Ryu-B said:Risa92 said:
I wouldn't say it's a norm tho. There are still new Pretty Cure seasons every year, a remake of Sailor Moon and a remake of Tokyo Mew Mew. Even without the remakes, there are still all the Pretty Cure seasons.
My spicy take on it is that Madoka wasn't the first to do that by any means. It was just "easier to recognize" that it's dark, because of the tone it set.
The Sailor Moon manga btw got pretty dark while it has been made for a much younger audience ... and Madoka took some inspiration from the Sailor Moon manga imo, especially from later arcs / Hotaru's and Setsuna's backstories and functions in the story. Everybody feared the awaking of the true form of Mad... I mean Saturn, because that could have had disturb space-time and bring ruin over the world, and then there is Setsuna being caught at a space-time portal she has to watch over.
It's not bad to get inspiration from other media, but people act like Madoka was the first and unlike everything that has existed ever before.
Also there had been Utena and Princess Tutu long before Madoka existed
Oh! Hello :). Of course, Madoka wasn't the first to do the dark magical girl thing. As you said, Sailor Moon, Utena and Princess Tutu (personal favourite) did it before. There is even things like Shamanic Princess (series of OVAs), that's overall darker than any of the Mahou Shoujo of its time. And it's not like a bunch of Mahou Shoujo don't deal with things like death or gloomier subjects, but it is true that after PMMM, a wave of this style of magical girls became more popular. There is nothing wrong with it, but it's not of my personal preference. It's kinda like what happened with Sailor Moon at the time: yes, the Magical Girl already existed before this anime/manga, but from there on a wave of magical girls with slight inspiration on it came to be.
And yes, there is Pretty Cure coming out every year, but that's mostly the only new
new thing that comes out of the genre (or at least in anime form, there is manga out there too), and well, I guess this might also be a hot take, but Pretty Cure isn't precisely my favourite franchise lolol. Once again, nothing wrong with it, but I feel like it doesn't quite appeal to me, at least from the ones I watched (Futari wa, Max Heart, Smile, DeliPa), perhaps I haven't watched the right Pretty Cure for me?
The point I'm trying to reach here is that it'd be nice to see more of the cutesy Mahou Shoujo. Maybe that won't necesarily happen right now, but the remakes of SM and TMM are one step in that direction. I guess it makes sense that the Magical Girl as a genre came in this direction though, since after having so many cutesy series, it's interesting to give it a twist like this. But well...I personally prefer the cute stuff, or at least the less gory stuff (?).