Feb 2025 simulwatch voting thread

February 2025 simulwatch options and streaming sources

  • Dance Dance Danseur (Crunchyroll)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju (Crunchyroll)

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • Magical Girl Retrospective (see below for details)

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • Last Exile (Crunchyroll)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Patlabor OVAs and movies (not streaming)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Phoenix: Eden 17 (Disney+)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (HiDive)

    Votes: 1 20.0%

  • Total voters
    5
  • Poll closed .

Dai

Death Scythe
Voting closed. The magical girl retrospective will start here on 1st Feb 2025.

Most of the poll options are self-explanatory, but here is the plan for the magical girl retrospective. Rather than watching the entire series, we would watch the first three episodes of several landmark shows in a genre, in broadcast order, to compare how it evolved over time. For this one I'd suggest the first three episodes of each of the following. Don't worry if you can't access all the streaming services; just drop in and out as you're able. Tubi is a free service with ads.
  • Princess Knight (Crunchyroll) - possibly the first ever magical girl show, and a Tezuka one at that
  • Minky Momo (Crunchyroll) - early 80s classic
  • Sailor Moon original TV series (requires a VPN to access the US version of Tubi)
  • Sailor Moon R movie (free on Tubi UK) - starts by introducing the characters and backstory, so a good option if you can't access the TV series
  • Fancy Lala (free on Tubi UK) - late 90s show that's a great example of the pop idol sub-genre of magical girls
  • Princess Tutu (on HiDive)
  • Precure (original 2004 season on Crunchyroll)
  • Madoka Magica (not streaming, unfortunately)
  • Magical Girl Raising Project (Crunchyroll) - definitely not a classic, but typifies the grimdark post-Madoka era
 
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I have somehow never seen an entire episode of Sailor Moon. Not intentionally so, just doesn’t seem to have come my way.
For that reason I'm glad that the R movie is available to stream too, since it's more representative of the series as a whole. The first several episodes of Sailor Moon feel quite different from everything that comes after. So much of the comedy comes from Usagi interacting with the other sailor senshi, and it takes a long time for all of them to be introduced in season 1.
 
Apologies for being MIA, it's been a horrid week. Thanks for putting this up @Dai and @Professor Irony. I voted for danseur but changed for my second choice after seeing that being favoured and it certainly sounds a very interesting alternative style of simulwatch. Looking forward to it!
 
If it's going that way, a few more suggestions for dark magical girl shows from what I remember watching off various lists:
Magic Girl Site
Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka (action DMG)
Yuki Yuna
Granbelm (DMG, but mechs)
Wonder Egg Priority?

Others on the lists not mentioned:
Daybreak Illusion (sounds like a cash grab from the Madoka craze)
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Uta-kata (says it's pre-Madoka, but so is Princess Tutu)

From the list above I've only seen Princess Tutu.
Don't think I've ever seen a straight Magical Girl anime!

I think we could watch a couple of regular shows pre-Madoka, Madoka, and a couple post that.
Would maybe prefer a straight Madoka simul-watch as it's been sitting on my shelf for ages!
 
If it's going that way, a few more suggestions for dark magical girl shows from what I remember watching off various lists:
Magic Girl Site
Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka (action DMG)
Yuki Yuna
Granbelm (DMG, but mechs)
Wonder Egg Priority?

Others on the lists not mentioned:
Daybreak Illusion (sounds like a cash grab from the Madoka craze)
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Uta-kata (says it's pre-Madoka, but so is Princess Tutu)

From the list above I've only seen Princess Tutu.
Don't think I've ever seen a straight Magical Girl anime!

I think we could watch a couple of regular shows pre-Madoka, Madoka, and a couple post that.
Would maybe prefer a straight Madoka simul-watch as it's been sitting on my shelf for ages!
Madoka and Yuki Yuna would both be good candidates for a full viewing in a later simulwatch, since they're a lot less episodic than most magical girl shows. Yuki Yuna in particular wouldn't work with just three episodes; most of what makes it so memorable comes later, so that's why I left it off the list. Watching three episodes of Madoka just about works because that's when you get the first big tonal shift; if anything it was the first magical girl show aimed at the Three-Episode Rule generation. I wouldn't really want to push the overall episode count for the retrospective any higher, since we're already at 25 episodes; that's why I removed Prisma Illya after the first draft of the list.

The thinking behind the shows I selected in the opening post is to have one show for each of the major turning points and sub-genres in the overall development of magical girls. I was tempted to add Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom to the end, since it's a recent show with a pretty unique concept of revisiting a team of magical girls after they grow up, but again 25 is already a lot of episodes. We could swap out Precure 2004 for Precure Full Bloom if people think that will be more interesting. Such a dominant franchise needs some representation in a magical girl retrospective, but we probably don't need more than one series from it.
 
I would be entirely guided by @Dai on the magical girl genre, and if anything haven't seen most of the older shows. Hence I thought it would be very interesting to get a taste of how the genre has developed going back to its roots.
 
Voting is closed. The magical girl retrospective finished in the lead, so let's iron out the last few details and then I'll set up the viewing thread for it.

  • First, is everyone okay with starting this Saturday on 1st Feb?
  • Just a reminder that a couple of the shows are on Tubi. It's a free, ad-supported streaming site, but it's legal. I just checked and it looks like you don't even need an account to watch shows on there. I have an account, but it just seems to be for keeping track of watchlists and which episodes I'm up to.
  • The Sailor Moon R movie is only an hour long, so you don't need to worry about blocking out too much time to watch it.
  • Looking at the watchlist in my first post above, I think we should finish on a show from the 2020s after all. Partly because finishing on a grimdark 2010s show like Magical Girl Raising Project would be a downer, but also because we're pretty much in a post-tragical girl era now. The more I consider the shows from the last few years, I think the current era is typified by the impact of magical girls on adult life. Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom, Magilumiere, and Looking for Magical Doremi all have this theme. To avoid pushing up the overall length of the simulwatch, I'm thinking we cut back Precure 2004 to just the first episode, and finish with the first two episodes Precure Full Bloom as the final show. Precure 2004 has a self-contained first episode, while Full Bloom starts with more of a two-parter, from what I remember. Does that sound okay or would anyone prefer to watch three episodes of both (meaning 28 episodes overall)?
 
To avoid pushing up the overall length of the simulwatch, I'm thinking we cut back Precure 2004 to just the first episode, and finish with the first two episodes Precure Full Bloom as the final show. Precure 2004 has a self-contained first episode, while Full Bloom starts with more of a two-parter, from what I remember. Does that sound okay or would anyone prefer to watch three episodes of both (meaning 28 episodes overall)?
I'm totally trusting you bro and happy to go with the revised plan with the cutbacks!
 
I've been trying to limit the watchlist as much as possible to shows that are streaming, but totally forgot that Cardcaptor Sakura is on Crunchyroll now!

Sakura Xmas simulwatch.jpg

Three episodes per show was the initial suggestion, but now that the magical girl retrospective is going ahead I've gone through the episode synopses for the various shows to see where that can be tweaked a bit to squeeze in a couple of extra series without bloating the overall episode count. So here's the finalised watchlist, which comes in at 25 episodes plus the 1-hour Sailor Moon R movie. Probably tomorrow I'll set up the simulwatch thread with viewing dates and streaming sources for the episodes.
  • Princess Knight 1-2
  • Minky Momo 1-3
  • Sailor Moon 1-2
  • Sailor Moon R movie
  • Cardcaptor Sakura 1
  • Fancy Lala 1-3
  • Princess Tutu 1-3
  • Precure 1
  • Madoka Magica 1-3
  • Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya 1-2
  • Magical Girl Raising Project 1-3
  • Power of Hope: Precure Full Bloom 1-2
 
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