Trist3r0 Blog 11/16/25: Mahou Shoujo
Hello all, hope you’ve had a good week. For this week’s post I feel like talking about magical girls since I’ve been reading Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete and watching Cardcaptor Sakura. Mahou Shoujo has always been one of my favorite anime/manga subgenres, so it only feels natural for me to write about it in the blog at some point. I’ve always found the way magical girl anime and manga make hyperfeminity something powerful rather than the passive label society likes to slap on it. Magical girls are able to be strong without having to be portrayed as masculine like many other strong women are. Having a hyperfeminine main character who's just as strong as a similar masculine character from a shounen manga was always so cool to me so I just naturally drifted towards the subgenre. Many magical girl anime/manga also explore homosexuality which often hooks me further than I already am.
The First Anime I wanna talk about that I’ve been loving recently is Cardcaptor Sakura. The anime released during a wave of magical girl anime that largely popularized the subgenre in the 90s, including other classics such as Sailor Moon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Magic Knight Rayearth. Sakura definitely feels aimed at a younger audience than the aforementioned shows, but it still remains an important part of magical girl success. I find myself to be a really big fan of Sakura’s juvenile nature, as it’s simplistic enough to hook any new fans of the genre and I find some of the ways it explores homosexuality to be very intriguing. Sakura’s best friend Tomoyo is obsessed with her to the point of recording her all the time. This behavior heavily hints at Tomoyo being homosexual in some way, as she spends most (if not all) of her time capturing or dressing Sakura. This behavior might go over a lot of younger people’s heads, but I really enjoy how Tomoyo’s obsession with Sakura appears in the anime.
To contrast the more innocent nature of Tomoyo’s homosexual desire, I wanna talk about Hiragi Utena’s blatant lust in Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete. This manga switches up slightly by having the main character be the villain the magical girls fight rather than a warrior of good. She still has magical girl powers similar to her adversaries, but she uses them for more nefarious purposes. Whenever she captures her enemies, it often leads to some form of torment that occasionally turns sexual. At first Utena strongly opposes the idea of harassing the women she idolizes, but as the story progresses she becomes increasingly depraved. Having a subgenre focused so much on hyperfeminity display behavior so erotic could be offputting to some, but I find it very enjoyable. Perverse traits rarely display themselves in female characters, which makes Utena all the more interesting as a protagonist. Not only does Utena have strong sexual desire, but it is entirely homosexual desire. Not once does she show any signs of sexual desire for men, only women elicit that behavior from her. With so many magical girl anime and manga having implied or explicit homosexual characters, you begin to wonder if they are tangential to the genre. They sure feel necessary in most scenarios even if the main character displays heterosexual traits. I feel like I’m starting to ramble on a little bit so I’m gonna wrap everything up now. I hope you all enjoyed this week’s post and have a good rest of your Sunday. For any questions either ask me here on tumblr (the inquiries button) or email me at [email protected]. I’m seeing one of my favorite bands live tomorrow so I think I’ll write about that next week. Thanks for reading y’all.
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