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MG Project: Dark Magical Girls Part 2
Mar. 15th, 2012 09:17 amContinuing from my last post on Dark Magical Girls, here are some more minor trends I've noticed amongst the members of this character type. They're far from universal, but common enough to be noteworthy:
Heroine and DMG are unaware friends in their everyday lives: See this is the problem with being a protagonist who has multiple identities — sometimes your enemies also have multiple identities, leading to situations where you find out that your best friend from school is also secretly your mortal enemy whom you've been trying to kill all this time. This is a good source of drama and angst but also helps ease the redemption of the DMG, since she and the heroine already have a pre-existing connection. Examples of this DMG type include Pretty Sammy, Haruna from Corrector Yui, Nurse Witch Komugi, Jubei-chan, Magical Canan, and Fresh Precure. In some shows (Jubei, Fresh), the DMG has known all along about the heroine's true identity and is pretending to be her friend in order to screw her over, but of course this façade inevitably develops into genuine feelings of friendship. In other shows (Sammy, Komugi), the DMG doesn't know that she herself has dual identities since she always develops selective amnesia when she switches from her magical form to her muggle form.
Friend turned evil: A related trope is where one of the heroine's friends starts out as her ally but then turns over to the dark side for whatever reason. Sugar Sugar Rune, Onegai My Melody, Mai Otome, and the Black Rock Shooter OVA are all cases like this, where the heroine's best friend turns into a DMG and then has to be reconverted to the good side. Shamanic Princess is a milder example where the heroine and her best friend end up as rivals due to a conflict of interest.
There's also a variant where the heroine's friend will be possessed by an evil entity, either by force or via some kind of more-than-mind-control manipulation. Saturn/Mistress 9 from Sailor Moon, Misao from Sasami MG Club, and possibly Dead Master from the Black Rock Shooter OVA are examples of this, and actually come to think of it, I'd put Black Lady from Sailor Moon in this category too. I never thought of her as a DMG, but I declared parallelism with the heroine to be the necessary ingredient that distinguishes a DMG, and Black Lady certainly has plenty of that. Hell, she and Sailor Moon are even both trying to bang the same guy (sidenote: GROSS). At any rate, the "possession by evil" method is a good way of including a DMG without her having to do anything evil of her own free will, making her easier to redeem, and also eliminating the whole "are we supposed to just forget about all the evil shit she pulled in the past" problem.
Personality Types: Most DMGs tend to fall into one of two personality types; they're either cold, aloof, and stoic with secret angst, or they're bombastic, arrogant, and prone to letting off those "oh-ho-ho-ho" princess laughs. I suspect that Sailor Saturn was a big codifier of Type 1 since she's one of the earliest examples of it and since her show was hugely influential in general. Her descendants include Tsubami from Cyberteam in Akihabara, Ai from Corrector Yui, Fate form Nanoha, Utau from Shugo Chara, Eas from Fresh Precure, Dark Cure from Heartcatch, and Homura from PMMM. Type 1 seems to be the personality one commonly associates with DMGs, probably due to the influence of big-name DMGs like Saturn and Fate and all the Precure DMGs. For instance, when PMMM was setting up Homura as the decoy DMG — a character with all the hallmarks of a DMG who then turns out to be the hero — they chose to give her a Type 1 personality, which I think speaks to its status as the go-to personality of DMGs.
As for Type 2 DMGs, they tend to turn up in lighter and sillier Magical Girl shows — Pretty Sammy, Nurse Witch Komugi, Petite Princess Yucie, Majokko Tsukune-chan, Onegai My Melody, Getsumen to Heiki Mina, and PSG all have Type 2 DMGs. However there are a few Type 2s from more serious shows, like Kyoko from PMMM and Dead Master from BRS.
There are also a few DMGs who have one foot in both types: Rue from Princess Tutu is aloof and stoic in her civilian form, but gets more arrogant and haughty as Kraehe, and the very first DMG, Non, tended to be the cold Blue Oni to Meg's fiery Red Oni, but also had her share of hammy gloating villain moments.
ANGST: Another thing one tends to associate with the typical DMG is angstyness. While there are plenty of DMGs who aren't very angsty, it's true that a lot of them are, especially the big influential ones. Sailor Saturn was massively angsty, being a perpetually ill girl with a villainous dad who gets persecuted by her fellow scouts and who is doomed to end the world. Fate Testarossa is another iconically angsty DMG, what with all the parental abuse she endured. Rue from Princess Tutu also suffered parental abuse, and both she and Takako from Pretear were driven by romance-related angst. Nina from Mai-Otome and Utau from Shugo Chara both had unrequited incestuous love as their driving angst-force, and of course everybody angsted in PMMM, but Homura probably had the largest volume of angst out of everyone. Basically it would take quite a long time for me to discuss all the various angsty DMGs because indeed there are a massive amount of them! Making a DMG be angsty is an obvious choice because a) it can provide an explanation for why she's evil in the first place and/or b) it can make her more sympathetic and balance out her misdeeds so that we're happy when she gets redeemed.
Heroine and DMG are unaware friends in their everyday lives: See this is the problem with being a protagonist who has multiple identities — sometimes your enemies also have multiple identities, leading to situations where you find out that your best friend from school is also secretly your mortal enemy whom you've been trying to kill all this time. This is a good source of drama and angst but also helps ease the redemption of the DMG, since she and the heroine already have a pre-existing connection. Examples of this DMG type include Pretty Sammy, Haruna from Corrector Yui, Nurse Witch Komugi, Jubei-chan, Magical Canan, and Fresh Precure. In some shows (Jubei, Fresh), the DMG has known all along about the heroine's true identity and is pretending to be her friend in order to screw her over, but of course this façade inevitably develops into genuine feelings of friendship. In other shows (Sammy, Komugi), the DMG doesn't know that she herself has dual identities since she always develops selective amnesia when she switches from her magical form to her muggle form.
Friend turned evil: A related trope is where one of the heroine's friends starts out as her ally but then turns over to the dark side for whatever reason. Sugar Sugar Rune, Onegai My Melody, Mai Otome, and the Black Rock Shooter OVA are all cases like this, where the heroine's best friend turns into a DMG and then has to be reconverted to the good side. Shamanic Princess is a milder example where the heroine and her best friend end up as rivals due to a conflict of interest.
There's also a variant where the heroine's friend will be possessed by an evil entity, either by force or via some kind of more-than-mind-control manipulation. Saturn/Mistress 9 from Sailor Moon, Misao from Sasami MG Club, and possibly Dead Master from the Black Rock Shooter OVA are examples of this, and actually come to think of it, I'd put Black Lady from Sailor Moon in this category too. I never thought of her as a DMG, but I declared parallelism with the heroine to be the necessary ingredient that distinguishes a DMG, and Black Lady certainly has plenty of that. Hell, she and Sailor Moon are even both trying to bang the same guy (sidenote: GROSS). At any rate, the "possession by evil" method is a good way of including a DMG without her having to do anything evil of her own free will, making her easier to redeem, and also eliminating the whole "are we supposed to just forget about all the evil shit she pulled in the past" problem.
Personality Types: Most DMGs tend to fall into one of two personality types; they're either cold, aloof, and stoic with secret angst, or they're bombastic, arrogant, and prone to letting off those "oh-ho-ho-ho" princess laughs. I suspect that Sailor Saturn was a big codifier of Type 1 since she's one of the earliest examples of it and since her show was hugely influential in general. Her descendants include Tsubami from Cyberteam in Akihabara, Ai from Corrector Yui, Fate form Nanoha, Utau from Shugo Chara, Eas from Fresh Precure, Dark Cure from Heartcatch, and Homura from PMMM. Type 1 seems to be the personality one commonly associates with DMGs, probably due to the influence of big-name DMGs like Saturn and Fate and all the Precure DMGs. For instance, when PMMM was setting up Homura as the decoy DMG — a character with all the hallmarks of a DMG who then turns out to be the hero — they chose to give her a Type 1 personality, which I think speaks to its status as the go-to personality of DMGs.
As for Type 2 DMGs, they tend to turn up in lighter and sillier Magical Girl shows — Pretty Sammy, Nurse Witch Komugi, Petite Princess Yucie, Majokko Tsukune-chan, Onegai My Melody, Getsumen to Heiki Mina, and PSG all have Type 2 DMGs. However there are a few Type 2s from more serious shows, like Kyoko from PMMM and Dead Master from BRS.
There are also a few DMGs who have one foot in both types: Rue from Princess Tutu is aloof and stoic in her civilian form, but gets more arrogant and haughty as Kraehe, and the very first DMG, Non, tended to be the cold Blue Oni to Meg's fiery Red Oni, but also had her share of hammy gloating villain moments.
ANGST: Another thing one tends to associate with the typical DMG is angstyness. While there are plenty of DMGs who aren't very angsty, it's true that a lot of them are, especially the big influential ones. Sailor Saturn was massively angsty, being a perpetually ill girl with a villainous dad who gets persecuted by her fellow scouts and who is doomed to end the world. Fate Testarossa is another iconically angsty DMG, what with all the parental abuse she endured. Rue from Princess Tutu also suffered parental abuse, and both she and Takako from Pretear were driven by romance-related angst. Nina from Mai-Otome and Utau from Shugo Chara both had unrequited incestuous love as their driving angst-force, and of course everybody angsted in PMMM, but Homura probably had the largest volume of angst out of everyone. Basically it would take quite a long time for me to discuss all the various angsty DMGs because indeed there are a massive amount of them! Making a DMG be angsty is an obvious choice because a) it can provide an explanation for why she's evil in the first place and/or b) it can make her more sympathetic and balance out her misdeeds so that we're happy when she gets redeemed.
