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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    I also would have recommended Nanoha... But yeah, while the moments of... fanservice... are minimal, and almost entirely confined to the (rarely used) transformation sequences... I do have to admit, I did sit there on first viewing going... *eyegow blink* *eyeglow blink* "was that... really necessary...?"

    (I mean, it's not really THAT much worse than Sailor Moon, kinda, which I suspect it's aping a bit (Nanoha is a little bit of a deconstruction in some ways) - there are no, well, details visible or anything, so it's not explicit or anything - but it IS slightly worse, I think.)

    Which is a shame, since that flaw aside, otherwise I think Nanoha is an exceptionally good anime, easily making my top two or three (then again, one might not take that as a compliment, since the other would arguably Pokemon and Naruto (at their heights... Not... so much nowadays).
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2014-06-13 at 05:41 AM.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Sailor Moon really isn't "bad" in the long run, I mean...when I first started watching it yeah it was like a train wreck. But at the end of the day I found it was a really empowering show. It's got a bunch of female characters who are their own women, they pursue the things they want, and yeah some of them are girly or even superficial. But they all have resolve. I call Sailor Moon a "guilty pleasure" because of the stigma on it. But I ended up liking it so much I hunted down every season and watched it. But it's really not what you would call "bad" at least not for the reasons people often call it such.

    I don't believe that sailor moon really has any fan service either, not blatantly anyway. It's been a while since I watched it.

    Isn't Princess Tutu was incomplete? (Didn't the creator die midway through the series?) But I've heard it's really good what of it there is.

    I honestly feel like a lot of the suggestions your getting are contrary to what you've asked for (things to introduce you to the genre). I guess for those pick at your own discreation. But CCS and Sailor Moon are probably your best bets to start out, even if you don't watch them all the way through.

    I would like to add that CLAMP works tend to be considered good for both genders and have less of a "girly" vibe. Not that much less but I think that's another part of CCS that makes it feel a little bit more grounded in general, cause it isn't going for any really crazy extremes.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by cobaltstarfire View Post
    I would like to add that CLAMP works tend to be considered good for both genders and have less of a "girly" vibe. Not that much less but I think that's another part of CCS that makes it feel a little bit more grounded in general, cause it isn't going for any really crazy extremes.
    Note that the English dub, Cardcaptors, was heavily edited to make one of the male supporting characters more important and change the nature of certain characters' relationships. It was then marketed as a show for boys.
    Last edited by Prime32; 2014-06-13 at 07:15 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    I do have to admit, I did sit there on first viewing going... *eyegow blink* *eyeglow blink* "was that... really necessary...?"
    When your last job was animating Night Shift Nurses, your definition of necessary is probably somewhat skewed.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    When your last job was animating Night Shift Nurses, your definition of necessary is probably somewhat skewed.
    Well, I must admit, now knowing what they did previously from this thread, it does sort of answer some of the questions...!

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    If you really want to learn what the genre is like Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura and PreCure are your best bets. That said, I think that going into PMMM looking for ways it screws with Magical Girl expectations is going to limit and constrain your ability to enjoy the show by overemphasizing a part that's tangential at most, while overlooking the emotional side which is what the show is all about. And if you're going to check PreCure, I'd recommend picking Heartcatch PreCure, the 2009 version. It does have considerable amounts of filler, but it also has strong characterization, distinctive visuals and good fight choreography for the major battles. It also shows how relative dark topics a show aimed at girls 6-10 can deal with, one of the filler episodes is a beautiful little piece about grief and being forced to lose your childhood to having to be too adult too early and then there is everything involving Cure Moonlight.

    Also, I agree with what CarpeGuitarrem had to say in the spoiler about why Madoka isn't about deconstructing magical girl shows, but I'll add to it that the focus isn't on the genre but on the story and characters. Only relatively little time is spent directly addressing the trappings and tropes of the magical girl genre, while a whole lot is spent on exploring the characters and showing how events affect them.

    For that matter, I think people overstate Evangelion's degree of messing with genre expectations as well. There had been plenty of dark, scary and just plain weird mecha shows and manga before, going right back to the original Getter manga and quite prolific during the 80s and early 90s glut of violent OVAs. Not just that, there had been other shows that had actively set out to screw with people's expectations of a mecha show was all the way back to the 70s. The biggest example would probably be the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which decides to do a war story instead of a superhero story with more grit than just about any other anime up until that point. But before that Tomino had made Zambot-3 which had the villains using innocent civilians as suicide bombers, the main character's love interest being brutally killed on screen and the main character himself being kinda loopy and violent. The year after Gundam, he went ahead and made Ideon, which is rather infamous for being dark and pessimistic, almost to the point of parody sometimes. Really, the two big things Evangelion did that was new were showing OVA-style violence on tv, accidentally creating late night anime in the process, and having really neat cinematography.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    The main new thing Evangellion did was explicitly aim itself at a periphery demographic of older Super Robot fans, but since everyone did shout outs to older stuff anyway that didn't make too much of a difference.

    Madoka is a deconstruction... occasionally, for a few episodes and maybe in a few specific instances but the same goes for pretty much everything. But sometimes I feel like people who don't watch other magical girl shows compare it to some non-existent show that represents everything people who don't watch magical girl series think they're like. But Evangellion probably has it worse since lots of people in the late 90s caught bits of Sailor Moon but Super Robot anime really only appeared on AmericanTV in earlier decades with Voltron and the like.

    Quote Originally Posted by cobaltstarfire View Post
    Isn't Princess Tutu was incomplete? (Didn't the creator die midway through the series?) But I've heard it's really good what of it there is.
    No, you must be thinking of something else. Its anime first with 24 odd episodes and a definite ending.

    Quote Originally Posted by Prime32 View Post
    Note that the English dub, Cardcaptors, was heavily edited to make one of the male supporting characters more important and change the nature of certain characters' relationships. It was then marketed as a show for boys.
    So they say, but since most of that was reversed for the British broadcast I don't know first hand (they added back in the missing Lee free episodes and fixed the order, which is confusing because they kept the introductory dialogue for what was the first episode of the American broadcast order, confusing people when it pops up half way through).
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prime32 View Post
    Note that the English dub, Cardcaptors, was heavily edited to make one of the male supporting characters more important and change the nature of certain characters' relationships. It was then marketed as a show for boys.
    And you should note that I'm talking about CSS not Cardcaptors. You should also note that at the very beginning of the thread I also talked about how it was butchered when it was dubbed. So uh, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make exactly as it isn't relevant to what I was saying?

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne is quite nice, imho. And with 44 episodes, it is of reasonable length. As I'm from europe, I have no idea how available it is in the US.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    I was about to look up how long Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne was; I remember it from when it ran in German TV, too. From what I remember about the first season of Nanoha, it plays Magical Girl tropes perfectly straight for quite a number of episodes, the only marked difference is that it revs up the magical fights with laser beams to the point you're basically watching DBZ with nine-year-old girls. I think it would work as a decent introduction; it has a conclusion, so you don't have to watch A's and StrikerS unless you want to.

    The problem with the "classical" Magical Girl shows might be that as soon as they gain any kind of notoriety they run far longer than 20 episodes. At 26 episodes, you could also watch Ultra Maniac. It's obscure, and I haven't watched it in full, but it's quintessential Magical Girl fare and had quite charming characters.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Silfir View Post

    The problem with the "classical" Magical Girl shows might be that as soon as they gain any kind of notoriety they run far longer than 20 episodes.
    Pretty much. That said, an alternative route might be to just forget the deconstruction elements of Madoka since there IS a lot more going on, watch it, then watch some stuff like the queen barrel story line form sailor moon (she's the first really really BIG big bad in the series.) or watching card captor Sakura so you can then go "oh, ok, so that's the deconstruction they were talking about!" and still get most of the impact.

    Not my favorite suggestion but it could work.

    Then you can also check out precure/pretty cure/whatever it's called's more parody heavy seasons and Nanoha and wait for it to turn into this apparent magical girls/power ranger/DBZ/super robot show hybrid it apparently turns into according to this thread. (Has not seen it.)
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Princess Tutu is an nice one, finished and wrapped up. Although it is a little different then most magical girl shows, less monster of the week, or big fights. Not to say there aren't fights but well,

    It's about a magical ballerina,
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    and love, birds, and a old story with death author.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    There's not a lot of shorter magical girl shows. 26 episodes is the standard minimum length, and they often grow longer than that. Much longer.

    Also:

    Quote Originally Posted by Terraoblivion View Post
    If you really want to learn what the genre is like Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura and PreCure are your best bets. That said, I think that going into PMMM looking for ways it screws with Magical Girl expectations is going to limit and constrain your ability to enjoy the show by overemphasizing a part that's tangential at most, while overlooking the emotional side which is what the show is all about. And if you're going to check PreCure, I'd recommend picking Heartcatch PreCure, the 2009 version. It does have considerable amounts of filler, but it also has strong characterization, distinctive visuals and good fight choreography for the major battles. It also shows how relative dark topics a show aimed at girls 6-10 can deal with, one of the filler episodes is a beautiful little piece about grief and being forced to lose your childhood to having to be too adult too early and then there is everything involving Cure Moonlight.

    Also, I agree with what CarpeGuitarrem had to say in the spoiler about why Madoka isn't about deconstructing magical girl shows, but I'll add to it that the focus isn't on the genre but on the story and characters. Only relatively little time is spent directly addressing the trappings and tropes of the magical girl genre, while a whole lot is spent on exploring the characters and showing how events affect them.

    For that matter, I think people overstate Evangelion's degree of messing with genre expectations as well. There had been plenty of dark, scary and just plain weird mecha shows and manga before, going right back to the original Getter manga and quite prolific during the 80s and early 90s glut of violent OVAs. Not just that, there had been other shows that had actively set out to screw with people's expectations of a mecha show was all the way back to the 70s. The biggest example would probably be the original Mobile Suit Gundam, which decides to do a war story instead of a superhero story with more grit than just about any other anime up until that point. But before that Tomino had made Zambot-3 which had the villains using innocent civilians as suicide bombers, the main character's love interest being brutally killed on screen and the main character himself being kinda loopy and violent. The year after Gundam, he went ahead and made Ideon, which is rather infamous for being dark and pessimistic, almost to the point of parody sometimes. Really, the two big things Evangelion did that was new were showing OVA-style violence on tv, accidentally creating late night anime in the process, and having really neat cinematography.
    Everything Terra said.

    I enjoyed Nanoha and Symphogear (which could be described as darker and edgier Nanoha, though the comparison doesn't do justice to both shows), but they're not exactly what you're looking for if you want to "get" into the magical girl genre.

    Also I really wish less people watched Madoka because *it's a deconstruction* and more because it's a good show. Deconstruction != quality.
    Last edited by tensai_oni; 2014-06-13 at 01:48 PM.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    I don't really like calling things "deconstructions" these days, both because the term kinda got watered down and meaningless (Nanoha is a deconstruction? Really?), and because in many people's eyes, it means that it's attacking the genre it's deconstructing. And Madoka is not an attack on magical girls, just like Evangelion is not an attack on super robots. Now, Bokurano is an attack on super robots, it was explicitly created as a reaction to, and criticism of, Raijin-Oh. Both shows have pretty good opening themes, by the way.

    Wait, was this about magical girls? Umm... I haven't actually seen many of those. Precure is probably a good bet. It's a long-running classic for a reason.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by tensai_oni View Post
    Also I really wish less people watched Madoka because *it's a deconstruction* and more because it's a good show. Deconstruction != quality.
    What I was trying to say, but better.

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    Well, I actually didn't watch Madoka until I got a friend to spoil it for me in exchange for watching it. I was convinced it was just more grim dark for sake of grim dark and sake of grim dark sells and automatically seems to get more praise and leeway form critics then more optimistic fair and I think that is bull crap.

    And once it was explained to me, I was willing to watch it, and by the end I was satisfied, had been challenged as a viewer, and it felt bittersweet and only as dark as it needed to be for the story they were trying to tell, which was a lot less dark then a lot of others had given me the impression is was gonna be. The darkness was there and strong, but it was also well played, not over played, and not used when it wasn't called for. If you understand form the get go that the show is
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    A tragedy first and a subversion/deconstruction as a afterthought.
    it's fine.

    And this is coming form a guy that often finds he doesn't like extremely dark works of fiction.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prime32 View Post
    Nanoha starts to lose its genre trappings a few episodes in, though, in favor of becoming an extended reference to Super Robot Wars. It's a seinen show (i.e. aimed at adult men) where most magical girls are shojo (aimed at young girls).
    It has all the traditional themes and that's what's important.

    Plus, you know, nuclear-grade friendship cannon.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nerd-o-rama View Post
    Well, as Homura can attest,

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    >Implying that there's a third movie.

    Anyways, I'm going to +1 all the people saying that there's no problem whatsoever with jumping straight into Madoka. I know plenty of people who did just that and liked it just as much.

    Unlike the rest of the thread, I don't feel like it's really a spoiler to say that Madoka is first and foremost a tragedy, in the classical sense. Sure, it's fun to see people's faces as they watch what they think is a fun, feel-good magical girl series only to have the rug pulled out from under them, but you already know better than that so there's no point in trying to hide it.

    Oh, and one more thing: You may have heard rumors that there's a sequel movie. Those rumors are wrong.
    Last edited by Sith_Happens; 2014-06-13 at 03:36 PM.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    For the record, I'm not advocating this as a first choice, since by the time I saw Madoka I'd watched Sailor Moon (one of my first two anime along side Gundame Wing.), and Cardcaptor Sakura (though admittedly it was the Cardcaptors Dub.). and some of Tokeyo Mew Mew and Pretear (there were girls I was crushing on in middle/high school who were into them at the time involved, don't judge me.)

    So I was kinda familiar with the genera and it's trappings when I saw Madoka. And yes, knowing it's a classical tragedy going in is a hugh part of why I didn't hate it and want to scream at them forever for false advertising. That last part is probably just a me thing though.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sith_Happens View Post
    Oh, and one more thing: You may have heard rumors that there's a sequel movie. Those rumors are wrong.
    No they're not. It's just a terrible, incoherent, overindulgent mess that tries to continue a story that was ended in the most stupid way possible. So I'd recommend not watching it.

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    Wow. Thank you for all this support. I've been reading through the thread for the last half-hour, so I could take it all in. The Magical Girl Genre is a bit more diverse than I expected, and there's a lot of suggestions I want watch.


    The Episode cap is a bit harsh, but it wasn't intended to be strictly followed. I'll amend it to thirty episodes in the OP.

    Now to look through all these suggestions...

    Sailor Moon is one of the shapers of MGs, so it's exactly what I'm looking for. I'm concerned that even with relaxed episode numbers, it's much too long, with over 300 episodes total. Even if I watch the first season, it still comes to 46 episodes which is definetly stretching things. The dub's also said to be atroctious, but I could just watch it subbed.
    Quote Originally Posted by Closet_Skeleton
    Sailor Moon (which actually has a high body count it just doesn't stick)
    So it's DBZ for girls?

    Princess Tutu has a lot of things I would like to see, and I certainly will watch it at some point. From what little I know (Set in a specific town/school, characters fighting their destinies, not many monsters of the week, Ballet instead of fighting), it doesn't seem like it will give me the conventions of the genre. I would like to know how good the dub is.

    Just watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I've been told that it (and evangelion, which I'll have to think about) aren't as deconstructive as they appear, and it may be just a dark MG story. If that is the case, I may still decide I need a lighter introduction. How much can you tell me about how deconstructive it is, without spoilers? Also, what's the dub quality?

    Magic Knight Rayearth is something I hadn't heard of before, but a quick look at wikipedia told me it was part MG, part Mecha. Does it lean more towards Magical Girl themes? If not, I'm torn between throwing it out as not something I want, or watching it because that sounds amazing.

    Magical Girl Lyrical Nahona seems to be a popular series with beloved characters, but it's been described as 'James Cameron's attempt to write a magical girl show', which doesn't sound promising. Someone (was it Math_mage?) said it quickly dropped the MG angle and it's apparently got the kind of fanservice I didn't want.
    Quote Originally Posted by Closet_Skeleton
    Nanoha isn't the worst show for loli fanservice but its still a loli fanservice show
    I think that says it best. I'm afraid MGLN is out on its ear.

    Card Captor Sakura looks to be what I'm looking for: an opposite of PMMM. The length is a bit of an issue, especially as its contenders (sailor Moon and Precure) have self-contained arcs. The minor quibble is that I'll have to watch it subbed, but I can work with that.

    Card Captors is only on the list because I vaguely remember an episode from when I was very young. How is it?

    Pretty Cure/Precure looks like a good example of (what I think is) a magical girl show. Its biggest problem is its length as each season seems to last for fifty episodes. Does each season happen in the same continuity as the others?

    Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne I hadn't heard of and had to look up. I was suprised at the Christian-inspired setting, although I have no idea how accurate it is. It looks interesting, but I'd like to know a bit more about it.



    Right now, I'm leaning towards Sailor Moon's first season, Card Captor Sakura or just watching PMMM. I could go further into my reasons, but this thread's advancing so fast that we're probably on page three be now. Thanks the terrifying amount of suggestions!
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    I haven't watched most of these, but I do have a tip for watching Nanoha: There's enough time before the clothes vaporize that you can drop it out of fullscreen and scroll down past the video or minimize the window. The sound is just background music, and when you hear the end coming you can go back to it.

    You might also be able to get someone to time the duration of nudity in each so you can see the non-naked parts of each transformation sequence, if you want to see the rest - some of it's pretty cool.


    Also, wrt PMMM: While the transformation sequences there have no nudity, the title sequence does.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Magic Knight Rayearth is something I hadn't heard of before, but a quick look at wikipedia told me it was part MG, part Mecha. Does it lean more towards Magical Girl themes? If not, I'm torn between throwing it out as not something I want, or watching it because that sounds amazing.
    Watch it because it sounds amazing. That's mainly the point, after all.

    And Rayearth is definitely magical girl/fantasy with mecha as a sidenote rather than a focus. The "mecha" are really more ancient dragons or something like that which the girls use to fight... once? At least in the first season. The second season is less impressive, but has more of the giant robots everywhere.

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Pretty Cure/Precure looks like a good example of (what I think is) a magical girl show. Its biggest problem is its length as each season seems to last for fifty episodes. Does each season happen in the same continuity as the others?
    Yes/No. All the Precure seasons (except direct sequels) are independent and can be watched separately. All stories and characters are self-contained, and you don't see characters or items from one series showing up in another. Even common elements, such as fairies and the Precure themselves, tends to have different origins. You don't need to worry about characters from past seasons showing up in the current one.

    The one exception is the intentional crossover movies, where everything is supposedly connected and all the fairies come from the same place. Which, of course, brings up the question of "Where were all of you the last time the world was being blown up?"

    My recommendations are the original season (just "Pretty Cure" or "Futari wa Pretty Cure"), Splash Star, or HeartCatch PreCure. The only two sequel seasons were Max Heart (sequel to the original/Futari wa Pretty Cure) and Yes! PreCure 5 GoGo! (sequel to Yes! PreCure 5), just so you know.

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne I hadn't heard of and had to look up. I was suprised at the Christian-inspired setting, although I have no idea how accurate it is. It looks interesting, but I'd like to know a bit more about it.
    No clue about this one, although Japan does love using the Christian theme for just a "foreign" influence or setting. It gets used roughly as much as American authors like uses samurai/asian/Japanese settings for a foreign location. It's usually done poorly, although sometimes it's done well in anime.
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  23. - Top - End - #53
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    The Episode cap is a bit harsh, but it wasn't intended to be strictly followed. I'll amend it to thirty episodes in the OP.
    The standard unit of anime length is a "cour" of 13 episodes, with a single broadcast season lasting two cours. Most anime are either one, two or four cours long - if it has more then it's likely divided into multiple seasons, aimed at young kids, or based on an ongoing Shonen Jump manga.

    Pretty Cure/Precure looks like a good example of (what I think is) a magical girl show. Its biggest problem is its length as each season seems to last for fifty episodes. Does each season happen in the same continuity as the others?
    Precure generally follows the same logic as its older sibling series, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai - each show is in a separate continuity but there are a lot of crossover specials where everyone suddenly knows each other. And I'll second that Heartcatch is the best series.
    EDIT: Separate continuities except for the sequel seasons that erikun mentioned above. Also worth noting is that Splash Star takes a lot of influence from the original series, while the current season (Happiness Charge) takes a lot of influence from Heartcatch, so it's probably not a good idea to watch them one after the other.
    Last edited by Prime32; 2014-06-13 at 04:59 PM.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne (written by a non-native english speaker)

    the protagonist is an ordinary school-girl but also the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. She is accompanied by a small angel named "Finn". there are demons in this world who are possessing pieces of art. A typical episode deals with showing the bad influence that this demon-art is having on its surrounding, then Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne announcing that she will "steal" it. After transforming into her magical version, she will sneak into the building and the demon will appear. Jeanne fights using ball and ribbon typically used in rhythmic gmnastics and will deal the finishing blow with a pin, which will ruin the piece of art and trap the demon into a chess piece. In most episodes, her rival "Sindbad", who is also accompanied by an angel will race her for trapping the demons and sometimes he will be the one successful. As she is working for God, she deduces that Sindbad must be a follower of the Devil.
    In her ordinary life, she has two friends, one girl, whose dad is a police officer tasked with hunting down the thief Jeanne and a boy, who is aforementioned Sindbad.

    hope this helps
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post




    Card Captor Sakura looks to be what I'm looking for: an opposite of PMMM. The length is a bit of an issue, especially as its contenders (sailor Moon and Precure) have self-contained arcs. The minor quibble is that I'll have to watch it subbed, but I can work with that.

    Card Captors is only on the list because I vaguely remember an episode from when I was very young. How is it?
    As has been said multiple times, Card Captors is just Card Captor Sakura chopped up and mutilated. You can get away with watching just the first season of Card Captor Sakura just fine, which comes in at under 40 episodes.

    Magic Knight Rayearth is worth looking into, I don't remember it being super Mecha Heavy (If anything the "Mecha" in it is more like what was in Escaflowne, so basically giant magica powered suits of armor). Bare in mind though that I've only read the Manga. I don't know how well it qualifies as "Magic Girl" for your likings but that is the genre it is meant to be considered.


    If you don't mind reading instead of watching, The CCS and MKR manga are much shorter (Like 8 volumes at most, I think I read all of MKR in only a day or two). It's a much shorter time investment then trying to watch a whole series, which was extended for TV in CCS's case at least.
    Last edited by cobaltstarfire; 2014-06-13 at 05:43 PM.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post

    Princess Tutu has a lot of things I would like to see, and I certainly will watch it at some point. From what little I know (Set in a specific town/school, characters fighting their destinies, not many monsters of the week, Ballet instead of fighting), it doesn't seem like it will give me the conventions of the genre. I would like to know how good the dub is.
    Princess Tutu is a monster of the week show. It has episodes nearer the end the aren't in formula but so does every monster of the week show. It even has a collecting items theme.

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Pretty Cure/Precure looks like a good example of (what I think is) a magical girl show. Its biggest problem is its length as each season seems to last for fifty episodes. Does each season happen in the same continuity as the others?
    Seasons one and two are in continuity, as are I think four and five (with themselves, not 1 and 2). The rest are stand alone.

    Now that I remember, Season 1 is actually two separate 24 episode stories (minor spoiler, the main villain from the first half gets resurrected with new minions), so you can watch season 1 as a short series since it basically feels artificially extended when you watch all 50 odd since it does have a proper ending half way through. Since season 2 is 50 more episodes after the villain is resurrected again its more like 2 24 episode series and a 50 episode one than two 50 episode ones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne I hadn't heard of and had to look up. I was suprised at the Christian-inspired setting, although I have no idea how accurate it is. It looks interesting, but I'd like to know a bit more about it.
    Its about reincarnation.

    That's how accurate it is to Christian mythology.
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by Durkoala View Post
    Magical Girl Lyrical Nahona seems to be a popular series with beloved characters, but it's been described as 'James Cameron's attempt to write a magical girl show', which doesn't sound promising. Someone (was it Math_mage?) said it quickly dropped the MG angle and it's apparently got the kind of fanservice I didn't want. I think that says it best. I'm afraid MGLN is out on its ear.
    This description is misleading and whoever wrote it did a bad job at describing the show. The only thing Nanoha and Cameron's movies have in common is the amount of explosions. The thing with Nanoha becoming less of a magical girl show as time goes on is also bull****. It's not a normal magical girl show, but it's still one. Just because the third season focuses on teenage characters doesn't mean it's no longer a magical girl show.

    What is it then? Well, first and foremost, there's a lot of mecha references here. Second, most magical girl shows are aimed at young girls but also have a decent number of adult men as periphery demographics - and Nanoha is exactly the opposite. That doesn't mean it's dark and edgy, or filled with ridiculous fanservice and bouncing boobs - it's a very idealistic, fluffy and optimistic show, without egregious fanservice. I would recommend it, but keep those three things in mind:
    1. Nanoha is heavily rooted in mecha tropes. You need to be familiar with at least some mecha shows to fully enjoy it.
    2. This is not a standard magical girl show. It's not one you should watch if you want to get familiar with the genre.
    3. The first season has some very brief loli panty shots. All three seasons have transformation stock footage with Barbie Doll nudity - it happens pretty much only once per character in As and StrikerS, more often in season 1. It's just a small part of the show, but it's there.
    Last edited by Tengu_temp; 2014-06-13 at 06:29 PM.

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  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    There's also movie versions of the first two seasons. The first movie is basically the same as the first season as far as I'm aware, but with less filler; the second movie has a few more plot changes and is missing (in my opinion) some of the best moments because of that, but is still pretty similar to the second season.

    (There's an in-story explanation of the movies as documentaries - the plot of the second season has a couple of things that are politically tricky in-show, so they're not in the movie.)
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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    I haven't seen the movies so my opinion on them is entirely second-hand, but I've heard that the first one is better than its corresponding TV show, while the second one, not so much. So if you want to watch Nanoha, I'd suggest watching the first movie, and then the A's and StrikerS TV shows.

    Don't read the Force manga, it's horrible.

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    Default Re: Recommend a first Magical Girl Show?

    Quote Originally Posted by erikun View Post
    Watch it because it sounds amazing. That's mainly the point, after all.

    And Rayearth is definitely magical girl/fantasy with mecha as a sidenote rather than a focus. The "mecha" are really more ancient dragons or something like that which the girls use to fight... once? At least in the first season. The second season is less impressive, but has more of the giant robots everywhere.
    Yeah, MKR is definitely mahou shoujo; the mecha is not a huge part of the whole in the grand scheme of things though they definitely use mech-like thingies. It really lacks all the typical traits of a mecha show though.

    I personally quite prefer specifically the second animated season; the tone is a bit different (darker, grittier) and I find it has a more interesting setting. Some of the characters are left shallow and undeveloped but the key portion is quite well written. I think that's one of the few cases where the anime additions actually enhance the whole as they make the whole thing more personal for the hero(in)es.
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