On Maho Shoujo anime/manga

[mneme]

So, I was asked by an acqaintance if I had any reccomendations for magical girl anime/manga. Since I've been (in between everything -else- I've been doing), working on a magical girl Apocalypse World game (with some collaborators, who have been doing great work while I'm in a fallow "working on everything but" period), I wrote back...maybe a bit

Comments

[agrumer]

“And if you’d like to see an unashamedly postmodern anime, you should get ahold of Revolutionary Girl Utena.” - Larry Wall

[mneme]

Thank you!

I need to get my hands on some Cutey Honey (and probably Creamy Mami) myself, partially because I need to get the context.

I'm not sure whether they fit the question, though (though they fit -my- needs), in that while they're historically very significant, the question was more about what was good (rather than necessary to have a thorough grounding in the art).

[drcpunk]

One thing I found useful to bear in mind is that, even when the rules of the universe are tightly worked out in any give anime of this genre, Love Wins is also a law of the universe

[qnmark]

I have to ask - are the other four shows, which I haven't seen, as unwatchable as Utena? I mean, forgetting what appears to be genre conventions for a moment (stock footage, transformation sequences, recap episodes, a student council with godlike powers, some real BS about princes and princesses) - stuff like the various Nanami filler episodes and the entire Mikage arc seem like unforced errors.

[mneme]

Not really, no. And some of the things you list are not genre conventions, but unique to Utena as well. (some of the prince/princess stuff, student council bizarreness). Utena gets a pass on a lot of nonsense fromc fandom because of the ways it messes with gender--every other show I mentioneed makes more sense and/or its own mistakes.