific demographic to
which a text is aimed, together with shōnen (boys’), seinen (men’s), and josei
(women’s) stories. Shōjo story-telling developed from the shōjo shōsetsu, or girls’
novels, of the 1920s, which provided a “discrete discourse premised on the closed,
private world of girls that not only embraced close female friendships but avoided
heterosexual romance” (Shamoon, 2007, p. 4). Over time, however, shōjo comics
began to develop and reflect changes in Japanese society and cultural expectation,
creating a situation wherein shōjo narratives became “a mirror of Japanese girls’ and
women’s desires and expectations” (Toku, 2007, p. 30)
The image of the shōjo in Japanese popular culture has changed considerably in
recent decades. Orbaugh (2003) argues that throughout 1990s pop culture narratives,
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shōjo threw off negative connotations associated with the term, creating a new breed
of shōjo who are “powerful and active as they lead the fight against the forces of evil”
(p. 217). This is supported by Yoshida (2002), who argues that in this period, the
female hero was not explicitly conveyed as being passive or feminine, but rather
displayed a “combination of femininity and masculinity” (p. 12). This idea of a
female hero, relatively free from a socially prescribed identity and role, is a key to
understanding the appeal and development of the magical girl in its current form.
Of course, this model of the heroic female is not unique to Japanese popular culture.
Contemporary Western series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have presented
similar figures as their main characters and driving forces. As Sharon Ross (2004)
argues, although Buffy presents heroes who fulfil generic standards of attractiveness,
“the show focuses narratively on her strength as a hero in general rather than as a
beautiful hero specifically” (p. 82). This view is supported by Frances Early (2001),
who argues that Buffy explores and develops the position of the female-as-warrior in
an attempt to “chart new meanings for womanliness and manliness” (p. 11). However,
Saito Tamaki (2007) argues that there is a distinction between the “Amazonian
women” of Western fiction and the “armoured cuties” of Japan, an image that is
virtually unique to Japan and reinforced by Western media possessing “almost no
works that featured girl warriors in the kindergarten to elementary school range” (p.
226) Buffy the Vampire Slayer may not present “Amazonian women” per se, but this
distinction between the depiction of Western and Japanese female heroes is important
to understanding the specificity of the magical girl to Japanese popular culture.
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Magical girl narratives have been critically recognised as existing as a specific and
well-established part of the broader shōjo genre, becoming a genre (or sub-genre) in
their own right. For example, Poitras (2001) characterises magical girl texts as “the
subgenre of girls’ shows that feature a girl chara who has supernatural powers or
possesses powerful magic objects” (p. 45). In a more detailed summary, Yunqi Liu
(2010) describes the genre as follows:
Mahō shōjo stories deal with the concept of the magical girl, and entity
who, whether by birthright or by happenstance, is endowed with
magical superhero powers. Usually the star of the story is an average
girl, who is suddenly thrust into the role of responsibility. This average
girl, whether by herself or with a specialised task force (sentai) of
fellow magical girls, are [sic] endowed with heightened strength,
stamina, magical powers and an ability to transform to use their
magical powers to change into a superheroine and to fight some evil
force that is disrupting things. (p. 5)
Thus, magical girl narratives are not simply part of the broader shōjo field but, rather,
constitute a distinctive genre with shared conventions that I discuss at greater length
in Chapter 3.
Most literature on the magical girl genre to date has focused on feminist analyses and
interpretations. Scholars including Yoshida (2002) and Newsom (2004) argue that
magical girls act as empowering and representative female figures in Japanese
popular culture. Thus, the girls within the stories are represented as capable in areas
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traditionally occupied by both masculine and feminine gender roles, depicting females
who are “able to fight in a capacity associated with male heroes, without necessarily
‘becoming’ male” (Newsom, 2004, p. 59). Likewise, Liu (2010) argues that magical
girl narratives are important texts because they present a feminist perspective of
empowerment, depicting a world wherein “only through transformation, into a mixedgender role, to escape the codified role of ‘the woman’, can a female completely
realise her true potential” (p. 1).
Along with such feminist interpretations of magical girl series, Dani Cavallaro (2010)
argues that contemporary anime has a trend towards using magic as a means of
exploring broader ideas and issues with real-world relevance. In Magic as Metaphor
in Anime: a critical study (2010), she analyses a variety of series, noting that although
Sailor Moon uses magic to emphasise the importance of traditional Japanese values,
Cardcaptor Sakura uses magic to portray “the tension between playfully innocent
fantasy domains and real-world imperatives” (p.1).
While it can be difficult to give a single definition of genre, it is a comparatively
easier task to categorise genre works as those that share a number of recognisable
conventions that provide prospective audiences with expectations for the overall
nature of a text. Rather than being a limiting factor, however, these conventions allow
for creativity, with certain works specifically utilising established conventions in
order to challenge and transgress their boundaries. With this in mind, we can identify
the existence of the magical girl genre as a specific genre within Japanese popular
culture that, therefore, must contain a number of conventions that can be categorised
as belonging to it. In the next chapter, I provide a more detailed overview of the
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magical girl genre, and describe three well-known magical girl series in order to
explore the conventions that unify them within the genre.
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Chapter 3:
Magical conventions
To say that Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a response to, and exploration of, the
magical girl genre implies that there is a set of codified conventions, motifs and
themes that are generally accepted within the collective audience consciousness as
belonging to the magical girl genre. Prominent works such as Sailor Moon,
Cardcaptor Sakura2, and Magic Knight Rayearth have heavily influenced the current
understanding of what defines a magical girl genre work. However, these series are all
from the past twenty years, and magical girls have been appearing in Japanese popular
culture since the 1960s, with Sally the Witch and Secret Akko-chan are regarded as
progenitors of the genre as we now know it. In this chapter, I review the early history
of the magical girl genre, and investigate these three series to establish which
conventions can be interpreted as being shared between them, and therefore what
conventions we can argue are part of the magical girl genre.
3.1 Early magical girls
Based on the success, especially with young girls, of the imported American
television series Bewitched in the Japanese market in the early 1960s, Toei Animation
produced the first magical girl anime in 1966, Sally the Witch, based on a manga by
the same name (Toei Animation, n.d.). Telling the story of a young witch called Sally
who travelled to Earth from a magical kingdom, the series a sufficiently popular
2
Due to the number of thematic, plot and character differences between the original Cardcaptor
Sakura and the American adaption Cardcaptors, I am using the Japanese title here to indicate which
version of the show I am referring to throughout this thesis. For more information regarding these
changes, see Considine (2002).
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television series to have over one hundred episodes produced between 1966 and 1968.
In 1969, Toei Animation adapted and produced Secret Akko-chan, based on a manga
series from 1962. Running for over ninety episodes between 1969 and 1970, Secret
Akko-chan tells the story of a girl named Atsuko who, after showing respect to a
broken mirror, is granted a magical mirror by a spirit, which grants her the ability to
transform into anything she wishes.
The historical significance of the three more recent series I discuss here, lies in their
depictions of female heroes as leading characters who, up until the debut of Sally the
Witch, had been absent from serialised anime. Sally and Akko opened a new pathway
for the representation of young girls – and females in general – in anime by becoming
heroes/heroines on the basis of mental and personal strength, as distinct from prowess
in physical battles (Yoshida, 2002).
A comparison of Sally the Witch and Secret Akko-chan with modern day magical girl
anime reveals some significant differences between the conventions used in the genre.
Sally, compared to more contemporary magical girls, was born into her magical
abilities, and is fully aware of her power before the events of the series, as opposed to
being granted them as a plot point within the series itself. Also, Sally and Akko did
not have any overarching evil to battle as chief protagonists, but used their powers to
have adventures, help others, and fix problems faced by ordinary people. These might
seem to be relatively trivial differences, but they provide a sharp contrast to the
exploits of the magical girl that is the primary reference point for present
understandings the genre.
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3.2 Contemporary magical girls
To determine the conventions that magical girl series share that identify them as
belonging to the genre, I examine three series that are generally accepted as prominent
examples of it, namely, Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
Although these series are at least a decade old, they remain as key examples of the
magical girl’s presence in current popular culture, and are therefore appropriate series
from which to derive shared themes and motifs.
Sailor Moon, first released in 1992 and based on a manga by the same name, presents
the story of the Sailor Scouts, a band of magic-wielding girls who are reincarnations
of royalty and courtiers from the ancient Moon Kingdom. Led by Usagi Tsukino, the
titular Sailor Moon, the girls unite and battle evil with their abilities, guided by a pair
of talking cats who assist and motivate them in various ways.
Magic Knight Rayearth, published first as a manga in 1993 and adapted to anime in
1994, tells the story of three girls who are transported to a magical kingdom named
Cephiro. With the assistance of the inhabitants of the magical realm, including their
animal companion Mokona, the girls use their newfound magical abilities to save the
world from destruction.
Cardcaptor Sakura, published as a manga in 1996 and adapted to anime in 1998, tells
the tale of Sakura, a young schoolgirl who inadvertently releases previously sealed
magic into the world. After this, she is given the task of capturing the magic once
again, joined by an animal guardian named Keroberos, who grants her magical
powers in order to do so.
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In summary, although the plots of these key magical girl series differ on a number of
levels, they share a number of conventions, motifs and themes that are associated with
the genre.
Fighting Transformations
The distinction between an ordinary girl and a magical girl is a key theme in the
narrative development of works within the genre, together with the cultivation of their
powers, understanding their roles in the fiction of the world, and the ways in which
they fight. All of the girls in the three series begin their stories as regular, ordinary
girls, with typical issues that come with the role: worries about homework, boy
troubles, and concerns about body image are among the issues most commonly
explored. The reasons for the girl becoming magical vary among these series – for
example, Usagi is the reincarnation of the ancient Moon Princess, while Sakura
accidentally opens a previously sealed magical book. While their origins differ, they
are unified in their root form; a girl who had previously not known she was magical
being awakened, or otherwise introduced to power beyond her normal comprehension.
Henshin, or transformation, is a universal feature of these series, as the girls use their
power to change from their ordinary identity into that of their magical persona.
However, the transforming and battling girl has been a relatively recent addition to the
storylines of the magical girl genre. Although Secret Akko-chan and other early
magical girl series featured transforming magical girls, they did not transform in order
to battle a specific threat, but instead to follow their own whims and adventures. By
contrast, transforming heroic males, such as Ultraman, have been a staple of Japanese
children’s adventures since before the 1960s (Gill, 1998). The idea of a magical girl
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transforming from her ordinary identity into that of a magical girl in order to do battle,
previously featured in boys’ series such as Cutey Honey3, was positioned as being an
aspect of the contemporary magical girl genre in Sailor Moon, where stylistic, lengthy
and revealing transformation sequences featured heavily (Orbaugh, 2003).
The capability of these girls to transform is rooted in the cultural perception of the
young female in Japanese society. Napier (2005) argues that the term shōjo possesses
an exceedingly elastic definition, and that it is “ambiguous at what point on the
continuum that the shōjo ends and the more adult female begins” (p. 149). This then
becomes a point of interest for Japanese narratives, as the shōjo becomes a site of
inherent malleability, with their beginnings and endings merging fluidly. Usagi from
Sailor Moon, despite being the saviour of the world, is still a developing girl who has
no concept of responsibility in her ordinary life. As Prindle (1998) argues:
What fascinates the Japanese is that the shōjo nestle in a shallow lacuna
between adulthood and childhood, power and powerlessness, awareness and
innocence as well as masculinity and femininity. (p. 35)
One of the primary differences between early works such as Sally the Witch and the
contemporary take on the magical girl is the presence of the girl as a warrior in battle.
Whether by taking on the forces of evil directly as a group of soldiers (the original
Japanese name of Sailor Moon was Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn, literally ‘pretty soldier
Sailor Moon’), or capturing their opponents with magical powers, the magical girl has
3
In an example of shifting genre definitions, while Cutey Honey was originally marketed as a sciencefiction series by Toei Animation (Clements and McCarthy 2006), it has now become officially
categorised by the company as a magical girl series (Toei Animation, 2004).
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become synonymous with an identity as a warrior, continuing to tie together overlying
notions of masculinity with feminine identity.
That the magical girl is also a fighting girl is a distinct difference from the earlier
magical girl works. This change in convention can be seen as part of broader
developments that began in the late 1980s, when aspects of girls’ comics were
combined with those of boys’ comics. Sailor Moon exemplifies these developments,
as it features “the female protagonist, slim-cute body style, interest in romance, and
transformativity characteristic of shōjo comics with the plot-driven combat stories of
shōnen narratives” (Orbaugh, 2003, p. 215).
Although girls as warriors are an important motif in contemporary magical girl
narratives, one of the primary aspects of their heroic status is their possession of a
yasashii spirit. People possessing such a spirit are “warm, without a hint of evil and
malice, pure in their hearts, and blessed with those unique Japanese antennae, always
sensitive to each other’s feelings which never need to be spoken” (Buruma, 1984, p.
211). This does not exclude the girls from being warriors, but rather heightens their
position as female heroes. Although they are ordinary schoolgirls in their human state,
magical girl narratives place the girls outside that form of restriction, “making the
girls samurai themselves when they are transformed into their magical state” (Liu,
2010, p. 11). The combination of yasashii and the loyalty, bravery, politeness,
simplicity and truthfulness of the samurai creates a role wherein “these schoolgirls
can be just as heroic as their sword-wielding male ancestors” (Drazen, 2003, p.119).
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However, the girls’ yasashii spirit does not exclude them from possessing character
flaws and habits which, from a traditionalist sense, would not belong to a heroic
figure. Flaws such as selfishness and lack of focus allow the girls to become a more
human kind of superhero, “one whose foibles are played up rather than down and,
though criticized, are never curbed” (Allison, 2000, p. 273). This separation extends
into their interactions with the real world in their human guise, where they often
engage with everyday novelties and excitement (Allison, 2000). Sakura and Usagi are
frequently depicted as going shopping, attending festivals, and going on pseudo-dates
with their respective romantic interests. Although these events often lead into
encounters with their opponents, fighting is not their intent but, rather, an unfortunate
side-effect of them acting as human girls, with human wants and desires.
Despite their roles as warriors in actual battle, the contemporary magical girl rarely
has to contemplate death as a possible outcome of these conflicts. Their battles are
certainly action-packed and tense, but defeat is usually only a temporary setback,
requiring the magical girl to both recuperate and approach the opponent with a
newfound strategy that they have acquired over the course of the episode, or they
must use their ultimate power in order to destroy the villain of the week. Even when
death does become a real prospect, as with the concluding episodes of the first season
of Sailor Moon, it is met with dignity, heroism, and a lengthy final sequence in which
they encourage the other girls to fight on without them. Even in that circumstance,
however, “their deaths were partial at best since their school-girl alter-egos continued
to live” (Levi, 2001, p. 35). This is exemplified by some translations of the first
season, which change the content to indicate that the girls who died in the original
Japanese series had merely been captured by the forces of evil, and were therefore
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able to return safely to the screen without damaging the image of the invincible
magical girl.
Godhood
The development of magical girl narratives is not limited to their growth as warriors
and burgeoning adolescent. Rather, the ultimate destination of the magical girl is
frequently depicted as a trend towards the status of godhood. This is expressed
literally, in the case of Hikaru being offered the opportunity to become the “Pillar of
Light” that holds the magical world of Rayearth together, or figuratively, as Sakura
becomes the foremost bearer of magical ability in the known world. Some feminist
scholars interpret this ascendency as implying the development of maternal qualities –
previously limited by the phallic symbols in the form of their totems, the girls
outgrow and overcome these to become powerful and all-encompassing in their own
right (Liu 2010). Although flawed and often hesitant at the beginning, they become “a
strong, capable woman – an independent woman, wife, mother, superhero and queen
– all at once” (“Girl Talk…”, 1996, p.19)
Totems
Magical girls usually possess a totem – a seemingly benign object, such as a pendant
or brooch, through which their power is accessed. Although they can come in many
forms, these totems tend to share a set of qualities that are unified across works within
the genre. These totems transform along with the girls into their “true” form when the
presence of the magical girl is required. Without them, the girl is rendered powerless,
or at least much less powerful than she would be with the totem. For example, the
Sailor Scouts are incapable of using their abilities without their magical rods, for “if
they lose this item, they are unable to transform into Sailors” (Newsom, 2004, p. 78).
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Likewise, Sakura is incapable of activating the magic of her captured cards without
using her bird-headed staff. The symbolic power of these totems, therefore, is that
they are inexorably tied to what makes the girl magical – if denied access to their
totem, the girl is also denied her second identity.
Animal companions
Going hand in hand with magical girls are their magical animal companions, who tend
to serve in a guiding capacity, as well as often being the deliverers of magical powers
to the girls. Unlike the girls, they have an understanding of the magical reasoning of
the world, as they are a part of the magic that has only recently been thrust upon the
girls (Cavallaro, 2010). These companions usually take the form of small, generally
cute animals, which often serves as a stark contrast to the power and knowledge that
they hold within the storylines; indeed their size is almost inversely proportional to
the powers they possess. Luna in Sailor Moon and Keroberos in Cardcaptor Sakura
are the primary mentors to the magical girls, informing them of their abilities, guiding
them to their goals, and knowing more about the plot and its outcomes than the girls
themselves. Mokona in Magic Knight Rayearth, by comparison, does not give the
girls their initial power, but acts as their guide throughout the storyline, and is
eventually revealed to be one of the creators of the magical universe they inhabit.
Inherently alien to an ordinary world, these animals are an important link between the
girls and their magical selves, assisting them in understanding their roles, their
abilities, and delivering them to their overall destiny.
Love
As with the broader shōjo genre, love is a vital concept and driving force within
magical girl narratives. Because these stories are predicated on a need to balance the
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romance of the shōjo and the action of the shōnen, they generate a position wherein
the narratives “visualise ‘love’ as a form of empowerment over adversity, becoming
the ‘power of love’” (Liu, 2010, p. 8). Although real love is a prominent feature of the
narratives – all of the leading girls in the three series examined here have a romantic
interest – it is often revealed that their capacity to love is the prime source of their
ability to do battle. Although they are capable warriors, it is a magical girl’s
“unparalleled ability to love [that] is her true strength and the source of her power”
(Newsom, 2004, p. 66). This love does not only apply to the girls’ relationship with
her abilities, but also her relationship with her friends, romantic interests, and even the
enemies that she faces. Rather than killing her opponents outright, “most of her
greatest victories generally end with her ‘healing’ the villain so that they become
good” (Newsom, 2004, p. 66). Thus, for example, Sakura does not set out to defeat
and destroy her opponents in their wild magic forms; rather, she captures and pacifies
them, placing them under her own control instead of allowing them to run amok.
Likewise, the trio of girls in Magic Knight Rayearth chiefly face opponents who are
under the control of a greater evil; they defeat these foes by removing the influence of
their actual enemy, thereby healing these opponents of their negative influences and
effectively recruiting them to their side.
Other features
Although not a convention per se, contemporary magical girl narratives do not usually
feature any deep character introspection; rather, as Napier (1998) argues,
psychological depth is ignored in order to make way for speed of narrative and plot
resolution. Although this can be seen in many magical girl genre works, it is most
explicitly evident in Sailor Moon, where the characters have little time to reflect on
their powers and purpose, instead spending their time moving from battle to romantic
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endeavour. These narratives, while aimed at children, can seem out of place to an
adult reader, as “the girls’ lack of appreciation of their marvellous power can be
frustrating” (Napier, 1998, p. 103).
One of the most important elements of character design in magical girl narratives, and
anime in general, comes in the form of the girls’ clothing and hair. Lamarre argues
that character design is a crucial aspect of anime, to the extent that critics and
overviews will “give as much weight to character design as to story or other aspects”
(2009, p. 204). This is supported by Sadamoto Yoshiyuki, who notes that his
character designs are created so that “their personalities could be more or less
understood at a glance.” (“[EVA]…”, 2006). These ideas are reflected in the
construction of magical girls, as their clothing and hairstyle will often reflect the
character as a whole. Rei in Sailor Moon and Umi in Magic Knight Rayearth share
long, straight hair, indicating a character unafraid of speaking their mind. Similarly,
colour association plays a strong part in linking character types between shows –
characters with a red palette, such as Rei and Magic Knight Rayearth’s Hikaru, are
typically more battle-oriented than their peers. Thus, the girls’ clothes and hair
“behave in some cases as the characters’ ‘true skin’ that shows their interior character
on the outside” (Liu, 2010, p. 18).
In this chapter, I have reviewed key works from across the history of the magical girl
genre. Through this analysis, a number of conventions are apparent as being intrinsic
aspects of the genre:
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•
The use of a totem to access their magical abilities
•
The transformation between ordinary girl and magical girl
•
The girls acting as ultimately triumphant warriors in battle
•
The presence of a magical animal companion
•
The maturation of power to epic scales
•
The power of love in their relationships and in battle
It is through these lenses that I now analyse Puella Magi Madoka Magica to
determine whether this series transgresses or conforms to these conventions.
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Chapter 4:
Two views of transgression
To investigate how Puella Magi Madoka Magica differs in its implementation of the
established conventions of the magical girl genre, I have selected two key sequences
through which to analyse and explore the series. These two sequences have been
specifically chosen from what the fan community have dubbed “wham episodes” –
that is to say, an episode which manages to “radically alter the status quo, and in
doing so send a major shock through the viewership” (“Wham Episode”, 2011). Both
of these sequences contain major elements that diverge from the standard magical girl
fare, and therefore are key referents for this investigation. Although other sequences
from the series are referenced and discussed, the visual and narrative elements of the
two sequences analysed here provide the basis for such discussion.
4.1 The fight against Charlotte (from episode 3, ‘I’m Not Afraid Of
Anything Anymore’4)
This is the second fight against a witch in the series, and is a sequence that provides a
snapshot of the otherness of the world within which the girls are fighting their
opponents. Here, the mise en scene is composed of a stylised collage of food and
cutlery, layered and presented in a way that runs completely contrary to the sterile
reality of the real world that the girl comes from. This stylisation of the world is
emphasised by the girls remaining in the same style as they are in the “real world”
they normally inhabit. For example, as the group crouches behind a doughnut, they
appear too clean and well-illustrated to be a part of the world they are battling within,
4
Original Japanese title ‘Mou nani mo kowakunai’
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their character design being for typical shōjo characters, with an emphasis on clarity
in line work and curvilinear flow (Lamarre, 2009).
The introduction of the witch reinforces this notion. Its5 arrival is heralded by a still
layer of what appears to be melted white frosting slowly lowering from the top of the
frame while a table in the background sparkles. This then cuts to what seems to be a
box of sweets, featuring the same alien script that has been present in the witches’
worlds throughout the series so far. After writhing and contorting for a brief moment,
the box bursts, and then the frame splits like an eye opening, revealing a second witch,
Charlotte.
The camera moves to a far shot, showing the evidently tiny Charlotte as it drifts down
slowly towards a chair, then cuts back close to the witch as it lands. Charlotte’s
appearance, like that of the world, is completely other to that of the girls and their
world; Charlotte is illustrated with thick lines and no shading, somehow appearing to
be more 2D than the animation is already. The witch is tiny and expressionless, with
large, empty black eyes; its body, with a third of its total mass composing entirely of
the head, is in-line with the chibi (super deformed) style of characters in Japanese
anime and manga illustrations that are used primarily to show that they are cute, even
innocent (Drazen, 2003). This is reinforced by the background showing a spoon and
fork that bookend Charlotte, whose head is shaped like a bonbon in a wrapper. The
alien script at the bottom of the frame is reminiscent of icing and sprinkles on biscuits.
5
I am using the term ‘it’ to describe the witches, despite their feminine names, in order to reduce
confusion in sequence description between the girls and the witches.
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The disparate visual design between the girls and the witches they fight is an
immediate contrast between the world of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and that of
other magical girl series. The contemporary magical girl is matched against
otherworldly forces, generally coming in the form of monsters or evil human-like
beings. This distinction between the real and otherworldly aspects of the universe,
however, is often put into the background or not discussed at all, as the magical girl
genre series “erode the barrier between the magical and non-magical realms with
irreverent gusto by grounding magic in familiar terrain” (Cavallaro, 2010, p. 19). This
erosion of boundaries between the two worlds is readily apparent in the graphic
design of many magical girl series, as magical or otherworldly enemies are typically
illustrated in the same visual style as the girls. For example, although their opposing
alignments are apparent due to their differing costuming and colour choices, both
Sailor Moon and her nemesis, Queen Beryl, are similar in character design – while
superficially different, they possess the same basic structures and lines of illustration
(see Figures 1 and 2). The same can be said of Card Captor Sakura where, despite
Sakura’s opponents being wild magic forces, the same design style is used for both
girl and opponent, creating a sameness that places them all within the same graphic
universe.
Instead of following this tradition, the witches of Puella Magi Madoka Magica are
illustrated in a wide variety of styles, as are the realms that they inhabit. Although the
girls are drawn in a moe style that is commonplace in modern anime, their opponents
are distinctly different in their composition (see Figure 3). In this sequence, we see
Charlotte is a chibi figure that has no implied visual depth. The previous episode gave
us Gertrude, a collage of various parts that ended up forming a Cthulhu-esque creature
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that writhed, contorted and shifted in a very different manner from the rest of the
series’ animation. By presenting opponents who are not only opposed in motivation
from the girls, but also opposed in visual construction, the series reinforces the notion
that the girls are fighting something that does not belong.
With this in mind, we can also note that the girls are the ones who are alienated, as
they are effectively invading the territory of other beings in order to achieve their
victories. Although the titular Magic Knights Rayearth were also summoned to a
fantasy realm in order to achieve their goals, the world of Cephiro was similar to the
normal world the girls had come from. In effect, despite being from another world,
they were not depicted as being completely alien beyond their character and narrative
input. The city that Madoka and her friends come from, however, is visually disparate
from the realms of the witches. Mitakihara is the epitome of sterile modernity, its
colour scheme almost entirely comprised of blues and greys, the buildings echoing a
range of sources, including the Weltstadthaus in Berlin, and the skyline of Dubai
(“Mitakihara Town”, 2011). Compared to this, the worlds the witches inhabit are
colourful and full of life, while simultaneously alienating the girls from them.
In the sequence, we contemplate Charlotte for a few moments before the background
darkens out, Charlotte is knocked to the side of the frame, and the letters of the alien
script go flying. The shot cuts to show Mami Tomoe, the only magical girl we have
seen in battle thus far, breaking one of the legs of the chair that Charlotte was using,
causing the tiny witch to drop down slowly. The next few shots demonstrate Mami
completely overwhelming the witch in a one-sided combat. Charlotte does not
respond to at all; Mami uses her gun like a baseball bat to send Charlotte flying, the
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shot cutting to show Charlotte literally crossing from one side of the long shot frame
to the other, tumbling before crashing into a wall and being riddled by bullets. The
witch then lands on the ground, and Mami presses a gun to Charlotte’s head and fires,
the mid shot revealing again the size disparity between the two combatants. This
sequence is narrated by a single line from Mami, who asserts that, “One shot is all I
need,” to accentuate the perception of her superiority in this fight.
After shooting Charlotte point blank in the head, Mami’s magic picks up the tiny
witch and raises it above the ground; the sequence cuts to Sayaka, Madoka and
Kyubey for a moment, the former two of whom cheer Mami on, excited and smiling.
In a close-up of Mami, she returns a smile, her expression revealing a certain relief.
Her gun then begins to glow and transform into a larger weapon, its final incarnation
too large for the frame to capture entirely even as it pulls back and away from the
dwarfed Mami, who announces that this is her “Final Shot”. After firing the weapon,
it pierces right through the suspended Charlotte, then transforms into a ribbon that
wraps and compresses Charlotte’s body, the witch’s head engorging like a balloon
squeezed at the base. Then from the mouth of the tiny form comes another face,
which emerges to become the second form of Charlotte. This form is larger, and
though it maintains the same zero-shading style to visually distinguish it from the
girls of the real world, it is different in many ways – it possesses multi-coloured eyes
on a face that is painted like a clown’s, a wide grin, and is built like a serpent, its body
composed entirely of black with red polka dots.
The next few shots happen in quick succession, and cement the fact that Mami has
used her final attack and lost the battle. First, in a mid-distanced shot of Mami, the
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new Charlotte moves from the far background until it is right in Mami’s face, the
suddenness of its movements demonstrating its overwhelming size compared to the
magical girl’s. It opens its mouth to reveal sharp, triangular teeth, the opening of its
mouth almost capable of fitting Mami entirely whole within. The shot moves to
within the new Charlotte’s mouth, the teeth providing a frame within the frame
showing Mami’s still, uncomprehending face as the frame moves closer and the teeth
open wider. After a quick pair of shots showing Madoka and Sayaka reacting with
shock, we are given an overhead shot of the sweets-collage terrain, centred on a tiny
dot that we assume to be Mami, with the enormous, serpentine figure of Charlotte
above her. Charlotte moves, and covers over the place where Mami previously stood.
With the awakening of Charlotte’s second, overpowering form, we see the first real
indication of this series transgressing the norms established in previous magical series.
Although Sailor Moon and other contemporary magical girls fought monsters every
week, these enemies were always more or less harmless to the girls in the overall
narrative – despite the supposed danger the girls were in any time they fought, their
victory was always inevitable, if not on the first opportunity then certainly the second.
The girls summoning their full strength into a “super attack”, resulting in the
opponent’s ultimate defeat, usually heralded their victories. Despite being smaller, or
less obviously powerful than their opponent, the girls would always find a way to win.
In effect, the girls were given a form of plot immunity, with danger to the safety of
the magical girls only existing in the form of their archenemy.
Mami’s battle represents a fundamental turnaround of this established convention.
The sequence plays out in such a way that her victory seems inevitable, to the point
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where her attacks seem more like toying with her opponent than actually struggling to
victory. Much like her battle with Gertrude in the second episode, Mami is
represented as being in complete control and fully capable in combat. This position is
firmly established by her use of her “final shot” – summoning a weapon too large to
even fit on the screen – an attack that is primarily reserved in the magical girl genre
for the leader, and thereby the strongest, of the magical girl troupe (Liu, 2010, p. 6).
To Madoka and Sayaka, as well as the viewer, she is the epitome of what it means to
be a magical girl, as she fights the witches on behalf of others who cannot. Her
comment in the second episode, where she asserts that she won’t lose because it
would mean losing face in front of her juniors, continues this pattern of her position as
exemplar – she does not fear loss for her own safety, but rather because of what it
would mean for those she holds dear.
Her sudden defeat, therefore, brings about several realisations about how this series
approaches the traditional conventions of the genre. Rather than being a simple
opponent whose defeat is a plot-dictated inevitability, Charlotte (and thereby all other
witches) become actual opponents, each a legitimate threat to the safety of the
magical girl. Realism, a concept that is perhaps considered foregone in a genre titled
“magical girl”, enters the fray to a brutal extent. By making even a single mistake in
battle, as Mami has done, any assurances that she was going to win the battle were
rendered untrustworthy. The safety of the girls as they progress to the conclusion of
the story is, in this moment, no longer assured, as even a third episode opponent can
have enough power to not just temporarily defeat, but entirely destroy, the existence
of one of them.
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The sequence then cuts to an extreme close up of a lock, and the reverberating sound
of a locking mechanism coming undone. When the shot changes, we see Homura,
who had previously been captured by Mami’s magic, falling down as the red ribbons
that had previously held her in place fall apart, and she drops to the ground; a close up
of ribbons disintegrating and turning into a blood-like fluid is accompanied by
Homura expressing disbelief that Mami’s magic has collapsed.
The sequence cuts again, back to the battle, and the viewer is confronted with the
image of Mami’s dangling body, her head and the top of her shoulders placed outside
the top frame of the shot; she has been decapitated by the frame, yet her body is
suspended without falling. Her body spasms and shakes, then in a burst of light, her
magical costume disappears, and she is in her school uniform again (see Figures 4a
and 4b). After this, her body starts to drop, but the shot cuts away before we can see
her head, moving to a long distance view that shows a silhouetted body that tumbles
quickly from the top of the frame and straight down, quickly followed by the
serpentine Charlotte, which opens its mouth and descends onto the place where
Mami’s body has landed.
The sound of bestial chewing dominates the soundscape while the camera shows us
the faces of Madoka and Sayaka, mouths agape and eyes wavering, shocked and
horrified by the scene that has played out in front of them.
This sequence also makes explicit that violence against the girls is not being avoided.
Although magical girls are violent figures, it is rare that violence is ever visited upon
them. Injuries to the girls are represented by flashes of light, slow motion, falling to
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the ground while clutching their chest. Even in death, the girls are rarely shown
bleeding or being bodily destroyed. Rather, they disappear, fade away into nothing, or
are taken off-camera, never to be seen again - until they are resurrected within the
same episode, as seen at the end of the first season of Sailor Moon (Levi, 2001). This
is almost played through in this sequence, as the series sets up Mami to be consumed,
only to cut away elsewhere to her magic dissipating in another form. Homura’s words
and actions make it clear to the viewer that something terrible has happened to Mami,
and as with other series within the genre, it is not necessary to illustrate it directly.
It is when the sequence jumps back to demonstrate Mami’s lifeless, decapitated body
being shaken around, then dropped to the ground and consumed in a ravenous frenzy
that the assumed safety of the girls’ bodies is rejected by the series. In addition,
Mami’s death is removed from all heroism and romance, a stark departure from other
works in the genre. When Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn are killed at the end of Sailor
Moon’s final season6, they are given a few minutes to say their farewells to the titular
Sailor Moon, to express their love and sorrow and encourage Usagi to go on without
them. Levi (1996) argues that “heroism and self-sacrifice define an anime character as
a hero, but they will not save him or her” (p. 99), and this is reflected in the Sailor’s
demise. However, this tradition of noble sacrifice is transgressed in Puella Magi
Madoka Magica, where we see Mami being quickly and brutally dispatched only
moments after her victory seems almost a certainty. Rather than being treated as a
hero in death, Mami’s status as a magical girl disappears with her life, leaving her as
nothing more than a corpse to be consumed.
6
Episode 197, ‘Ruler of the Galaxy! Galaxia’s Threat’
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4.2 The girls’ nature revealed (from episode 6, ‘This Just Isn’t
Right’7)
This sequence is the second confrontation between Sayaka and Kyoko, both magical
girls, but who hold distinctly different views about the ways that they should use their
powers. Meeting on a bridge in the middle of the city, the sequence is set up by a fastmoving shot across the landscape of the city during the night – a cold palette of blues
and greys with little light that continues to pervade the sequence even as the camera
cuts to an overhead shot of the two girls meeting at a bridge over a highway. The only
movement comes from the shadowy cars passing by below.
Kyoko affirms that they are about to do battle, then holds her arm and hand ahead of
her, palm down, to reveal her silver ring, out of which her soul gem materialises and
begins the transformation sequence into her magical girl costuming. The world cuts
away behind her, turning into a swirling void of red and black, in which Kyoko twirls
and poses as her body is silhouetted and then covered by her magical costume, the
camera cutting quickly to show each part as it appears. First her boots, then her dress
and jacket, then the eye-like jewel on her chest, dilates and solidifies. Finally, her
weapon appears and the frame freezes on her battle pose, the background now yellow
and red, reading like a fiery explosion rather than an empty void now.
The camera then cuts back to the real world as we view Sayaka from a longer distance,
standing still as Kyoko’s feet fall from the top of the frame and land again, daintily.
She then proffers her own soul gem, cupped in her upward-facing palm, which begins
to glow as Madoka and Kyubey enter from the shadowed background, interrupting the
7
Original Japanese title ‘Konna no Zettai Okashiiyo’
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proceedings. Sayaka tells Madoka to leave, but Madoka, with knees together and
hands pressed to her chest, asserts that something is wrong, her voice fearful.
Kyoko makes a verbal attack on the pair, the shot showing her standing forthright, her
spear pushing forward towards the camera and gleaming, and is joined by Homura,
who appears without cue or introduction by Kyoko’s side. They argue for a moment
about what to do about Sayaka, and Homura determines that she will take on Sayaka,
who then proceeds to present her soul gem again. Madoka, however, decides to
interfere – an extreme close-up of her face, accompanied by a slow-motion sound
effect, demonstrates the speed at which she makes her decision – by taking Sayaka’s
soul gem in hand and throwing it down and off the bridge, a long-distance shot
showing her as a tiny dot of pink in a sea of shadows, the falling gem surrounded in
sparkles as it falls. Although it is caught by a passing truck and moves off into the
distance, Homura is visibly shocked; she gasps and disappears completely.
By contrast, although she gasps, Sayaka is angry, rather than scared; she moves to
threaten and question Madoka, only to collapse into Madoka’s arms, a close up of her
face showing her eyes have been changed in style to look empty and devoid,
accompanied by her mouth agape. With a squeak, Kyubey jumps onto the railing and
tells Madoka that what she did was bad, and that something must be wrong with her,
to “throw away your friend like that”. We see a close up of Madoka’s wavering eye as
she questions what he means, then Kyoko’s hand enters a side shot and grabs Sayaka
by the neck, lifting her effortlessly with a single hand; Kyoko’s face changes to one of
fear as well, exclaiming that Sayaka is dead while the shot focuses on Sayaka’s face
again, the emptiness of her eyes accompanied with extreme shadowing across the
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frame. A stylised shot follows: the three girls are silhouetted against a background of
lens flares, while in the corner, Kyubey silently looms.
Meanwhile, Homura chases the truck, disappearing and reappearing every few
moments, slowly gaining on her target.
A panning shot crosses Sayaka’s body sprawled on the ground, her face again covered
in shadow. Madoka’s plaintive, distressed efforts to wake her friend are fruitless,
while Kyoko grits her teeth and thinks. Eventually, in similar fashion to Madoka,
Kyoko has a moment of realisation, accompanied by a zoom and slow motion sound
effect as she turns to face Kyubey, who has remained in the corner of every shot
frame he has been in so far. The white creature begins to explain by saying that
magical girls can only control “their bodies” from one hundred metres away at most,
while the shot changes to a close-up of him; the complete stillness of his face and
unblinking red eyes is accompanied by the metronome-like movement of his tail in
the background.
Kyoko angrily asks what Kyubey is talking about, and the creature continues to say
that accidents like this don’t normally happen. Then, interrupted by a terrified
Madoka begging Kyubey not to let her friend die, Kyubey sighs and tells Madoka that
what she holds isn’t Sayaka, rather, it is an empty container, and that Madoka had
thrown her friend before, not just a gem.
While Homura struggles to climb the truck and retrieve the gem - the fast-moving
shots and panning backgrounds revealing the speed at which the vehicle is travelling -
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Kyubey continues in a voice-over to explain the situation; unable to ask girls to fight
the witches in fragile bodies that normal people possess, the girls’ bodies are now
only a piece of external “hardware”. Their actual soul is given a safer form that is
better at conducting magic – this, he explains, is all part of his job when he completes
the magical girl contract. He removes their souls and transforms them into soul gems.
The moment in which Kyubey reveals that the girls’ bodies are no more than soulless
husks through which their powers are activated serves as a key moment in the series’
exploration of the conventions of the magical girl genre. Although attaining power
through totems is a key feature of the genre, with objects such as the rods in Sailor
Moon providing a site of activation for the girls’ abilities, the totems are not regarded
as being anything more than a tool through which the abilities are channelled. As we
see in this sequence, however, the totems in Puella Magi Madoka Magica become the
carriers of the girls’ souls. The soul gems, far from being a mere tool through which
the magical girl uses her power, become inextricable parts of the girls’ identities –
without their totems, they are unable to function. The implication, therefore, is that
the magical girl and girl are irrevocably linked, to the extent that the girl cannot
survive without her totem. This transgresses the conventions previously established
within the genre, because it places the magical girl as being undeniably magical.
Sailor Moon and Magic Knight Rayearth position the girls’ tools as primarily being
accessories to the power that the girls contain within themselves; the power they
possess is within them, and the totem is merely required to summon it. This enables
the girls to exist without their totems, because they are not intrinsic parts of them. By
contrast, in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, we see the diametric opposite: the girl is
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nothing without her totem, and therefore her purpose, to propel her towards her
destiny.
Kyoko, furious, grabs Kyubey by the ear and shouts at him, only for Kyubey to assert
that it is much more convenient this way – by separating their bodies from their spirits,
the girls become effectively invincible, as any damage they take can be healed with
magic, provided their soul gem does not break. His dialogue is contrasted with shots
of Homura looking relieved as she picks up Sayaka’s soul gem, a tearful Madoka, and
a still, heavily shadowed view of Sayaka’s body.
Rhetorically, Kyubey asks the girls if it isn’t more useful this way than it would be if
they had to fight in “human” bodies with their potential problems; when the response
from Madoka is a sobbed cry of how awful it is, Kyubey tilts his tail and relents by
saying that they are all the same, and that magical girls always act this way when they
are told what is going on. Although the camera shows Madoka clutching Sayaka’s
body and rocking back and forth, sobbing, Kyubey asserts that he doesn’t get it; why
would humans place so much value on where their soul is located?
Compared to other magical animal companions, Kyubey is presented as having
motivations beyond those of the magical girls he advises. With his revelation that the
girls have literally had their souls removed from their bodies, the girls are left with the
knowledge that their magical animal companion has not told them everything.
Although previous magical girl series have set up the idea of the animal companion
keeping some information secret, their motivations for doing so are in the best
interests of the girls; for example, Keroberos hides knowledge from Sakura so that she
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will learn how to defeat opponents without his guidance, thereby strengthening her
individual power. By comparison, Kyubey chooses to hide information from the girls
that might cause them to reconsider his offer of a contract. Beyond the idea that their
souls have been stripped away from them, he later reveals that the witches they fight
are actually magical girls who, after using too much magic, have undergone the final
stage of their life cycle as magical girls. This is illustrated by a pun, wherein he asks
what better term for a witch (魔女; majo) that hasn’t fully developed than magical girl
(魔法少女; mahō shōjo).
Rather than presenting an advisor who has the best interests of the girls at heart, the
series presents an advisor who follows an agenda beyond that of the girls. Kyubey
provides the girls with all the information they ask for, but rarely what they actually
need to know. Although he never explicitly lies to the girls, he rarely tells them the
full truth of the matter unless it plays into his overall agenda. This position of Kyubey
as a manipulator is more explicitly present in how he offers power to the girls. Rather
than approaching them at a time where they can consider the offer under fair
conditions, he chooses the time when their emotions are most vulnerable; he
approaches Mami as she is dying in a car crash, and he continually makes offers to
Madoka as she is bearing witness to the horror and brutality that her friends are being
faced with.
In addition, just as the witches are presented as being inexorably alien to the girls, so
to an extent is Kyubey. Beyond the narrative power of his words and actions, his
manner of speaking can also be called into question. In speech, he never uses
honorifics like “-san” to refer to the girls, instead only calling them by their solitary
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name. Likewise, he exclusively uses the most informal verb tenses, while also
referring to the girls with the pronoun kimi, which is generally only used to refer to
someone who is either of the same status or lower than the speaker. Kyubey’s speech
depicts him as not only sounding alien, but thinking of himself as being superior to
the girls, despite his apparent need for them to serve under the conditions of his
contracts.
As previously noted, although magical animal companions are typically depicted as
being small, cute and benign, they tend to have a “true form” that is outwardly hidden.
Luna is actually a human in cat form; Mokona is actually the creator of the universe;
Keroberos has a true form as a massive, winged lion, a far more fearsome form than
his usual one. Kyubey’s true form, by contrast, is that of his alien nature, and his
complete lack of empathy towards the girls, and what it means to be human. His
relationship with the girls is more like that of a human’s relationship with cattle, and
he finds it perplexing when Madoka expresses that the thought is repugnant. To him,
the girls serve a purpose that is greater than any single human life is worth, especially
considering the massive population of the planet. As long as he achieves his goals, the
suffering and sacrifices of the girls are unimportant. He is even willing to allow
multiple girls to die, just so he can set up Madoka’s eventual transformation into a
magical girl. Through these lenses, we see that Kyubey both fulfils and transgresses
the conventions established for these magical animal companions. Although, like
others, he guides, nurtures and prepares the girls, Puella Magi Madoka Magica gives
Kyubey motivations and characterisation that reflect his position within the text – an
alien, who will ultimately fail to be in line with the human expectations of the magical
girls.
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As the sequence progresses, a shot of Sayaka’s dead face and open hand is intruded
upon by a hand holding a soul gem, which places it into Sayaka’s. A new shot reveals
it is Homura, who steps back, showing division between the placement of the
characters. With Madoka clutching Sayaka’s body taking up the centre of the frame,
Homura stands to the right, while Kyoko – still clutching Kyubey by the ear – takes
the left. Homura casually flips her hair, and the same shot of Sayaka’s face and hand
re-appear – her eyes transform from empty to alive, and she gasps for air, while
Kyoko and Madoka each get a close-up of their reactions. From a distance, Sayaka
rises from her position, looking around cautiously, the only sounds now coming from
the movement of traffic below them revealed by another shot from above, matching
the one from the very start of the sequence.
A close up of Sayaka’s face shows no fear or anger, but rather a sense of nonunderstanding; while she asks what’s wrong, the camera goes to an extreme close-up
of her mouth, then cuts away to the credit sequence.
Although the separation of their souls from their bodies is among the issues that
magical girls face, this represents one of multiple facets through which we can see the
magical girl becoming disassociated from their previous identity as an ordinary girl,
and the psychological impact of such a fundamental change in identity. The characters
from the three primary magical girl texts have all gone from ordinary to magical
within their own series, but the girls often appear to accept this transformation as just
another part of their lives. By comparison, the girls in Puella Magi Madoka Magica
develop strong feelings of detachment from, and even hatred of, their new magical
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girl forms, once they are made aware of their true nature. The girls, while initially
recognising that they are more powerful than a human, eventually reach a state where
they recognise themselves as no longer being human.
This separation of human girl life from magical girl life is shown from the perspective
of the magical girls themselves in a sequence in episode 7, when Kyoko tells the story
of her life and journey to becoming a magical girl. However, rather than being
presented in the typical visual style of the series when set in the normal world, the
story is a puppet show animated in a collage-style reminiscent of the witches and the
worlds they inhabit. Kyoko’s hand, presented in the normal real-world style, intrudes
the frame at one point to illustrate that she is controlling the sequences. Once she has
mentioned her transformation into a magical girl, however, she is depicted within the
story in the normal animated style of the series, but remains the only character in the
story to be shown that way. In effect, this sequence demonstrates how Kyoko’s
normal life is as alien to her now as the worlds in which she fights the witches.
As previously noted, love is a primary motivating force in magical girl series that
often runs parallel to the plotlines concerned with fighting evil. In Puella Magi
Madoka Magica, the expression of love is also a primary concern for many of the
girls, ranging from the sisterly to the romantic. Sayaka’s longing for Kamijou, the
crippled violinist, leads her to use her wish to heal him of his disability, so he can play
again. Although seeming to be a selfless gesture, she is heartbroken to discover that
after miraculously recovering, he entirely forgets Sayaka, causing her to break down
emotionally, beginning her spiral into becoming another witch. She never revealed
her feelings for him because of her fears about how he might reacted to discovering
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that she was a magical girl, thereby securing her fate. Kyoko’s reaction solidifies her
presentation as being the antithesis of the selfless magical girl; rather than reassuring
Sayaka that using her wish to heal Kamijou was the right decision, Kyoko says that
she should have used it to cripple him forever, so he would always have to rely on her.
Here, love is presented as being insufficient to secure a happy future for the girls.
Likewise, the sisterly love normally present in the magical girl genre is eliminated, as
the fighting of the witches becomes more of a competition than a unified effort;
Kyoko does not wish to work with anyone she perceives to be weaker than her,
Sayaka is a relentless idealist, and Mami, who had been so hopeful and accepting of
Madoka’s bond, is killed. Homura, by contrast, is almost eternally stoic, viewing
emotion as hindering the girls rather than aiding them. Instead of approaching love in
the conventional sense of the magical girl genre, wherein it is a unifying factor that
transcends everything else in the universe, Puella Magi Madoka Magica presents love
as yet another source of agony for the girls.
The yasashii spirit that I previously noted as an integral part of not just magical girl
stories, but shōjo in general, is transgressed through the character’s actions. Although
Sayaka and Mami can superficially be seen as possessing the selflessness that is
integral to the yasashii mode of existence, their actions within the series ultimately
demonstrate that such selflessness is beyond them. Magical girls, as we have seen,
typically develop character through their experiences in both their magical and nonmagical lives, growing stronger as they battle. Their adherence to the spirit of yasashii,
which may perhaps be weak at the beginning of a series, grows until they possess an
all-encompassing power worthy of defeating their ultimate foe. By contrast, the girls
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of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, through their journey, become less like the typical
heroic girl, becoming selfish, angry, and sullen in their roles. Sayaka begins with all
the noble intentions of fighting for what she believes in, but slowly finds herself
becoming disenchanted with her new life. In episode 8, when she makes the claim that
the more people she saves, the more hurt and anger she feels, she is demonstrating a
reaction to her position as saviour for a species that she feels she no longer belongs to.
She is “a corpse walking around pretending to be alive”, with no other purpose than to
fight, and no life left with the people she originally became a magical girl in order to
save.
The exception to this transgression, however, is Madoka. Madoka, for eleven of the
twelve episodes within the series, is not a magical girl. Through the two sequences I
have presented in this thesis, her character has been present and bearing witness to the
lives of the magical girl, without being one herself. Yet she is the titular character, and
the lives and suffering of the magical girls are framed around her.
Madoka is not given the conventional starting powers associated with narratives in the
genre. Unlike Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura, who are bequeathed with their plotgenerating abilities within the first episode, Madoka is shown to undergo a journey as
she makes her eventual decision to become a magical girl. Like Shinji in Neon
Genesis Evangelion, she is a reluctant hero who actively questions who she is and
what it would mean to transform into the archetype that the other characters in the
series represent. Rather than being granted heroic powers from the beginning, she
gradually comes to an understanding of what these powers would mean, thereby
actively engaging the thematic conventions of the genre within the narrative itself.
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Although repeatedly granted opportunities to take the magical power and contract
offered by Kyubey, Madoka remains a girl, as opposed to a magical girl, giving the
audience a perspective into the lives of the magical girls without becoming one
herself. Her ultimate decision to become a magical girl, however, runs in line with
Levi’s (1998) viewpoint of heroism in anime:
Heroes [within anime and manga] must be sincere and they must be
selfless, at least at the moment of heroism. It is not necessary for a
manga or anime hero to be a saint, to fight for the right side, or even to
be successful. Anyone who sincerely gives his or her best efforts to
almost any task can be a hero. (p. 72)
In this sense, we can see that while Madoka is only a magical girl for a single episode,
she is still a heroine within the series, as the series presents her journey towards
making the selfless decision which provides the climax to the narrative. Madoka is not
restricted by the same contract that binds the remainder of the cast to their duty, and
bears witness to the effects on their lives that their nature creates. Her decision to
become a magical girl, therefore, is not made out of plot-driven necessity, but evolves
through the overall narrative, creating a situation where Madoka decides that, despite
what she has seen, it is still better to become a magical girl than not to be. By making
the central character one who is primarily not a magical girl, Puella Magi Madoka
Magica transgresses several conventions of the genre, while simultaneously enabling
observation of the magical girls themselves within the text.
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The final transformation of Madoka into a magical girl is, at the same time, a
transformation to godhood. As we have seen in earlier convention analysis, the rise in
power to deity status, if not literally then conceptually, can be seen across multiple
magical girl works. Along with such ascendency occurring with the resolution of the
series plotline, it is often tied to the end of the girls needing to fight anymore – their
purpose has ultimately been fulfilled, and they do not have any more opponents to
fight against. Madoka’s wish is altruistic, and achieved entirely through her own
sacrifice towards a greater good.
Despite Madoka’s wish, however, the resolution of the series is far from solving
everything. Although her wish is granted, it does not resolve the problems that have
been established as pervading the universe; conflict is still rampant, evil is still everpresent, and the magical girls are still doomed to fight until their deaths, even if the
aftermath of their deaths has been radically altered. In contrast to the happy endings
seen in other magical girl series, we see that Puella Magi Madoka Magica has again
transgressed the expectations of the genre. Rather than providing the viewer with a
purely happy or sad ending to the series, Puella Magi Madoka Magica concludes with
an ambiguous compromise, a combination of the two that creates “the ‘happy’ ending
that the viewers want while still not disregarding the inevitability of tragedy that the
series is founded upon” (Oppliger, 2011b). The ending, while fulfilling the requisite
expectations of a magical girl series conclusion, has not solved everyone’s problems,
and creates new ones in their place; ultimately, no single hero can save everyone,
even if she does possess the purest form of yasashii spirit.
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Conclusion
The magical girl genre has developed over a period of fifty years into a distinctive
genre of anime; it takes young females and transforms them into superheroes, capable
of changing their own and others’ destinies and even saving the world, while
simultaneously retaining the same needs, desires and flaws as any “ordinary” girl.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica adds a further layer of complexity to the genre’s
development by not only thrusting a “real” girl into a position of reality-defying
power and responsibility, but also provides a narrative structure through which we see
through the soft overtones of the genre to expose the vulnerable heart within.
Throughout the history of anime, there are works that have emerged as setting-stones,
standing out from others for their significance to the medium and their respective
genres. These works include, for example, Akira, Cowboy Bebop and The Melancholy
of Suzumiya Haruhi, which, if not revolutionary, are nonetheless iconic in the
development of anime to the extent that they are the “landmarks by which otaku8
measure generations” (Oppliger, 2011b). Beyond these texts, however, there are those
such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon and Sally the Witch, which can be
seen as having changed anime on a deeper level by forcing or encouraging “anime
producers, directors, and writers to change the rulebook” (Drazen, 2003, p. 302).
The power and influence of Puella Magi Madoka Magica is comparable with these
transgressive series: the art style, character development and overall narrative do not
8
Otaku, typically translated into English as “geek”, has been adopted by anime fans much in the same
way as Star Trek fans adopted “Trekkie”.
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only take their cues from the well-established conventions of the magical girl genre,
but also use them to explore ideas and issues that have previously been suppressed or
ignored. Puella Magi Madoka Magica transgresses the familiar conventions of the
magical girl genre by daring to use the invincible “armoured cuties” in a way that
“[extends] the tropes beyond whimsical and entertaining fantasy into the realm of
harsh, rational pragmatism” (Oppliger, 2011b).
In this thesis I have explored the extent to which Puella Magi Madoka Magica
transgresses the conventions and established ideals of the magical girl genre. Using
Neon Genesis Evangelion, and the ways it went beyond the conventions of the mecha
genre, as a comparison (MacWilliams, 2008), I argue that Puella Magi Madoka
Magica similarly enacts such transgressions through both its narrative and visual
techniques. By interpreting the series through the genre lenses established in Chapter
3, we can see that Puella Magi Madoka Magica explicitly deploys the conventions of
contemporary magical girl narratives such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura,
but that it also transgresses these familiar expectations by projecting the narrative into
previously unexplored realms.
When the young girls are fighting otherworldly monsters, Puella Magi Madoka
Magica does not only represent them as being scared – but ultimately capable – young
people, but also depicts the kinds of physical, emotional and social damage that such
girls would face if the narrative safeties were removed from the story. Their totems,
far from merely channelling their power, contain their souls, forever separating them
from the girls that they once were and turning them into magical girls, distant
protectors for a people whom they no longer truly belong to. The (usually adorable)
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animal companion, is still a guide and mentor, but is also seen to have motivations
and values that are alien and abhorrent to humans. The series also takes the broader
overlying themes of the magical girl genre – such as love, and ascension to deity
status – and questions the materialisation of those values in the world that the magical
girls inhabit. Love, as seen by the girls of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, is often a
selfish, costly emotion that adds another level of suffering to their lives. Even
Madoka’s ultimate expression of love at the conclusion of the series is only achieved
through a great sacrifice: she is removed from the world and its memories, with only a
few capable of remembering her.
With these considerations in mind, the question then becomes how history will
remember Madoka; will it be regarded as a germinal work that changes the genre
forever, or as a landmark that will be remembered for what it achieved, but not for its
future impact? In addition, how will the series be received by the Western market,
now that it has been licensed for distribution and translation outside of Japan
(“Aniplex USA…”, 2011), especially considering that it has been eleven years since a
magical girl genre series has been a major success in foreign markets (Oppliger,
2011a)?
This thesis does not (and cannot) answer those questions, but it has established that
Puella Magi Madoka Magica both utilises and transgresses the conventions of the
magical girl genre in ways that break new ground. If Neon Genesis Evangelion
effected a change in the rulebook for anime producers through its transgression of the
mecha genre (Drazen, 2003), then Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s comparable
transgression of generic conventions would seem to indicate that it has similar
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potential for a far-reaching impact on the magical girl genre, and perhaps anime as a
whole.
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Index of figures
Figure 1.
Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon.
Figure 2.
Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon.
Figure 3.
Mami fighting Charlotte in the witch’s world.
Figure 4a.
The suspended magical girl Mami.
Figure 4b.
The suspended girl Mami.
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Figure 1.
Queen Beryl from Sailor Moon in episode 9,
"Usagi's Misfortune! Watch Out for the Rushing Clocks"
Image © Naoko Takeuchi, PNP, Toei Animation
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Figure 2.
Sailor Moon from Sailor Moon in episode 12,
"I Want a Boyfriend, Too! A Trap on a Luxury Cruise Ship"
Image © Naoko Takeuchi, PNP, Toei Animation
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Figure 3.
Mami fighting Charlotte in the witch’s world in episode 3,
“I’m Not Afraid Of Anything Anymore”
Image © Magica Quartet/Aniplex, Madoka Partners, MBS
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Figure 4a.
The suspended magical girl Mami in episode 3,
“I’m Not Afraid Of Anything Anymore”
Image © Magica Quartet/Aniplex, Madoka Partners, MBS
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Figure 4b.
The suspended girl Mami in episode 3,
“I’m Not Afraid Of Anything Anymore”
Image © Magica Quartet/Aniplex, Madoka Partners, MBS
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Filmography
Akira (movie; dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)
Astro Boy [original title: Tetsuwan Atomu] (TV series; dir. Osamu Tezuka, 19631966)
Bewitched (TV series; exec. prod. Harry Ackerman, 1964-1972)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series; exec. prods. Joss Whedon et al., 1997-2003)
Cardcaptor Sakura [original title: Kādokyaputā Sakura] (TV series; dir. Morio Asaka,
1998-2000)
Cowboy Bebop [original title: Kaubōi Bibappu] (TV series; dir. Shinichirō Watanabe,
1998-1999)
Cutey Honey [original title: Kyūtī Hanī] (TV Series; dir. Tomoharu Katsumata, 19731974)
Magic Knight Rayearth [original title: Mahō Kishi Reiāsu] (TV series; dir. Toshihiro
Hirano, 1994-1995)
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya [original title: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yūutsu] (TV
series; dir. Tatsuya Ishihara, 2009)
Neon Genesis Evangelion [original title: Shin Seiki Evangerion] (TV series; dir.
Hideaki Anno, 1995-1996)
Puella Magi Madoka Magica [original title: Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magika] (TV series;
dir. Akiyuki Shinbo, 2011)
Sailor Moon [original title: Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn] (TV series; dirs. Junichi Sato et
al., 1992-1997)
Sally the Witch [original title: Mahōtsukai Sarī] (TV series; dirs. Hiroshi Ikeda and
Toshio Katsuta, 1966-1968)
Secret Akko-chan [original title: Himitsu no Akko-chan] (TV series; dir. Hiroshi
Ikeda, 1969-1970)
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