Maho Shojo – Majokko Megu-Chan
Majokko Megu-Chan is an anime first released in 1974 to only moderate success before falling into obscurity, despite this however it is now considered the first ‘modern’ magical girl animation and did indeed set down the ground work for many more notable series to follow influencing the genre quite heavily and even going so far as to give Japanese audiences their very first dose of ‘fan service’.
Majokko Megu-chan follows the adventures of a young witch in training who is sent to Earth to learn more about human relationships, make friends and generally grow as a person. Once in Mid-World (Earth) she is taken in by a former witch who gave it all up to marry a human and live our their lives in happiness, she becomes Meg’s mentor bewitching her husband and other children into believing she has always been part of their family.
The series though somewhat outdated nowadays (especially due to it’s poor quality of animation) it certainly has heart and like many to follow entwines the magical girl plot lines with a coming of age story in which our heroin learns of loss, love, and despair turning her from a spiteful girl into a remarkable woman almost fit to wear the crown of the Witch World (almost being the key word).
Where this series broke a lot of ground for it’s time though is the subject matter that it dealt with showing younger viewers images and themes that were previous deemed too adult for younger viewing. We aren’t just talking glimpses of Meg in her underwear here, it was actually the first Magical Girl series to feature a truly evil character for example and beyond that featured episodes that dealt with things as dark as drug and domestic abuse and even featured a suicide in one episode – 9 of the episodes were actually cut from the Italian version for this very reason however for Japan the use of darker themes in Children’s media was only to continue to grow after this series.
Despite the obvious fan service (there’s a brainwashing cuckoo clock that makes girls take off their clothes in one episode, no joke!) in the series Meg was actually depicted as quite a strong female character, she is often outspoken during the series starting out a little brattish at worst but developing into someone willing to speak up for what she believes in. She is also very aware of her good looks, even boasting about the size of her breasts and using her charm to win over men in the opening song it was this kind of strong female character with a total awareness of her sexuality that the Magical Girl genre needed to help broaden the age range of it’s audience and the sort of characters the genre could produce in the future.
Watch the opening credits below and hear Meg sing all about her feminine charms!
