Fairy tale/folklore/myth sideblog, featuring various media inspired by those. Run by someone who thinks they can write. About Resources Twitter Other Places I'm At
“I can give her no power so great as that which she possesses. Don’t you see how strong she is? Don’t you see how both men and animals want to serve her–a poor little girl, wandering barefoot through the world? Her power is greater than ours, it comes from her heart, from her being a loving and innocent child. If this power which she already possesses cannot give her access to the Snow Queen’s palace, and enable her to free Kay’s eye and heart from the glass fragment, we can do nothing for her!”
– Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen” (1844); illustration by T. Pym.
Still thinking about the relationship between fairy tales and magical girls and I remembered this quote from Andersen's "The Snow Queen" in regards to Gerda. It wouldn't be too out of place for a magical girl story.
I like learning about the roots of shoujo manga and shoujo manga style, and I have just discovered something new in that realm. I was reading Macoto Takahashi's Paris-Tokyo (パリー東京, 1959; originally published in Shoujo magazine), and came across this double spread:
It says "Spring Gaiety by Margaret Tarrant - Copy by Makoto Takahashi" on bottom right. And here's the original illustration referenced:
Seeing an artist openly re-interpreting another artist in a shoujo manga at that, is really cool. I always read about how such and such artists influenced shoujo mangaka, but seeing such a concrete example is worth reading 84 names in an article.
You can take a look at some of Tarrant's works here.
I recently rewatched Mary Poppins (1964) because of its influence on the Showa magical girl genre. Here's what I wrote about it on Letterboxd:
I have been going deep on the various stories that make up Mary Poppins because the novels and the film had a major influence on Mitsuteru Yokoyama (横山光輝), one of the founders of the magical girl genre.
After reading about half of P. L. Travers’ book series, it’s funny to return to this film, which of course was what I was most familiar with before this journey. The main difference I detect in the characterization of Mary is how they downplayed her vanity. I had thought I might also find her way less harsh in the film, but she’s actually more stern than I remembered.
Also, this movie is longer than I remembered…
I should note, I suppose that these images are arranged in the western progression order -- upper left then upper right, bottom left and then bottom right.
I want to extend a sincere thank you once again to @sailorfuncomics for providing these scans from their magazine collection. It means a lot, particularly because Magical Princess Minky Momo (魔法のプリンセス ミンキー モモ) manga has been so under-catalogued in English and because these original magazines can be so difficult to obtain.
These final four pages are from the October 1992 issue of Fun Kindergarten (たのしい幼稚園) magazine.
According to Bill Ellis in "The Fairy-Telling Craft of Princess Tutu: Meta-Commentary and the Folkloresque," the fairy tale of Cinderella can be seen as one of the earliest examples of the transformation sequences/henshin seen in magical girl anime, particularly in how the title character is given items that help her achieve a goal, usually given to her by a magical being (her mother's spirit in a tree, a fairy godmother, etc.).
Thinking again about the connection between magical girls and fairy tales--even if they aren't as meta as Tutu, many magical girls do use imagery and ideas from European fairy tales (Sailor Moon alone has references to Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault)--I wondered what other character types from the genre may have some precedent in fairy tales. Then I started thinking about the Dark Magical Girl character.
Not every magical girl story has a Dark Magical Girl, but they do crop up in a lot of works. To name a few, there's Fate Testarossa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Rue/Kraehe from Princess Tutu, and countless others that would be too numerous to name. In general they tend to be more cynical, darker counterparts to the main protagonists, who tend to come from relatively more stable environments. Whatever magic they possess also may be more sinister, at least initially.
Tying in somewhat to the story of Cinderella is the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index fairy tale type "The Kind and Unkind Girls" (ATU 480). Many of the stories of this type involve a rivalry between two stepsisters, one being favored by the stepmother due to being the latter's biological daughter. The general idea in most versions of the tale is that both girls encounter a magical being at separate points in time. The kind girl helps the magical being in some way, at which point the magical being gives her a magical ability or magical presents. Meanwhile, the unkind girl refuses to help the magical being and is cursed in some fashion, or, worse, killed. The kind girl meanwhile usually ends up marrying a prince, or a similar character. One of the more popular versions of this story, "Diamonds and Toads," has the kind girl gain the ability to have a jewel or flower fall from her mouth when she speaks, while the unkind girl is cursed to have toads and snakes fall from hers. And while the kind girl does marry a prince, the unkind one is kicked out of her house and dies alone in the woods. (Insert something about Revolutionary Girl Utena's comment about how a girl who cannot become a princess is doomed to be a witch.)
Typically in these fairy tales, the unkind girl is never shown to be a real threat to the kind one; the ultimate threat is the stepmother, who uses her daughter as a means to an end. In contrast, Dark Magical Girls tend to have, well, magic that helps them attack the magical girl protagonist. In this regard, they're the Heavy in the plot, while the witch/mother-like figure/real enemy waits in the background (as is the case in a lot of magical girl shows--the Raven and Rue, Precia and Fate, Fine and Chris in Symphogear etc.). Sometimes the Dark Magical Girl will be a major threat, though--like the Princess of Disaster in Pretear (who is loosely-inspired by the Evil Queen in Snow White).
In The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976), Bruno Bettelheim argues that the stepmother as a character is a way for children to process the negative traits of their own mothers, while still idealizing the good qualities of them. With that in mind, the unkind sister and the Dark Magical Girl can be viewed as a way of processing/externalizing the negative traits that a girl can have, being cruel, rebellious, and uncaring. They also embody their fears, too--the fear of being alone, rejected, and doomed to fail.
Of course, nowadays, Dark Magical Girls have a tendency to be redeemed and reconcile with/befriend the main magical girl, something the kind and unkind girls never seem to do in the fairy tales. Maybe it's just emblematic of society deciding that killing a girl off for being a little rude is a bit unfair. She's just a kid trying to find her place in the world, too, after all.
I read Unbreakable by Mira Grant (@seananmcguire) and was fascinated by the little magical girl mascot creatures. So morally conflicted! I would read a story from their perspective, see how they interact with each other when the humans aren't around. Maybe see a new one being taught the ropes.
I doodled some from the book and then designed some of my own.
Unbreakable by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) is a book about magical protectors and cosmic horrors.
If you like the magical girl genre you will love this book.
If you liked Madoka you will love this book. But also, if you didn't, you will love this book.
If you want a more nuanced and dark take on the magical girl genre (while still keeping the sparks and rainbows) that doesn't introduce mature and gritty themes just for the sake of subverting expectations, because it was written by someone that understands how to embrace and successfully marry the magical girl genre and the cosmic horror genre, while at the same time packaging it all with a realistic portrayal of how our world would react to/deal with magical protectors, you will love this book.
And if you have already read this book please come talk to me about it.
Read this book recently. Like Pacific Rim, it's fascinating seeing a genre that people mostly associate with anime interpreted by someone from outside Japan (but who, most importantly, gets what the appeal of the genre is). I won't spoil it for anyone following me, but I thought it was an entertaining read, and wouldn't mind seeing more magical girl-inspired books in the future. (I say this as if a majority of fairy tales aren't already precursors to what we know as magical girls to begin with...)
(Although the main characters of Unbreakable prefer the term "magical protectors," as not all of them are girls, after all--there's mention of magical boys elsewhere, and one of the protagonists' teammates was nonbinary.)
the journey is just as important as the final destination, as long as it makes you scared/horribly uncomfortable along the way, it has succeeded as horror
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was also specifically thinking of horror geared towards kids when talking to my co-worker. Things like Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Coraline have a lot of horror elements, but they still end fairly positive for the child protagonists. (Then there's Goosebumps, which revels in the cruel twists.)
It also brings to mind Don Bluth (I think?) saying something like "As long as it has a happy ending, kids can handle whatever happens in the middle."
Lonely Vigils: Collected Occult Mysteries From the Pupls by Manly Wade Wellman, illustrated by George Evans, Shadowridge Press, 2020. Cver art by George Evans, info: shadowridgepress.com.
Back in print for the first time since 1981, Shadowridge Press presents Lonely Vigils, Carcosa’s legendary collection of Manly Wade Wellman’s famous occult detectives from the Golden Age of the Pulps. Featuring Judge Pursuivant, Professor Enderby, and John Thunstone, their battles against dark magic were originally chronicled in the pages of Weird Tales and Strange Stories between 1938 and 1951. While the stories have achieved legendary status among aficionadosof weird fantasy, they had been virtually unreprinted until Lonely Vigils. Here are twenty tales of occult investigation by an acknowledged master of fantasy literature, dramatically illustrated by George Evans. Before he moved to the South, Wellman began his writing career in New York City, where he drew upon the dark side of New York’s night club intelligentsia and the native mysteries of the Northeast to create a convincing blend of authentic magic and imaginative peril in these stories of three intrepid crusaders against supernatural evil. Read their complete original pulp adventures in Lonely Vigils!
Contents:
Foreword
Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant
“The Hairy Ones Shall Dance”
“The Black Drama”
“The Dreadful Rabbits”
“The Half-Haunted”
Professor Nathan Enderby
“Vigil”
John Thunstone
“The Third Cry to Legba”
“The Golden Goblins”
“Hoofs”
“Letters of Cold Fire”
“John Thunstone’s Inheritance”
“Sorcery from Thule”
“The Dead Man’s Hand”
“Throne on the Threshold”
“The Shonokins”
“Blood From a Stone”
“The Dai Sword”
“Twice Cursed”
“Shonokin Town”
“The Leonardo Rondache”
“The Last Grave of Lill Warran”
Sometimes I feel like something gets lost in translation when the English subtitles for Pan's Labyrinth refer to the fairy kingdom as the "underworld" (or the "Underground Realm," in the opening narration).
In one of the pages of Guillermo del Toro's notebooks featured in his book Cabinet of Curiosities, there's a note made by del Toro about beings called the "Mouros," said to live in underground cities. Del Toro goes on to note that in Galicia (where Pan's Labyrinth is meant to be set), it is believed that the mountains are hollow and contain underground realms and cities. So this is clearly what del Toro used as inspiration for the backstory involving the missing princess.
It's also interesting how the motion comics included in the DVD/Blu-Ray release of the film refer to the fairy kingdom as "Bethmoora," a place mentioned in Lord Dunsany's works (and, also, the name del Toro gave to the kingdom of the elves in Hellboy 2).
You know, I love Manly Wade Wellman's John The Balladeer stories and I really appreciate Valancourt books getting them back in print but I've got to have a slight chuckle at the cover art they went with for their release, which suggests less the tone of the stories and more "folk infused heavy metal album."
Now granted, I haven't read all of the Balladeer stories, so maybe there is one where he fights Purgatori from CHAOS! Comics.
Art by Ilan Sheady
