Grenade launchers, submachine guns, and laser swords are not the typical arsenal of magical girls, but, then again, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online doesn’t bother much with convention. Without a single sailor scout uniform in sight, the spinoff series’ female characters get bloodied and dismembered in nearly every episode. Yet, for all its gruesome glory, the first, 12-episode season of SAOA: GGO, which wrapped earlier this summer on Crunchyroll, managed to become one of the most compelling, modern takes on the “magical girl” genre.
What makes a magical girl anime? Many entries have similar themes, like bumbling sidekicks, glittering transformation sequences and protagonists who defeat their adversaries with the greatest power of all: talking things out. Most commonly, though, mahou shoujo (literally “magical girl” in Japanese) series feature multidimensional women suddenly bestowed with extraordinary abilities, often leading to newfound responsibilities and challenges they must overcome to grow into young ladies. It’s like puberty, if puberty had a theme song and sparkles.
Nearly every magical girl anime can trace its lineage back to a single show: Bewitched. A Japanese dub of the 1960s sitcom inspired the creation of both the first magical girl manga, Himitsu no Akko-chan, and an anime, Mahotsukai Sally, later that decade. While their plots might be considered simple compared to modern examples, they pioneered a newfound focus on catering Japanese media to young girls.
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