Esper Mami

A list of magical girl shows released between 1966 and 1998. Made using this awesome tumblr post: https://chiibinomonodamon.tumblr.com/post/99031991319/there-you-go-every-fcking-magical-girl-from

before sailor moon took the mahou shoujo genre by storm in the early 90's, many magical girl series were (in my opinion, anyway) often more like pre-cursors to the nichijou-kei/slice of life and kirara-kei/cute girls doing cute things genres that are popular today.

in a time of economic turmoil in japan, sailor moon was a perfect series to receive an anime adaptation because it could--theoretically--appeal to multiple markets across gender-genre lines, giving it a "two for one" value to its production committee members. for example, sailor moon was able to incorporate elements of popular battle series' (that, supposedly, appealed to young boys) into a story that was aesthetically and thematically more familiar to the (supposedly) young girl readership of shoujo manga. add to this stellar combination an appeal to the important consumer demographic of the "first otaku generation" of the 80's, especially in regard to sailor moon's denotation as a "BISHOUJO senshi" in a sailor suit, and the companies sponsoring that anime adaptation had a brilliant piece of intellectual property that had nearly endless potential for merchandising.

the older magical girl series', especially those released in the japan's economic bubble period of the 80's, were more directly focused on the latter two of the three demographics described above. yes, most of them were supposedly intended as entertainment for young girls, but as the bishoujo era of the 80's kicked off, production committees could no longer deny the popularity of shoujo manga and anime with otaku consumers.

this list will contain mahou shoujo anime series that premiered before the premiere of the sailor moon anime adaptation. i'll attempt to order them from most to least important to viewing the genre from this perspective, but certainly my personal biases will come into play, so yes, i'm putting minky momo before sally the witch. please forgive me.


FORMAT:
common english or alternative titles
seasons the listed anime ran through


for more info, i highly recommend patrick galbraith's book on Otaku and the struggle for imagination in japan:
https://www.dukeupress.edu/otaku-and-the-struggle-for-imagination-in-japan

sources and further reading:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160401013143/http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03904/
https://isaacmeyer.net/2014/07/episode-60-womens-activism-in-japan/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43553398
https://www.amazon.com/Animerica-Anime-Monthly-September-Spectacular/dp/B0072N4D60

Using this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLZYtFRoMGQ | Magical Girls Timeline 1966-2020] as reference for this stack, I made it in hopes it might help people who are into this genre find anime they haven't watched/didn't know existed yet.. or really just people who'd like to get into something new.

There are 4-5 anime I haven't included simply because they're ecchi and I really wanna try to keep this, well, non-ecchi.

Part 2 here: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15925

Part One: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/26446
Part Two: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/26448
Part Four: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/26476

Includes all* anime on the Anime+/GRAPH mahou shoujo/magical girl achievement list

Notes:
If the anime is saved under a different name in the original list (and the ID matches), the listed title is added as a comment. The anime will keep its place according to the list - even if it will no longer be alphabetically correct according to its main title on MAL. This is to make the job of checking and updating these much easier for me.

*The main stacks do NOT include hentai. This is both for people who want to avoid it, and because including it will significantly limit the stack. Please proceed to the Hentai Edition™ in the list below if you're into that.

Links:
★ Club - https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=67199
★ Original list - https://github.com/anime-plus/graph/blob/main/data/achievement/anime-mahou-shoujo.json
★ Watch order guides (you're gonna need them...) - https://chiaki.site/?/tools/watch_order

The whole series:
★ Part 01 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31473
★ Part 02 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31474
★ Part 03 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31475 <== you are here
★ Part 04 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31476
★ Part 05 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31477
★ Part 06 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31478
★ Part 07 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31479
★ Part 08 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31480
★ Part 09 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31481
★ Part 10 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31482
★ Part 11 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31483
★ Part 12 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31484
★ Part 13 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31485
★ Part 14 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31486
★ Hentai Edition for a) serious completionists and b) horny people - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/31496
★ Manga version - coming soon

Last updated: July 03, 2023
Feel free to let me know if something has been added and I haven't updated in a while, or if I've made a mistake somewhere! <3

This is a list of anime television series by episode count for series with a minimum of 100 episodes.

Took a lot of time to make this, hope you found a new show to watch or learnt something as there is a plethora of unique shows in this list.

(still in progress, sort of almost complete).

Includes black or dark-colored sailor uniforms. (serafuku/sailor fuku)

Part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/44071