Magical girl retrospective - simulwatch starts 1st Feb 2025

[Professor Irony]

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, I’ve just been a bit braindead away from work lately.

Princess Tutu ep1-3: Duck Duck Go

This one is slightly tinged with bad nostalgia for me as the first person I remember telling me it was good was a friend who is now long absent. But yeah, that aside, Princess Tutu feels refreshingly non-commercial - it doesn’t feel as if they’re desperate to sell you something here, beyond maybe a plush Duck, and frankly I think we all need a plush duck in our lives.

Most of what I would have touched on has already come up; I like how expressive the series is. The character art is relatively simple, but they’re doing a lot with gesture and movement in ways that you don’t often see. The narrator character is creepy as hell, but I also like how they’re using him to sow doubt as to where the story is heading and whether or not the characters’ fate is already sealed, I always appreciate that kind of device in a story.

It is noticeable that we’ve definitely entered the digital production era though. The series is by no means the worst culprit from that time (remember how Kino’s Journey had scanlines matted onto the screen?), but there’s definitely some jank going on in post here, with jerky camera pans, naff lighting effects and a weird cross wipe in the third episode standing out to me in particular. HIDIVE’s version is pretty rough too: there’s some horrible deinterlacing, for the real 2000s anime viewing experience, and it’s English audio only, not even auto generated captions (come back Gary, all is forgiven).

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Of all the shows we’ve watched so far, I think Princess Tutu and Fancy Lala are the ones I’m most likely to continue after we’re done.

Futari wa Precure ep1: Buy ‘Hings

I’m sure it will come as a shock to no-one that I haven’t seen Precure before. My sole experience of it is, some years ago, seeing the director (?) of one iteration being interviewed on the NHK channel and responding to a question about what that version might bring to the franchise, by talking about the new toyetic device with the same kind of thousand yard stare last seen on Martin Sheen as he’s looking at that ceiling fan in Apocalypse Now.

Joking aside, I don’t know really. It’s decently produced; there’s some nice cuts of animation around the fight sequence in particular and I kind of liked the roller coaster becoming a kaiju, but it’s just… missing something. Perhaps the formula has become so refined by this point that it feels as if the creative spark has finally been lost. The device is shamelessly toyetic this time too - it actually felt jarring to me whenever the main characters had to interact with the toy phone. Maybe it’s just because we’re in a hurry to hit all the relevant plot points in this episode, but I would have appreciated a bit more effort being put into building up some kind of in-universe mythos around the thing. A magic wand makes sense, the enchanted pen to create outfits was cute, but I had a hard time seeing the phone as anything more than a bit of pre-teen knick-knackery.

Maybe I’m being a overly harsh, given that they did point out Nagisa’s propensity to attract female admirers, but I did also laugh a little bit at how keen the show was to establish that both our heroines are interested in boys, when they seem to gain a lot of strength by holding hands beneath a giant rainbow flag. My gag title for the episode was nearly ‘Bi Things’…

If no-one is offended, I may skip Madoka. It doesn’t greatly appeal to me and my overriding memory of it is still having to put up with very vocal and enthusiastic fans who would not shut up about the bloody thing. Maybe some day I’ll get over that enough to give it a shot properly, but, eh.

 

[Dai]

Prisma Illya - episode 1

Gonna catch you catch you, catch me catch me, catch 'em catch 'em, gotta catch em all, Class Cards. Yep, we're collecting cards. Again.

This show isn't the first or only time a popular franchise had a magical girl spin-off. Tenchi Muyo pulled the same trick back in the 90s, and I would have picked Pretty Sammy for this watchlist instead if it was streaming anywhere these days. As for Prisma Illya, it leans heavily on its links to the Fate franchise for the appeal of its characters here. Your mileage may vary, but for me there's something about this show that just doesn't work in this first episode. For a parody, it doesn't have a good sense of comic timing. The art is so concerned with staying on-model that it comes across as restrained and lacking expression. We've seen other magical girl shows that handled comedy far better.

Perhaps the show's most interesting element at this point is the the complete jackass of a magic wand that doubles as the mascot. There's no pretense to this thing; it's quite open about how much it's using people.

jerky camera pans...HIDIVE’s version is pretty rough too: there’s some horrible deinterlacing

That's surprising because the old DVDs from the 00s look excellent. They're so close to HD quality that I only bothered to get the blu-rays as a backup once I could buy them for next to nothing in a sale. I've noticed the jerky pans in the blu-rays, but don't recall the DVDs being like that (though I haven't gone back to check). I suspect the HD upscale is the culprit for some of these issues rather than the original SD master.

If no-one is offended, I may skip Madoka.

Not a problem. You've already reached a passing grade for the course and we'll be heading to another tragical girl show at the weekend if you want to dip your toes into that sub-genre.

 

[Professor Irony]

Fate Casual / Nudity ep1

With only a modest knowledge of the Fate franchise, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one and, honestly, after one episode I don’t feel much the wiser. I don’t remember Illya being a particularly well developed character and it surprised me that they would pick her as the protagonist over a more obvious candidate like Rin, Saber or even Sakura maybe. Perhaps they thought picking a relatively blank slate would appeal to a broader audience, but I feel that if you were completely unfamiliar with Fate, you’d be pretty lost here.

The trash talking wand is kind of fun, but for the most part, I found this one pretty cringeworthy, not least of all for the inordinate amount of time it seems to devote to ogling Illya while she’s in the bath or just out of it. Something in the back of my mind says the BBFC raised an eyebrow at this one when it came out on home video. The aerial combat showed some promise at least; it reminded me of Nanoha, which I also haven’t seen, but I did play the fan-made fighting game based on it, and that was quite good.

Would also agree about the art being a bit off somehow. The characters are recognisable, but I don’t know, to me it’s like the shape language is all wrong; they’re just a bit dumpy and awkward in a way you wouldn’t expect from an official product.

I would have picked Pretty Sammy for this watchlist instead if it was streaming anywhere these days.

I think I saw the pilot for Pretty Sammy, but iirc it was on the same tape as mah waifu the Mihoshi special and I can’t remember much about it now.

 

[Dai]

Has someone at ANN been copying our homework?

This Week in Anime - The Boys in Toyland

Coop and Chris explore the world of marketable plastic goodies and how anime can turn out to be a half-hour toy commercial.

www.animenewsnetwork.com

 

[Dai]

With only a modest knowledge of the Fate franchise, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one and, honestly, after one episode I don’t feel much the wiser

I think that's just the Fate experience in general.

I don’t remember Illya being a particularly well developed character and it surprised me that they would pick her as the protagonist

If I'm being generous I'd say they picked her because she's the most naive and easily duped, which makes her an easy comedy target for the trolling wand. If I'm being more cynical I'd say they picked the youngest girl in order to appeal to that kind of viewer, especially with all the nudity in the first episode.

Prisma Illya - episode 2

This was a major improvement over the first episode. Characters are much more expressive in the comedy scenes and there are some funny moments parodying magical girl tropes, like the wand trolling Illya into doing posing practice or when she runs off to the toilet to transform. Add in a pretty solid fight scene and this is starting to look more promising.

Tomorrow we're moving on to everyone's favourite year: T-T-Twenty-Sixteen. If anyone has forgotten what that year was like, here's a reminder:

 

[Geriatric hedgehog]

Sorry guys, been unwell so have some catching up to do.

Sounds interesting. What's that one called?

Life After Magic. If you happen to play it, let me know how you find it - the concept sounded fascinating.

Madoka Magica Episodes 1-3

Shame I couldn't do this one daily as it's the one I've most been looking forward to. This was the first magical girl show I watched, purely down to its reputation. Back then I found it interesting to start, but it still seemed a bit vanilla for my tastes (or state of mind at the time) until the end of episode 3 of course. In retrospect, and probably also helped by the transition from the others in this simulwatch, goodness gracious this is dark from the bloody get go. I'd forgotten about the brilliant Shaft aesthetic pervading everything in the show, not just the witch labyrinths nightmare fuel. Whilst lots of the tragical shows inspired by this have embraced being grim dark, I don't think a single one has bothered to match Madoka's unique aesthetic. Kajiura's score is also excellent, with Kalafina's operatic vocals (shame they split). The creatives on this are an all star ensemble eh?


Found it interesting how much insight most characters demonstrate, both Sayaka and Madoka admitting their naive views on wanting to become magical girls. Mami as well, despite being a very confident exhibitionist, drops her flowery exterior to become serious in warning the kids to not take things lightly and to think carefully about what they want when signing the contract (the most business-minded wording in a magical girl show should be another red flag!). Madoka's mum, who certainly wears the pants in that family, also had some pithy insights in her limited appearances.

Difficult to dissociate from knowledge of having already watched this a few times, but without a doubt this is one of the greats in anime and remains among my favourites. Now I want to rewatch the rest and also use it as springboard to watching the Rebellion movie I only got recently, and the Magia Record anime that I never watched the second season of.

I'm trying to remember if Yuki Yuna tipped it's hand straight away? I think I remember them doing their Hero Club stuff in school before the reveal, there is a certain other anime that definitely starts as your regular CGDCT show before the twist reveal at the end of the first episode, thing is to name it is to spoil it, but equally I quite liked it so I would recommend it!

Ah yes, good shout - I remember watching I think the first season only of this, as others weren't available to me if I recall, and that did start light and get darker didn't it?

And Kyubey is a little s*** trying to egg them on into choosing to become a magical girl

I loved that line the girls chided him with about nobody liking a boy whose pushy.

Interesting choice here as witches are essentially magical women in other stories.

That is an inspired choice!

Loved your foreshadowing spoilers @Dai, very nice points as always.

my overriding memory of it is still having to put up with very vocal and enthusiastic fans who would not shut up about the bloody thing. Maybe some day I’ll get over that enough to give it a shot properly, but, eh.

Heheh sorry you had to go through all that dude and hopefully you will be able to watch it someday. Overenthusiasm from some can certainly be a killjoy!