Best Magical Girl

[AliceShiki]

Ever hear of Homura Akemi?

Ah, yeah, but she doesn't fit into the stereotypical magical girl image! XD

 

[Ellieporter]

Uhhh... I have not witnessed any of the choices displays of magic.

I demand a series of elimination cage matches.

And it's @K5Rakitan if you are including everone.

How about a one and one with da undertaka?

 

[Jemini]

Ah, yeah, but she doesn't fit into the stereotypical magical girl image! XD

Ok, fine. How about Ami Mizumo. AKA, Sailor Mercury.

It's just a consequence of the "5 man band" structure. Every 5 man band needs a leader, a lancer, a smart "guy," a big "guy" and a heart. And, in that arrangement, either the lancer or the smart "guy" are usually going to be the serious type.

(For clarification, I'm only digging into this because I have a compulsive need to correct inaccurate statements.)

The only thing that holds magical girl arrangements as being any different from the equivalent arrangement in super-hero or adventure arrangements is that in a 5 magical girl band the leader has a tendency to have the personality of the heart, and the heart has the tendency to be replaced with some kind of deva / performer type role.

In the example of Sailor Moon, the poster child for the magical girl genre, it would be Usagi/Sailor Moon as the leader, Ami/Sailor Mercury as the smart "guy," Rei/Sailor Mars as the lancer, Matoko/Sailor Jupiter as the big "guy," and Minako/Sailor Venus as the Diva (AKA what would have been the role of "heart" in anything other than a magical girl series.)

EDIT: I just realized while doing the quick research for the names here, but all of their names reflect their powers. Ami Mizumo has water powers as sailor mercury, Rei Hino has fire powers as sailor mars, and freaking Usagi Tsukinoko has moon powers as sailor moon.

(Mizu is Japanese for water, Hi (pronounced "he") is Japanese for fire, and Tsuki is Japanese for moon.)

 

[AliceShiki]

(For clarification, I'm only digging into this because I have a compulsive need to correct inaccurate statements.)

I'm not saying that serious magical girls don't exist. I'm just saying they aren't the default when you're talking about magical girls in a vacuum.

The more bubbly and emotional ones tend to be the default type of Magical Girl one thinks of, even if it's not necessarily the only type of Magical Girl around.

 

[Jemini]

I'm not saying that serious magical girls don't exist. I'm just saying they aren't the default when you're talking about magical girls in a vacuum.

The more bubbly and emotional ones tend to be the default type of Magical Girl one thinks of, even if it's not necessarily the only type of Magical Girl around.

Meh, well, I guess the leader + heart combo magical girls tend to be like that. Which, since they have the leader aspect and thus are the face of the group tends to have them taken as the default of what a magical girl is, even though they actually only make up 20% of the magical girls you see portrayed.

Meanwhile, the actual stats show that the serious types are actually the overwhelming majority of magical girls portrayed, with around 50% being at what would be considered a "normal" level of seriousness, and then 30% approximately being the deadly super-serious types.

As for where I got those numbers, once again it's pulled from the 5-man-band structure that most magical girl teams tend to have. It's only the leader/heart who has that bubbly personality, and the rest of them tend to have a more "normal" approach to the whole fighting evil shtick. But, the ones in the "smart guy" or "lancer" roles tend to be a lot more serious. About half the time, one or the other of them will be more toward the "normal" seriousness, thus why I split the difference and made it 30%.