Panel Beating is going to be a series of posts about notes and thoughts on convention panels I’m working on.
I’m working on a panel for Ayacon about the relationship between wrestling and anime/manga. Looking at the two BIG peaks of joshi pro-wrestling, namely the Beauty Pair and the Crush Gals, I was curious in how that was reflected in girls anime of the time. Particularly given that I knew two series with wrestling influences (Cutie Honey, Pretty Cure) come from eras when joshi wasn’t that big a success.
Going back to the TV Asahi top anime survey of 2005, there aren’t any Magical Girl shows from those peak periods. The top Magical Girl anime from that list were:
1) Sailor Moon 1992-1997
2) Sally The Witch 1966-1968, 1989-1991
3) Pretty Cure 2004-
4) Magical DoReMi 1999-2003
5) Cutie Honey 1973-1974, 1997-1998
6) Card Captor Sakura 1998-2000
7) Majokko Megu-chan 1974-1975
8) Himitsu Akko-chan 1969-1970, 1988-89, 1998-99
There were two obvious omissions that surprised me from that survey – Magical Princess Minky Momo (1982-83, 1991-92) and Creamy Mami (1983-84). Both did show up in the accompanying web poll though.
Are there other shows pre-2005 that are worth mentioning in terms of popularity (ignoring all the post-Sailor Moon deconstrutions from Sailor Moon alumni like Utena, Princess Tutu, Pretear etc).
I’m particularly interested in any popular shows from 76-79 and 84-89 where fighting bad guys was the focus as opposed to age-shift wish fulfilment. Was there any need for this sort of story when girls were getting that story, in the flesh, from All Japan Women?
What post 2005 additions would you expect to show up a survey around 2015? As much as it has the current fan fervour around it, Puella Magi Madoka Magica strikes me as less likely to be fondly remembered en masse as Shugo Chara.