I've remade this post with even more magical girls. Like last time if you don't like that I added a character than just move on and don't waste you're time reblogging because I am not remaking this post just cause you're complaining.
saw another "all magical girls nowadays are deconstructions or parodies" post and couldn't take it any longer. tell me you haven't watched a magical girl show past 2011 without telling me. sure some time after madoka there WAS a wave of dark edgy magical girl shows that desperately tried to emulate it. but that era is long gone and there are so many magical girl shows coming out. which you would know if you kept up with mg news. please for once instead of complaining that the genre is dead support upcoming mg projects.
It's the (past couple) year(s) of the magical girl!!!!! So happy that we've gotten so many new magical girl properties that aren't just remakes, Madoka-likes, and Precure (DISCLAIMER: I love most of those too!!! I just crave variety...)
Just me talking about these series under the cut:
I LOVE Magilumiere's framing of magical girls as a profession including the nitty gritty details of job searching and corporate events. I buy all the manga volumes as they come out and can't wait for season 2! (Manga spoilers: the OG Magilumi uniform is cute, but I LOVE the V2!!!)
Acro Trip is very endearing and the VAs give 110% even though the actual animation is a little limited... I'd love season 2, but I very much doubt it'll happen... I'll probably pick up the untranslated manga since it's only 5 vols.
Magical Girl Dandelion is SO PRETTY!!!! Love the dynamic of Tanpopo and Shade, esp. since I think the author confirmed it will NOT be romantic? Always interested to see more non-romance-centric shojo. The horror vibe is fun! Love when mg stuff can get a little dark without going full edgelord and losing the soul of the original concept of the genre... Waiting to see if there'll be a physical release since it's about at a volume's length now.
Princession Orchestra looks cool so far, although I have no idea what kind of tone they'll shoot for. There's kids toys, so maybe more Precure than Symphogear, but who knows? I was wondering how the unique shading style of the promo art would be translated to the actual show, and it turns out the answer is..... it's not!!! The actual designs (still very sharp imo!) are just kind of a normal anime style.
And finally, Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl by @kianamaiart! The concept of using magical girlhood to look at burnout and the pressure to keep at something due to "talent" is interesting to me. Maybe a little bit of a Shattered Starlight vibe?? Anyway. The artstyle is REALLY cute, and even just from what's been posted so far I love the character dynamics! Looking forward to the pilot and whatever may come after!
Love when we get to see quiet moments that build character.
I love when we get a scene of the characters, in a bedroom, an inn, a hotel room, a club room, a bar even- and they are just... chatting... hanging out. Maybe having an intimate friendship or romantic moment... doing each other's hair or nails, looking through an old photo album, talking about past adventures, having tea (K-on core), maybe helping carry the other home after a long night idk.
I love when we get short scenes of a character alone that tells us a bit more about them, maybe a shot of them reading a book on a rainy day, maybe we get to hear what music they listen to on their drive to work, maybe we see them engage in a hobby, or even stop to pet a stray cat or a passing by dog. Or maybe they talk to the birds and the chipmunks they pass by, do they brush their hand against the trees or fences...
I love when we see the mask fall and the character break down when no one's around. Or if they do it in front of someone else who, when. How?
I love it when characters do karaoke, go to the beach, go to an amusement park, have a slumber party, each lunch together at school, all these little moments that build CHARACTER. I LOVE THEM.
I love the little side conversations the bonding moments... everything... even if they are short.
Because that's what makes me care about the characters. About their goals, about what they stand to lose.
Not that series that don't do this are bad or anything there's still plenty of media I like that doesn't or I still care, but I feel like I care DEEPER for the characters when they DO THIS.
We had a lot of good anime in 2024, so here's the list of my top 12 favorites and some bonus great anime as well. If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here.
You can also check out my post about my favorite manga from 2024 here and my favorite books of 2024 here.
These are in no particular order!
Delicious in Dungeon (a.k.a Dungeon Meshi)
Dungeon Meshi is one of my favorite stories period, and easily my top anime of the year. The basic premise is that Laios and his party of adventurers need to travel through a monster-infested dungeon rescue his sister. Rather waste precious time earning money for food, Laios decides they should just eat the monsters they encounter as they travel. But then that simple plot spins off into so much more...
The story combines cooking and adventure animanga expertly. It has some of the most impressive and fascinating worldbuilding I've ever seen, top-tier varied character design and a great plot. It's also funny as hell, and I love its main cast of nuanced eccentric weirdos with all my heart. Even the characters who have five minutes of screen time feel like you could watch a spin-off series about them.
It's not just about food, but the cycle of life and death, about hunger of all kinds, about ecosystems and societies and finding solace in the monstrous...there's a lot simmering under this story!
So, go ahead and eat up! And read my review here for more!
Mayonaka Punch
Canceled YouTuber, Masaki, meets a pathetic lesbian vampire, Live. Live agrees to help Masaki launch a new YouTube channel, but in exchange, Masaki has to let Live suck up all her blood when they reach 100 million subscribers.
This is the kind of stuff I watch anime for. This is what dreams are made of.
Do you support women's wrongs? Are you craving some women who are loveable shitheads? Do you want a great ensemble comedy about five disaster vampires wreaking havoc and a cynical human along for the ride? This show has all that, plus some down bad lesbian vampire shenanigans! But there's also a lot of growth for the main character, and the show has a lot of pathos in how it explores how the internet and its outrage train can do a number on one's mental health.
It's a ton of fun! See my full review here!
Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc.
Being a magical girl is no longer the domain of teenagers, and has evolved into an actual career dominated by adult women. Kana becomes a magical girl for a scrappy start up company, and tries her best to navigate working life.
It's the magical girl story about adult women I've been craving for years! Magical girl media often explores the struggles of adolescence and growing up, and this show takes us to the next step by using magical girls to explore what it’s like to be a young woman entering the working world. The focus is one Kana struggling to grow her confidence and accept support from her workplace, but it also has a lot to say about companies exploiting their workers, prizing efficiency and growth over actually taking care of their customers, and it shows how the world could be better than what it is right now. Check out my review here for more detail!
Girls Band Cry
After being bullied, Nina drops out school and ends up starting a band with four other girls, including the woman whose music saved her at her darkest moment. Nina's determined for the band to stick it to the people who once looked down on them. GBC features some wonderfully messy and entertaining teenage girls, actually incredible CGI animation and great music. Nina, the lead, is allowed to be angry and obnoxious and powered by spite, but the narrative sympathizes with her and loves her spirit, even if she sometimes messes things up. All the girls have rough edges and raw emotion and a great dynamic with each other. They also flip people off a lot.
It was kind of screwed over by streaming, but don't sleep on it! See my review here!
Natsume's Book of Friends (Season 7)
Anime's sweetest boy and his horrible cat (affectionate) are back, and it's time for more yokai adventures! I’ve already talked at length about how this series is special–check out my series review/ Rec post for the series here. I also did an article titled The Courage to Speak: Mental Illness and Recovery in Natsume’s Book of Friends that goes into more in-depth analysis. The story is sweet and charming and sometimes heartwrenching and very important to me.
It's yet another season of lovely, bittersweet yokai tales that tug on your heartstrings, the characters continue to heal and grow in slow but satisfying ways. It just feels so nice watching this series again and letting the love, comfort, and catharsis wash over me. See my review here.
Dead Dead Demon's DeDeDeDe Destruction
A giant mothership is hovering over Tokyo. The aliens have done nothing, not even leaving their ship, but Japan and America are already trying to blow that UFO up, and show off who has the best weapons, causing many civilian casualties along the way. Meanwhile, two girls are just trying to living their lives.
This anime goes hard on criticizing the military industrial complex, Japanese nationalism and imperialism, American imperialism, xenophobia, mistreatment of immigrants, rich people, and conspiracy theorists. That means it's often devastating and visceral, but it also follows some fantastic weird girls and their ride-or-die soul bond, as well as other charming, funny teenagers who are just trying to live in a world falling apart around them. You can also look forward to some plot twists that recontextualize everything you know!
You should also see my review for some content warnings and a really important message about episode order if you want more detail, you can read it here.
Senpai is an Otokonoko
Makoto is an "otokonoko" ( a term that means crossdressing boy) and he's figuring out his relationship to gender, and hiding his interests from his mother. A girl named Aoi confesses to him, thinking he's a girl. But he reveals the truth, she's ecstatic about it, much to his shock. Meanwhile, Makoto's best friend Ryuji is also crushing on him...
It's tough to be a queer kid in a world full of rigid gender roles and insidious homophobia, and this anime shows the unfairness of that struggle. But it also shows the joy of finding those who accept and understand you, and of slowly becoming comfortable with who you are. The show knows how to make you really roots for these great kids, and it's really good at tugging the ol' heartstrings. See my review here for more!
A Sign of Affection
The anime follows Yuki, a shy girl who's been deaf since birth, and Itsuomi, a world-traveler and polyglot, fall in love. They both live in very different worlds, but as their romance blooms, they're eager to learn more about each other.
A Sign of Affection is shoujo romance at its sweetest, with soft colors, gentle blushes, tender moments, and plenty of warm fuzzies. The animation is beautiful and the show treats Yuki's perspective with care and delicacy as the story goes on. It also have a great focus on communication and consent in a relationship. Read my review here!
YATAGARASU: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master
In this world, people have the ability to shapeshift into yatagarasu, the giant three legged ravens from Japanese mythology. Prince Wakamiya, who's next in line for the emperor, is thought to be an incarnation of the powerful "Golden Raven", so the four women chosen as his bride candidates (each who carry the hopes of their respective provinces) compete fiercely for his hand. Yukiya, a canny young boy, has been pulled into being the prince's attendant, and both Yukiya and the women soon find themselves pulled into a deadly web of mysteries and political machinations.
Yatagarasu is a tightly woven tale of political intrigue, featuring lots of palace folk plotting against each other, multiple assassination attempts, spies, fascinating worldbuilding and use of mythology, well executed plot twists, and complex characters. Yukiya is a very likeable little trickster with a heart of gold, and he works well as an audience surrogate who has to keep up with all this weird court drama. In the first half, the story focuses a lot on on women contending with rigid roles and how that leads to both enmity and empathy between them. But disappointingly, most of those characters are dropped or have their roles reduced in the second half of the anime, which is a shame.
Overall, this anime is a story that hooks you with it's story and it's dark, majestic atmosphere and never lets go. It's just plain good, and pretty underrated, so I'd suggest checking it out!
The Apothecary Diaries (Episodes 13-24)
The second half of The Apothecary Diaries was somehow even better than the first half, crafting a compelling ongoing mystery and delving into MaoMao’s backstory. There were quite a few big thrills that made me gasp aloud. MaoMao, the world's best poison-obsessed detective, pulled off some show-stopping feats and she remains an incredible, endearing character. Especially now that we’ve learned she has a killer evil laugh. Check out my review of the first part of The Apothecary Diaries here and slightly more detail on this run of episodes here.
Dandadan
Another one you've probably heard of, it's the story of two kids- Momo, who was abducted by aliens and Okarun, who was cursed by a yokai. Now they have to break Okarun's curese while aliens and yokai are hunting them!
Dandadan is an anime bursting with absurd action and humor, and it has a boppin’ soundtrack and amazing animation from Science Saru. It’s wildly weird in the best way, and the characters are hilarious lovable losers. It's also the rare example of a battle shonen that actually treats its female lead as an equal to her male partner, in screen time and in battle. I adore Momo with all my heart- she's fun, she's bombastic, she's badass, she's everything.
However, the main problem I have with the show is its pattern of putting Momo in sexual peril. I go into more detail about this and the show in general in my review here.
Train to the End of the World
A story about four girls and a dog traveling across a weird, warped version of Japan to find their missing friend, Train to the End of the World is wild. I absolutely adore bizarre anime about equally bizarre girls, and this delivers. We see the girls encounter a cult with mushrooms growing out of their heads, screaming goatmen and even zombies on their journey. The dynamic between the different characters is great, and the dialogue is snappy. If you appreciate wild and weird zaniness that also has a lot of heart and great friendships, give this show a try. My full review is here.
Bonus Anime- some other stuff you might want to check out!
Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!
Despite an extremely goofy title Cherry Magic quickly became a surprisingly grounded, thoughtful and heartfelt BL romance worth watching. See my full review here.
7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!
Rishe has lived seven lives, had lots of adventures, and in every single one of them, she has been killed as result of the world war started by the emperor of a neighboring kingdom. Each time Rishe dies, she's sent back to the moment the crown prince of her own country broke off their engagement (she's actually pretty happy about it). But in her seventh life, the future Emperor sees her, is instantly smitten by how cool she is and proposes to her. Rishe decides she might as well enjoy life chilling in the palace before things inevitably go to hell.
7th Time Loop has a fun conceit, and it features a vivacious, badass heroine who's a joy to watch. Having lived as a commoner in most of her past lives, she's ready to use her smarts to help people--whether it's going undercover to help a maid who's being bullied or addressing illiteracy among the servant girls. Whether she's beating up kidnappers or politically maneuvering, she's learning and growing and kicking ass. While her love interest is a bit too broody for me, I do deeply relate to how Rishe's badassery clearly turns him on. The antagonists and plot are sometimes a bit silly, but it's always a good time. A josei anime about an awesome gal is just what the doctor ordered.
Acro Trip
A silly show about a magical girl fangirl who's recruited to an evil organization by an incompetent villain, Acro Trip is a lot of fun, and I recommend it to any magical girl enjoyer. I also recommend it to anyone who loves pathetic failguys and girls. Our "villain" Chrome is the most hilariously pathetic of them all. You like bad boys? Well this man is literally bad at everything. See my full review here.
Whisper Me a Love Song
I have to give a shoutout to the only textual yuri anime that came out this year--it's production basically completely collapsed, but it's still watchable and the story is a sweet and solid girl band romance. At least consider giving the manga a shot if nothing else! See my review here!
