If there’s one genre everyone knows about in anime, it’s magical girls. From Sailor Moon to Pretty Cure, magical girls are a genre that have come a long way (since 1966 actually). Everyone’s probably seen at least one or two of these shows, especially if you got Cartoon Network when you were a kid. Mahou shoujos all share some similar characteristics like cute revealing costumes, the fact that they are usually young girls, magical powers that always seem to be just good enough, and secret identities. Think of Superman, except a little girl and without that underwear outside the bodysuit.

Before we begin, lets have a brief history lesson. What started this whole magical girl trend? Inspiration from other folk tales like the tooth fairy? Pedophilia? Some critical esoteric piece of Japanese culture? Well believe it or not it was the 60′s American sitcom Bewitched. The premise is that a witch marries a normal man and lives and a suburban housewife. Who would have thought that when I was bored out of my mind and watching Nick at Nite when I was in 5th grade that I was watching a critical piece of anime history!

The construction of magical girls as a literary device is complex and rich. I can easily write a 2000 word literary analysis on them any day of the week, but I’ll spare you today. Traits immediately visible in magical girls are innocence, femininity, and sheer will. The will is manifested as magical powers. When girls go from their secret identity forms to their magical girl forms, they are making a convicted declaration that they will use their willpower to defend what they hold dear. And that, my friend, is the transformation scene. Here are some visual cues extremely common in transformation scenes.

They Change into an Elaborate Costume

The physical metamorphosis is usually a flashy scene that depicts magical powers visually transforming the clothes of the girl. A key takeaway is that while the clothes (and sometimes haircolor) change, the personality of the girl does not. Rather, it’s the other way around. Girls will often tell you that clothes express a bit of their personality, and this is a fundamental point here as well.  While wands and staffs (we will talk about that later) represents the power and ability of a girl to use magic to affect outside forces, the costume a magical girl wears represents their self-identity as a magical girl and confidence in their powers and abilities. The personality does not change because she is still the same girl with the same morals, goals, and beliefs as always, but as a magical girl she is able to act on those wants.

…and we get to see Nanoha naked for a little bit. I think that’s a key takeaway as well. It represents the “casting away” of her passive identity and her willingness to take on a new form but yeah it’s probably mostly fanservice by now.

Elemental Magic is Common

You can see here (besides the fact that Magical girl transformation scenes have not changed since the 90′s) lots of fire and cool effects surrounding Sailor Mars. This is because the personality of the element is so much of an important factor in a magical girl’s personality it would be logical for the element to transform into the physical clothing of the heroine. Also, fire is freaking cool, and Sailor Mars rules. Man I’m so nostalgic from Sailor Moon, now.

Above all, it adds that “cool” element to transformation scenes. It makes them differentiable and eye-catching.

A Staff or Wand Appears

Almost never does a magical girl carry a full-size, fully deployed magical weapon on them in daily life. The wand is assembled during the transformation scene. Baradiche is a physical representation of Fate’s power, her ability to use magic to get what she wants. Her barrier jacket, as we established earlier, shows her personal identity as a magical girl and self confidence. Fate can’t fight without Baradiche, it activates all of her abilities and stuff.

Let me take a time out and just say that the concept of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha is fucking cool as hell. It takes all the cool cute moe aspects of magical girls and focuses on battles. Fuck yes. I just wish that we had even cooler battles and fight scenes, that show would be so ballin’.

Incantations

So of course, what better demonstration of just about every element we’ve discusses than a show that half parodies magical girls in the first place? Moetan is based off a line of books that aimed to teach NEETs who watch anime all day English via an English teaching magical girl. Yukari Tamura, who can’t speak English, voiced the audio CDs. Of course she was casted as a lead in the anime as well. As for incantations, I guess they just happen. There isn’t too much to decipher here.

Here have more random transformation scenes

Now that our discussion is done, here are some random other transformation scenes I got together. Enjoy and feel free to post your own favorites.


Tempura Sumi (Moetan). Personally one of my favs. I like the music.


Powerpuff Girls Z. Cool breakbeat background in the second set of scenes.


Nothing needs to be said.

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