Magical Girl Warrior Narrator

Basic Trope: An ordinary girl is approached by a Mentor Mascot, and given a Transformation Trinket which transforms her into a pretty-clothed superhero who uses her powers to fight evil.

Straight: Junko Watanabe is an Ordinary High-School Student, until she is approached by a Cabbitsel (cat/rabbit/weasel hybrid) who gives her a magic ring which she uses to transform into Pretty Ronin Trope-Tan so that she may fight Queen Eviloverlordia and her horde of Monster of the Week minions. Exaggerated: Junko as Pretty Ronin Trope-Tan goes into an all out battle to defeat the bosses, which are evil Eldritch Abominations, malign gods and goddesses, and even Death himself. Downplayed: Junko's magic ring doesn't transform her into Pretty Ronin Trope-tan so much as lend some of the Pretty Ronin's powers. She can help in the fight against Queen Eviloverlordia and her horde, but not to the extent the pre-established Pretty Ronins can and do, and in any case eschews the elegant clothing costumes because she finds them to be embarrassing Rainbow Pimp Gear. Overall, she is more akin to a reservist compared to the other Pretty Ronins. Justified: Junko is a descendant of the one who originally defeated Eviloverlordia, so naturally only someone of her Heroic Lineage can defeat the Big Bad this time around. Inverted: Instead of The Hero, Junko becomes a Dark Magical Girl who fights an established ensemble of the actually heroic characters. Pretty Ronin Trope-tan is a seasoned soldier from a Magical Land who acquires a magic ring that lets her temporarily seal away her magic powers, so that she can disguise herself as an ordinary girl named Junko Watanabe and help the other students with their extensive (but mundane) problems. Subverted: Junko is given a magic ring, which is said to transform the user into Pretty Ronin Trope-tan. She rubs the ring and chants the magic words... and nothing happens. Disappointed and denied, she throws the ring on the floor and leaves. Double Subverted: The ring is activated due to a strong force being applied on it. Said ring teleports to Junko's finger and the transformation sequence begins. Parodied: When not kicking ass, Junko is actually overweight, nerdy, male, and American. The Pretty Ronin costumes and "magical items" are just pink sparkly versions of actual military uniforms and equipment, as the monsters are not Immune to Bullets. Queen Overlordia and her Dark Empire are defeated by the end of the first episode, and Trope-tan has to find other uses for her Magical Girl Warrior abilities. Zig Zagged: Junko's abilities, competence and chosen heroine status in general are brought into question many times due to the local Redshirt Army being actually better suited for tackling the Monster of the Week. Averted: Queen Overlordia and her ensemble of sparkly glam villains are quite surprised to see the prophesized heroine of justice Junko face them in a gritty Diesel Punk Humongous Mecha instead. Enforced: The writers reboot a "standard" Magical Girl story into this trope, in order to attract a Periphery Demographic. Junko's star-tipped wand turns out to have a secondary mode where it unfolds into a Wave-Motion Gun, and the situations she faces increasingly require its use. Lampshaded: "Isn't that girl a bit too badass to be that magical?" Invoked: Upon obtaining an array of remarkably effective, lethal and non-flashy powers, Junko tries to customize them to suit anime-inspired ideals due to being Wrong Genre Savvy. Hilarity Ensues. Exploited: Trope-tan milks her newfound status for all it's worth to become a national celebrity and a pop figure icon who is being paid humongous sums for product endorsements and has her own anime series with merchandise up the frilly pantaloons. Knowing where the Pretty Ronin ring is, Queen Eviloverlordia alters it to have a magical transformation and flashy outfit so she can easily identify who the new Pretty Ronin is. The arms manufacturing industry is well aware of the existence and potential of magical girls, and they begin to abduct magical girls and convert them into military weapons. Defied: Junko is a Japanese schoolgirl with mystical powers and a secret identity who fights evil. She is also a world-weary Knight in Sour Armor Combat Pragmatist who flat out tells her Mentor Mascot: "Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!". Anyone who refers to her as anything else but a Super Hero gets his ass kicked in decidedly unladylike ways. Discussed: "Think making a magic ring with a transformation sequence and pretty outfit would make Junko good enough to fight Queen Eviloverlordia?" "Adding in a transformation sequence and pretty outfit seems really unnecessary." "Well it makes her seem stronger, in case that you don't realize that's just part of the ring." Conversed: "Why don't Magical Girls use their powers to solve social problems instead?" "Because flashy battles with evil monsters and megalomaniac villains is cooler to watch." Deconstructed: No matter what she's called, Trope-Tan is little more than a Child Soldier; the battles she fights are extremely dangerous (maybe even traumatizing); she can't tell if her mascot mentor is telling the truth; the villains seem more like sympathetic Well Intentioned Extremists than monsters greedy for power; she can't tell if her allies are actually her friends; and she's so cut off from the ordinary world by her constant battles that she's slowly becoming more and more unstable. Trope-tan realizes that the combat powers of a magical girl are explicitly dependent on seemingly superficial attributes. No matter what, the powers that be can't allow her to grow past mid-teens, change the silly incantation, skip the Transformation Sequence or modify her Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit in any way other than adding even more Frills of Justice. To top it all off, it then turns out that Eviloverlodia and her monsters were once magical girls themselves who were turned monstrous via Despair Event Horizon. This is the fate that will befall all Pretty Ronins; including Trope-tan, who is fated to become a monster even more powerful than Eviloverlordia herself! And the Cabbitsel intended for this to happen, as they are actually a Hive Mind alien race who are harnessing the power of despair to save the universe from heat death- no matter who suffers or dies in the process. The queen and her monsters want to destroy Cabby's system and free humanity- by Mercy Killing every last human they can find. And many other Pretty Ronins are also resorting to extreme means to stop Cabby. Even Trope-tan's own friends, especially the Dark Magical Girl, are willing to do some dark things in order to "protect" her. As a result, Junko stops fighting because she can't tell who the good guys and bad guys are anymore. Reconstructed: Trope-Tan manages to overcome all of the above and triumph regardless. Junko is a clinically depressed girl abused by her parents and/or classmates. The Mentor Mascot finds her and told her she could have a more meaningful life as Pretty Ronin Trope-Tan. She agrees, and on the next day, she finds a new home, with the other Pretty Ronins, who scare off the bullies, and with whom she starts to fight opponents pretty much on equal terms, rather than the one-sided fights she got into. They form a bond that cannot be broken. The Big Bad Ensemble might be more misguided than evil, but their plans would still doom the Earth, so they need to be stopped. Fortunately, Pretty Ronins are skilled at non-lethal combat, so the opponents don't even need to be killed. And even better: the Mentor Mascot (or one of the other Pretty Ronins) is a therapist! Finally, Junko is able to become a godlike being and use her powers to save all Pretty Ronins before they turn into monsters, replacing the old system with a new one that allows the girls to live better lives. And when Cabby tries to bring the old system back, Trope-tan, with the help of her True Companions and the Dark Magical Girl she has plenty of Les Yay with, defeats the alien menace- for good this time.

MEDIA EXAMPLES

While Cardcaptor Sakura is of the Cute Witch variety of magical girls, she also uses the Clow Cards to fight others that are causing trouble, particularly in the movies. Corpse Princess is a rather dark variant—the magical girls are undead corpses who must kill 108 other corpses in order to get into Heaven. Or so they're told. Actually, they become unkillable monsters and are bound in a coffin for eternity. Also, they use guns. Corrector Yui is a sci-fi themed magical girl show, with the heroine's powers only existing in cyberspace. Parodied and Gender Flipped in Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! and its sequel, which feature teams of Magical Boy Warriors who frequently lampshade the ridiculousness of all the magical girl-associated tropes. The earliest prototype was Go Nagai's Cutey Honey franchise, which slowly mutated and grew to have an unexpected female fanbase whenever the Fanservice level fluctuated heavily. Interestingly, she's a sci-fi-based variant: instead of magic, she has a device planted in her body that rearranges the molecules around her, transforming her clothing into her hero outfit or many other costumes as needed. This means that instead of a G-rated Sexy Silhouette being part of a Transformation Sequence, she really is naked as her clothes are temporarily a cloud of atoms, hence the high Fanservice level. Honey ''Flash'', indeed. The Shoujo-aimed Cutey Honey Flash had more magical girl influence, such as making Honey a human. Cyber Team in Akihabara starts as a standard magical girl show before veering into darker territory. Devil Hunter Yohko was the second big Magical Girl Warrior series, with its eponymous heroine just as adept at martial arts as she is with her sword and magic. She isn't afraid to get physical if that's what it takes to get the job done. Fantastic Detective Labyrinth has the Shinano clan concert girls into these called Aya. As a Manchurian Agent, such a girl has extraordinary magical power and fighting abilities but having their personality temporarily rewritten them unable to recall anything they did. Yohko in Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko becomes one akin to the Magic Knights. The heroine of Cinderella Knight is given the power to transform into the beautiful and heroic Cinderella Knight by her fairy godmother. With these powers, she seeks to protect the man she loves from the evil Spider Corps of the organization "MURDER". The heroine of Seizei Ganbare Mahou Shoujo Kurumi is a young girl who is given the power to become the angel warrior Prima Angel to fight the evil Darkness Whales organization. Every single woman in Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere; however, how much "mage" or "warrior" there is depends on the person and their abilities. Jewel BEM Hunter Lime combines this trope with Cute Witch - she's a natural-born magical user and a clueless newcomer to the human world, but she's also tasked with saving the world from evil Monsters Of The Week and has transforming powers. Kämpfer adds a Gender Bender twist — main character Natsuru turns into a girl whenever he transforms and the Kampfer don't defend anything, they engage other magical girls in gladiatorial combat. Kill la Kill is the team behind Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's take on the genre. It borrows a bit from Cutey Honey, including the fanservicey outfit and having the death of the main character's father as a starting point for their mission. It's particularly heavy on the "Warrior" part, as there are very few blaster- or wand-type weapons (the most powerful weapons being melee-based, like the Scissor Blades), and beauty is MOST DEFINITELY tarnished, as the main character (as well as several others) is realistically beaten bloody and bruised during some fights (sometimes unrealistically). Lyrical Nanoha started as a standard Magical Girl Warrior anime but quickly found its true calling as Seinen Military Science Fiction, of all things. By the time of third season, StrikerS, the entire cast are Space Police enlistees, making them magical girl soldiers, or, more accurately, living equivalents of tanks and jet fighters. Not that this prevents Nanoha from using her magical abilities to befriend the living hell out of people. In Machimaho: I Messed Up and Made the Wrong Person into a Magical Girl!!, Kayo isn't so much a warrior as she is a berserker. Combined with her crass delinquent attitude, the monsters she fights barely stand a chance. Magic Knight Rayearth crosses this with Swords And Sorcery and the Super Robot Genre. In Magical Change, Manaka Hiromi is given the magical power of the Red Garnet Princess to defeat the Devil King. As he is a boy, this involves making him a Super Gender-Bender. Magical Canan uses this term to describe their magical girls (mahou senshi). Magical Girl Ore gender-flips it slightly — the girls turn into magical boy warriors due to a couple of transformation complications. Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka emphasizes on the Warrior aspect. The magical girls are literal special forces operators and wear military-grade accessories such as utility belts and pouches, combat knives and such on top of the conventionally girly costumes. Magical Witch Punie-chan is a parody. The Magical Girl in question (who is a Villain Protagonist, taking after her evil queen of a mother) is vulnerable to getting her magic suppressed, which sounds quite inconvenient until you realize she also happens to be a master of unarmed combat specializing in crippling submission wrestling techniques. Her magical incantation is "Lyrical Tokarev, kill them all!". Magilumiere Co. Ltd. presents a unique take on the Magical Girl Warrior— the series takes place in a world where outbreaks of dangerous creatures known as Kaii have become a common phenomenon, and companies employ working women as "magical girls" to wield Magitek to take them out. Kaii incidents are referred to as "exterminations" but are essentially Magical Girl battles. There's plenty of the usual Magical Girl tropes and flashy fights, with the catch that position of "magical girl" is treated mostly like an average career, meaning that it has its own set of workplace politics and conflicts on top of all that. Parodied in Mahou Shoujo Pretty Bell - the warrior in question is a 35-year-old male bodybuilder and weight trainer. My-HiME brings a postmodern sensibility to the genre, removing traditional elements like over-the-top speeches, transformations, and elaborate outfits in favor of an Ensemble Cast utilizing mecha-like Bond Creatures. Despite taking place in a vague future timeline, My-Otome (a reboot-sequel-spinoff) remains more faithful to the genre's more traditional tropes with stock footage transformations, battle outfits and Transformation Trinkets in the form of minerals and gemstones. Makeruna! Makendo adds a kendo theme. Invoked in Mao-chan, where Earth is being invaded by aliens so cute that fighting them is viewed as bullying, forcing the heads of Japan's defense forces to have their cute granddaughters fight the aliens. In Matoi the Sacred Slayer, the magical girls have exorcist powers and fight inter-dimensional demons called "Nights." Megami Paradise. Mei Company focuses on magical girls who retired and opened a cleaning service, while the current generation of magical girls battle the forces of evil in the background. Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is a cross of this and Magic Idol Singer. Ray from My Celestial Family. A Gender Bender, as he's male in civilian form. Kosaki, Chitoge and Marika are given the power to transform into magical heroines in order to preserve world peace in the Nisekoi spin-off Magical Pâtissière Kosaki-chan. In the Not Safe for Work anime Mahou Shoujo Erena, protagonist Erena is given the power to become a magical girl and battle a race of evil tentacle monsters named Zoid. Negima! Magister Negi Magi: The Show Within a Show Magical Girl Biblion is a parody of this, complete with in-universe Rule 34 doujinshi that typically follows these character types. Since Chisame cosplays the characters featured there, her Pactio Card turned her into one with a cyberspace theme. Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, a product of the 90s magical girl boom, features a heroine that mostly fights solo unlike the many sentai-style series of its day, and it gradually becomes Darker and Edgier as it goes on. It is often considered a forerunner to Lyrical Nanoha and Magical Girl Genre Deconstructions like Madoka Magica. Parodied in Butt Attack Punisher Girl Gautaman, where devout Catholic Mari is given a magical fundoshi (sumo wrestling loin cloth) by Buddha and transforms into a scantily-clad heroine in order to battle the evil Black Buddha cult. Parodied in Mahou Shounen Majorian: two boys, one of whom bullies the other, are transformed into girls in order to battle alien invaders. Phantom Thief Jeanne is of the before-sentai variety with a sole henshin heroine and plays this trope quite straight. Until it takes a dark turn with the The Reveal more than a decade before it became mainstream, that is. Prétear combines classical genre tropes (Transformation Sequence, Calling Your Attacks, etc.) with fairy tale homages, especially from Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. The most popular show of this type in Japan is the entire Pretty Cure franchise. Taken to extremes in HeartCatch Pretty Cure!, where the battles looks like something straight out of Saint Seiya (character designer Yoshihiko Umakoshi went on to work on Saint Seiya Omega). Puella Magi Madoka Magica: A darker take. Teenage girls are recruited to combat Eldritch Abominations known as "witches", and use anything from bombs to swords to ribbons to accomplish this. Because of the nature of the contract every magical girl makes and how magic generally works, every magical girl is doomed to ultimately become a witch. If they don't die horribly first. It also deconstructs their general durability in combat; a normal human body simply cannot take that kind of punishment from combat, and one of the awful truths is that they're Liches in all but name. Revolutionary Girl Utena particularly embodies the "growing up as a struggle" metaphor, with the added bonus of Gnostic metaphor thrown in for good measure. This was emphasized way more in the anime than in the manga, however. Pretty much cemented by the enormous popularity of Sailor Moon, which introduced the Sentai elements to the genre. Saint Seiya is a Magical Boy Warrior series in all but genre. Flashy transformations, Frilly Upgrades, and stylish combat are the name of the game. Some of its anime incarnations even had staff members that would go on to do animation and character design work for Pretty Cure, while people who worked on Pretty Cure and other similar works would end up bringing their work back to Saint Seiya, like the above-mentioned Yoshihiko Umakoshi. Sarazanmai is a very unconventional take for boys: the powers help the main trio come of age, their enemies reflect their own insecurities, and they're working with a Mentor Mascot that is the prince of a magic kingdom, but their alternate forms are cartoony kappa.