So lately I got into this binge of watching 80s magic girl anime.
It's a sordid tale of insomnia, nostalgia, and dumb curiosity. I made a habit of watching old Urusei Yatsura episodes (my fave anime comedy, btw) to help me fall asleep. I noticed the guy who uploaded them on youtube had uploaded other old 80s anime episodes, so I gave them a try. They turned out to be all magic girl series produced by Studio Pierrot, with a particular quartet (Creamy Mami, Persia, Magical Emi, and Pastel Yumi) considered to be the seminal series of that genre of the era.
I wasn't super into these (with one exception), so I've been using them to help fall asleep as well, and it often takes me several days to end up watching a full episode. But still, they are interesting artifacts of their era, and they do have outstanding and imaginative episodes here and there. And for the target audience, aka prepubescent kids, they'd be a fun watch. So I thought they might be interesting to quickly review for those who might be interested.
They all follow a basic template; a girl around 10 or 12 years old stumbles upon magic creatures of some sort (fairies, kappa, floating magic sky boats,) helps them out, and is in turn granted magic powers for the duration of the series. The usual caveat is that they have to keep their new abilities secret from everyone except their newly-acquired magical guides/companions. These aren't latter-era magic girl shows, either. instead of fighting evil or saving the world with their powers, they mostly use them to fulfill their own wishes as well as help out their friends and families in what is mostly light slice-of-life-with-magic stories. There are, however, occasional full-on magical adventure stories involving pocket dimensions, monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural stuff.
In chronological order, the first is Creamy Mami (these shows do have longer names, like this one is actually called Creamy Mami the Magical Angel or Mahō no Tenshi Kurīmī Mami, but the abbreviated names are good enough for googling them.) Creamy Mami is probably the most-out there and weird one of the lot. Twelve year old Yuu helps out magic aliens driving around an invisible space ark called the Feather Star (no really,) so in return its leader/god of magic, a four-inch-tall pixie, grants her the ability to change back and forth into an adult version of herself. While transformed, she has various vaguely-defined magic powers, and is given two magic kittens as guides and companions.
Yuu in her new body stumbles onto a singing contest in which she uses magic to win, and becomes and instant overnight pop idol called Creamy Mami when it's televised. So she has to live a double life while dealing with both home and school as well as being a media celebrity.
Creamy Mami was mostly good, but not great. Yuu's family and friends as characters were either boring or idiots. Meanwhile, Mami's managers and a rival singer working for them were much more interesting, but were rarely given the development they deserved. This was also the most purely 80s of the shows, which any glance at the costumes and designs will clearly show.
Next up is Persia, The Magic Fairy. Unfortunately, this is the worst of the lot. It has a much more gonzo and comedic tone than the other shows, but the comedy often misses the mark. The concept is really out there, too. Persia is a jungle girl brought up in cringey stereotype Africa (yeah, I know it was 80s Japan, not exactly a beacon of progressive enlightenment, but those scenes are still very awkward to watch), complete with a pet lion and leopard-skin outfit. She moves to Japan, has to adjust to modern life, trips over some Kappas, and ends up having to collect love energy or some such. In return she's able to turn into an adult version of herself with whatever skills she wants when she changes. If she wants to be a driver, for example, her transformed self will be an expert car driver.
Unfortunately, Persia as a show is too unfocused, with characters I never really cared about. I only watched a handful of episodes before I moved on.
Which brings us to Magical Emi, which is by far the very best show talked about here, and the only one I found myself genuinely invested in. Mai is a klutzy girl born into a family of struggling stage magicians. One day she stumbles into a fairy in a magic mirror who, you guessed it, allows her to transform back and forth into a grown up version of herself with magic powers. She uses her magic abilities to salvage her family's magic show, and becomes and overnight sensation with her astounding and spectacular magic 'tricks' no one can figure out. Like Creamy Mami, she often has to balance her 'normal' life as a kid with her secret identity as superstar Magcial Emi. But the real kicker with her character is that she wants to become the world's greatest stage magician, but with only her real skill and not magic powers.
Magical Emi honestly has it all. Great writing, engaging characters, damn good animation, an intriguing set-up, and a three-dimensional main character with both believable flaws and an admirable goal. Even the op is super-catchy and memorable. The series has 39 episodes and a movie, but unfortunately I've only been able to find 22 episodes translated online. I'm currently looking for the rest.
The last of the four is Pastel Yumi. Like Creamy Mami, its good for what it is, but not great. Yumi's family runs a flower shop, and upon going out of her way to save a dandelion, she is rewarded by two 'flower fairies' with a magic wand. Unlike the others, she doesn't transform. Yumi can use the wand to 'draw' anything she wants, which instantly poofs into reality. The conjured object only lasts a short time, however, and she can't draw the same thing more than once. This has some bizarre and potentially disturbing implications, as she can create not only living creatures, but exact duplicates of real people, but the show never really addresses that.
Yumi is mostly about slice-of-life-with-a-side-dish-of-magic stories, and isn't terribly exciting. Some of the side characters are amusing, like Yumi's stuffy flower-hating neighbor, and her 'adventurer' grandpa, but there's rarely anything all that interesting going on. Kind of just a so-so-entry. But it is the show that so far has put me to sleep the fastest. I've only seen about a dozen episodes of it so far.
It should also be mentioned that all four shows do form a loose kind of 'cinematic universe.' As the various series went along, characters from previous shows would show up in the background here and there. On a few episodes of Magical Emi, for example, you can occasionally see Creamy Mami posters and bus ads, and one time there was even a quick back-shot of Mami as Emi was running by. There was also a few team-up specials between the various girls that Studio Pierrot produced in later years, but I've only read of them and haven't seen them yet.
And there you have it. Who knew these old shows had so much to them?
