Intense Emotion Fueled Magic in Anime

Puella Magi Madoka Magica from 2011, the  Black Rock Shooter TV Anime from 2012 and Blue Reflection Ray from 2021 are three shows where it is built right into the Lore, into the very Metaphysics of their worlds, that young girls feel their emotions far more intensely than anyone else, especially anyone male. 

Also all three of these shows are rightly or wrongly viewed (by certain critics at least) as being principally made by and for adult men due to how they seemed to be demographically marketed. 

Now most Western Feminist Anime Critics have a very cynical theory on why such stories would be made by and for men. Whether they wind up liking these shows or not there is still a desire to criticize their appeal as “Crying Porn” or “Suffering Porn”.

However as someone Assigned Male At Birth who saw myself as a Cishet Male for most of my life and sometimes still does, I have a different theory.   

We live in a society where Men are often told they shouldn't openly feel emotions at all, that even over something as big as a loved one dying they should shed nothing but a single tear. Where even in shows made by allegedly “Woke” Hollywood and praised by online Leftists, men are still expected to be either Vulcans or Klingons

I think it’s natural then that many would feel like the only way they can process their emotions is to project onto highly emotional female characters in the media they consume. That they perhaps Envy young girls for being allowed to have emotions.

I would agree that the real solution to this problem is more fiction that does say men can and should cry.  And guess what I often see that too in Anime more than anywhere else.  Gundam Seed repeatedly gives Kira permission to cry.  Then Gundam Unicorn goes even further subverting the usual trope of it being only girls men can safely cry in front of, its MC is told by a character much more conventionally Masculine then He is that he absolutely should cry. In Sword Art Online Alicization there is a beautiful powerful scene of Kirito crying over some flowers being destroyed, and then supposed Leftist Mother’s Basement mocked him for it.