Mahou Shoujo is the most important Genre in all of Anime

If there is a thesis to what I will be doing for MahouShouJune 2021 it’s that statement.  I don’t expect to prove it beyond any reasonable doubt, but superficial arguments will be made.

The reason I feel this way is because I feel a lot of Anime that do not fit even one element of the technical definition of being a Magical Girl Warrior show, are kind of just trying to do the same thing but with different tools.  Like 50% of Trixie’s old “Otaku Hero’s Journey” premise was basically the same as the Magical Girl’s Journey.

People half jokingly sometimes say they want to see a Magical Boy Anime.  But the thing is I would argue your standard male Anime protagonist is often basically a Magical Girl protagonist simply not a girl, and sometimes not Magical.  We even see it in some of Japan’s Live Action media considered related to Anime in it’s appeal.  The protagonist of Kamen Rider Fourze is basically a Pretty Cure protagonist but male.

And that’s part of why what qualifies as this genre is so often debated.  It’s precisely because I know how to see the Mahou Shoujo influence everywhere that I am, It seems, more pedantic than most about what I will actually classify as a Magical Girl show.  

Utena is a show most Magical Girl fans will probably also like, but it doesn’t count as one.  Kill la Kill’s reasons for why it doesn’t count are virtually the opposite of Utena’s.  And when I once tried to explain that if all it took was having a “girl” who is in some way “magical” then you could technically count Slayers as an obvious absurdity, someone told me they do count Slayers, and at that point I lost all hope.

A lot of the time the argument for something like Utena qualifying on more than just a Technicality is that it appeals to the same people for similar thematic reasons.  But to me all Anime has a similar appeal.  Every Anime that I significantly like, I on some level like for at least one of the same reasons I like the Magical Girl genre.

Basically if any male Otaku who insists the Magical Girl Genre has no appeal to them still exist, they’re going to have to face the fact that the Anime they do like has been directly or indirectly influenced by Mahou Shoujo.  Because the great pillars of 21st century Seinen Anime are clearly the product of people who were watching Shoujo in the 90s.