Magical Girls! You either hate them or love them, with their glittery transformation sequences, their powerful friendship and the cute mascots!
With magical girls mostly being associated with kids shows, this genre is mostly overlooked by the anime community. The young age of the characters, the middle school (or even elementary school) troubles, the incredibly cute outfits. People tend to avoid it.
Unless, it has a dark twist, like Puella Magi Madoka★Magica.
Puella Magi Madoka★Magica
The anime shocked a lot of people, expecting just a normal Magical Girl show, which made it this well known. But enough about the anime, I am talking about the manga here!
The Madoka franchise has a lot of spinoff manga under its name. Of course there is the manga and the novel that follow the anime (the anime came first), a spinoff following Mami Tomoe's story, and many more to follow. For example another magical girl searching for her missing sister. The twist is, no one acknowledges the sister, like she has never existed.
Multiple manga have been "adapted" into movies and follow them closely. So if you are interested in checking this series out, both the manga and anime are equally as good!
Miracle Dieter Miyuki
A short manga of only 8 chapters/2 volumes. Released back in 2005, this Sailor Moon inspired manga made its overlooked debut. Instead of fighting evil to save the world from destruction, Miyuki is fighting evil to help all the women to stay healthy!
Yukimi, a chubby high school junior discovers a magical dumbbell, giving her the ability to change into the Miracle Dieter Miyuki, a beautiful slender woman in a revealing outfit. She fights off an evil chef trying to tempt girls into eating calorie-rich food, making them gain weight incredibly fast!
The manga doesn't have a real conclusion, basically making it feel like an open ending. This manga is also making it feel like heavier girls can't be beautiful or aren't worth just as much as "skinny" girls. It feels superficial so it's not a big recommendation, just something I stumbled upon.
Magical Girls would never ever start the fight at all!
If you are feeling a bit more like reading slice of life, then how about Colorful Macchiato Mahou Shoujo wa Tatakawanai. A manga with less than 150 readers on myanimelist.
Magical Girls are known for their amazing fights, but in this manga there are no cool fights or supervillains at all! This manga follows Momose Minori, a semi-normal girl who turns into a magical girl at the slightest hint of danger, for example; someone clapping or accidentally stumbling over things. She gets invited for a magical girls school club together with 4 other semi-normal girls who can transform. Together they fight against littering and slowly power up their useless powers!
I enjoyed this manga because of the misunderstandings, a useless mascot and a villain who is trying too hard to get in the way of the girls, it's a short manga so please give it a try!
There is a lot more Magical Girl manga out there in the world that there's yet to be discovered/translated. I am planning to read as much as possible!
Is there a Magical Girl manga I haven't mentioned, but you do want recognized?
Be sure to write the name in the comments below!
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