Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku - Volume 10 - Chapter 3

Magical Girl Tropes

It happened in the magical-girl chat.

“I’ve always been drawn to magical girls,” said Snow White. “So I’m glad I could become a real one myself.”

“You really are quite gung ho about magical-girl work, aren’t you, Snow White?” said Sister Nana.

“I’ve watched nothing but magical-girl anime ever since I was little—I grew up on it. I rented DVDs of old anime and practiced the famous lines and everything.”

“Old magical-girl anime? Like Miko-Chan?”

“No, the first generation of Cutie Healer.”

“Ahh, right, the younger generations consider that old…”

“I memorized all the special poses and lines from all her scenes!”

“Yeah, so did I,” La Pucelle added. “And all of Cutie Healer’s special moves.”

“You too, La Pucelle?” said Snow White.

“Like Cutie Arrow, and Cutie Spear Charge… That takes me back. I was practically glued to the TV watching it.”

“I was more into memorizing lines than moves.”

“Cutie Healer does have such cool lines, too, after all,” agreed Sister Nana.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right!” Snow White gushed. “When the villains are causing a scene, she’ll appear with a bam and strike a pose like this. And then the line goes…‘The white healer who presides over purity, Cutie Pearl! The black healer who presides over passion, Cutie Onyx! O tragic dolls with broken hearts, we shall heal your souls!’”

“Ohh, wow, Snow White,” said La Pucelle. “You nailed it!”

“Indeed, that’s precisely how it went,” said Sister Nana. “I’m impressed you remember.”

“Eh-heh-heh, I practiced it lots. I can also do Cutie Healer Stripe! ‘The black-and-white hybrid who races across the savanna, Cutie Zebra! The black-and-white mix who rules over bamboo forests, Cutie Panda! The black-and-white adventurer who crosses the great seas, Cutie Orca! The black-and-white shuffler who slides across floes of ice, Cutie Penguin! White and black, both are righteous, both are beautiful! We won’t let you choose just one!’”

“Whoa!” marveled La Pucelle. “That’s the later version that has all the extra warriors, too, isn’t it?”

“I’m impressed you remember each and every individual pose,” said Sister Nana.

“And I know the ones for your favorite, too, La Pucelle—Cutie Healer Galaxy.”

“Uh, I’m not sure I’d call it my favorite…”

“Come on, let’s do it together!”

“Huh…? Guess I have no choice. Okay…ahem. ‘How foolish, Cutie Healers. Your struggle will only bring joy to the Space Chaos…’”

“Wait, no, La Pucelle! That’s Dark Cutie!”

“Huh? Uh, yeah, it is.”

“If we’re doing it together, that obviously means Cutie Vega and Cutie Altair.”

“That’s not really obvious… And I like Dark Cutie better.”

“It’s weird to like a villain when you’re a knight of justice.”

“It’s fiction, so can’t I like a villain if I want?”

“I can sympathize,” Sister Nana cut in.

“Huh? You can, Sister Nana?” asked Snow White.

“Do you know the old anime The Bandit and the Princess?”

“Oh yeah,” said Snow White. “I saw it once a long time ago, on a kids’ anime special during the summer. The bandit kidnaps the princess, and then they grow closer while they’re living together—that’s how it went, right?”

“I remember that, too!” said La Pucelle. “The princess is so cute!”

“Living an earnest life without committing any sins, I sometimes think…I’d like to be forcibly kidnapped by someone.”

“H-hold up there, Sister Nana,” said La Pucelle. “This is drifting off topic.”

“Do pardon me. Well, then, what you said, Snow White, has made me curious about something.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“Your Cutie Healer lines and poses were all wonderful. But if you’re such a magical-girl fan…then wouldn’t you have made up your own original lines and poses for personal use?”

“Huh? Oh, right… Actually…”

“You did, huh?” said La Pucelle. “Might as well show us, then. I wanna see.”

“Stop it, La Pucelle. It’s embarrassing.”

“But you’re a real magical girl, so there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Indeed,” Sister Nana agreed. “I’d like to see your poses as well, Snow White.”

“You…do? Okay, then…ahem. For love! For friendship! For the world! Anywhere and anytime, I will solve your troubles! The magical girl who takes on every request: Snow White!”

“Oooh!”

“The sequence of poses is quite amazing.”

“I like it.”

“The movements are so complex, but you pulled them off so smoothly,” said La Pucelle.

“Well…I practiced a lot. Hey, La Pucelle. Don’t make me the only one to do it. You show me yours, too.”

“But I haven’t come up with an original line or pose, though.”

“Booo, you’re no fun.”

“I see…,” said Sister Nana. “Well, then, how about we try coming up with some right now?”

“That’s a great idea!” said Snow White.

“C’mon, you guys don’t have to force it…”

“This isn’t forcing it,” said Sister Nana. “If we all pool our knowledge, I’m sure we’ll get good ideas out of it. For example, Winterprison, what sort of pose would you do?”

“Huh?” said Winterprison.

“Please, give it a try.”

“O-okay… Um, hmm… In that case, I’d plant my feet like this and spin around my arms and… Traaans…form! Hyah!”

“That…wasn’t very magical girl–like…,” said Sister Nana.

“Yeah, more like a tokusatsu hour on TV,” said La Pucelle.

“Sorry…”

“O-oh, no… Please don’t apologize,” said Sister Nana.

“Yeah!” Snow White agreed. “Let’s all brainstorm something together.”

The four magical girls’ discussion continued a long while after that. Privately, La Pucelle was thankful to her magical-girl friends for putting so much serious thought into her poses.

Snow White mobilized all her knowledge of magical-girl anime old and new, racking her brain. “The catchphrase from Help Me! Hiyoko-Chan! is good because it’s such a contrast from how she’s normally a crybaby, right? So then how about if you were normally always crying, La Pucelle?”

Sister Nana proposed making up a narrative for her character. “A dragon’s curse is gradually turning you into a dragon. Occasionally even your mind starts being affected, and you lose sight of yourself, and in despair, you fall into darkness… Don’t you think that’s a good one?”

Winterprison came up with the basic plan for her. “Let’s have some intense actions to make it a moving spectacle. And for that, first of all, you have to train yourself to be able to handle those intense actions. I figure practicing that while also training to protect those dearest to you would be killing two birds with one stone.”

All sorts of various arguments were put forth, leading to a fierce exchange. There were some blips in the discussion, like how at one point Tama showed up in the chat room, got scared, and immediately left, but in the end they were able to come up with a wonderful catchphrase that satisfied all of them.

“I come forth! And draw my blade!” Using her chat room avatar, which had not only short limbs but also limited movement, La Pucelle executed the actions beautifully as she drew her sword. “The magic knight, La Pucelle, is here! Villains who suck blood and devour flesh, feel my holy blade of judgment!”

She quickly raised her sword aloft, and then a few seconds later the chat room was filled with the applause command.

“Cool!”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“It’s wonderful.”

“Thanks so much, everyone. Seriously, I appreciate it a lot.”

Thanking everyone again, La Pucelle left the chat, and her partner Snow White followed after her. But the story did not end there.

The logs in the magical-girl chat were saved, which multiple magical girls browsed that evening. The discussion had left an impression on all of them to some extent. Anyone who had played Magical Girl Raising Project to the point of becoming a magical girl would be somewhat invested in magical-girl culture. They wanted to pull off beautiful and cool poses and catchphrases just like the magical girls they admired and looked forward to seeing on TV every week. The girls browsing the logs really believed all that.

  La Pucelle

They’d all put their heads together to think up a catchphrase and pose for her. Personal bias aside, La Pucelle thought they had turned out great, on par with those from any magical-girl anime.

But she did get the feeling they leaned a little too heavily in the battle heroine direction. That was fine if she was doing them on her own. La Pucelle was a knight, and knights were made for fighting. The problem was that when she did them with Snow White, their poses and catchphrases were too different, and they wouldn’t mesh. Snow White’s were gentle and pleasant, while La Pucelle’s were sharp and crisp. This wouldn’t match. She couldn’t tell Snow White to change hers to match La Pucelle, so La Pucelle should come up with a catchphrase and pose that would match hers.

La Pucelle wasn’t going to throw away this catchphrase and pose when they’d all gone to the trouble to come up with them together. So she decided to have two sets, and use one or the other depending on the situation. She could manage both by using one for everyday life scenes and one for battle scenes.

“Um, Koyuki will be over here, so I… Maybe like this? Or I could shift that before or after… The sword’s dangerous, so I’ll go with a reverse grip and hold it in this hand… That’ll sort of balance things out… Maybe we ought to…s-stand closer together? No, actually, that’s kinda almost too close… Not like I have any ulterior motives, of course!”

After spending the entire night thinking over the sequence, Souta Kishibe fell asleep in math class the next day and wound up experiencing the humiliation of being made to stand in the hallway, even as a middle schooler.

  Sister Nana

“The chat yesterday was fun, wasn’t it?” asked Sister Nana.

“Yeah,” Winterprison agreed.

“And then after that we stopped by the video store and rented The Bandit and the Princess. That was fun, too.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen it. It was a lot different from what I remembered. When I was little, I was so afraid of the bandit, but watching it now, he actually isn’t so bad.”

“You’ll kidnap me like that, too, won’t you, Winterprison?”

“Uh, well, I… Anyway, uh, about La Pucelle. Good thing we managed to come up with an original pose and catchphrase for her, huh?”

“Yes, indeed… Watching her, I felt rather envious.”

“How so?”

“I mean, we don’t have poses or catchphrases, do we?”

“I don’t really think we need them.”

“Please, don’t say that. It makes me sad.”

“Sad? Was it? I don’t mean to make you sad, Sister Nana.”

“I appreciate that, Winterprison. But might you at least consider the idea for me?”

“All right. How about this? ‘My name is Winterprison, protector of Her Holiness. You’re looking cute as ever, Sister Nana.’”

“The first part was fine…but wouldn’t you say that last remark is a bit too personal?”

“‘You who would harm this holy lady, your destination is a jail of ice, and I, Weiss Winterprison, shall be your jailer. Everything I do is for your sake, Sister Nana.’”

“Can you stop bringing up my name? It sounds more like you’re talking to me.”

“I am talking to you, so it’s fine.”

“I think normally, these catchphrases are supposed to be all-purpose, so you can say them to anyone.”

“I just don’t feel the need to introduce myself to anyone but you.”

“Oh, my… I’m delighted.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Tee-hee.”

“Oh, you.”

“Tee-hee-hee-hee.”

  Peaky Angels

“Sis, sis, did you see the chat log on this day?”

“I did, I did! Just what the heck were these guys doing?”

“Practicing their entrance scenes is so dumb, huh.”

“Rehearsing the same stuff over and over, it’s like, is this a preschool talent show, or what?”

“Seriously. We could do something way cooler and way more tasteful.”

“Totally, totally, we totally could. We’d nail it no matter what.”

“You’re magi-flexible, sis.”

“We’re adaptable like that because our ability is transformation. Like we’re barely toeing the line of legality in a way other magical girls can’t imitate.”

“You’re magi-illegal, sis.”

“The two of us together are invincible, right?”

“You’re magi-invincible, sis.”

“So I come out from the right side like this.”

“So then I’m on the left, huh?”

“Call us and here we come!”

“Even if you don’t call, you’ll still get some!”

“We’re number one!”

“The Peaky…Angels!”

“Zip!”

“Zip, zip!”

“Pooose!”

“Cool!”

“Hey, you two!” a different voice interrupted.

“Ack, you startled me!”

“Oh, it’s Ruler.”

“What do you mean, ‘Oh’? Good grief, you two are such fools. You’ll never get anywhere if you get so worked up over irrational nonsense like poses and catchphrases all the time. Have a little more ambition as magical girls, and as people, too. All right? You got that?”

“Tsk.”

“Come on, why d’you have to gripe about our poses? We worked so hard to come up with those.”

“And you pose every single time you use your magic, too…”

“Did you say something?”

“Nothiiing!”

“Nooope!”

  Top Speed

“On Team Top Speed! First-generation boss Top Speed! Talk shit, get hit!”

“…What the…?”

“Look, Ripple, it’s the pose and catchphrase everyone’s talkin’ about now! Badass, right?”

“Yours doesn’t seem like a magical-girl thing…”

“Ya think? I thought it was pretty good, though.”

“And in the first place, what’s Team Top Speed…?”

“Well, it’s you and me.”

“I don’t remember joining this team…”

“Sheesh, hot and cold as ever.”

“Tsk.”

“C’mon now, don’t be mad, Ripple. I’ll help ya come up with a cool pose and catchphrase.”

“I don’t need them…”

“Really? Don’t ya?”

“No.”

“Aww, I think ya do, though.”

  Ripple

Ripple wouldn’t say that a magical girl didn’t need a pose and catchphrase. But that only applied to magical girls in anime, and not those in real life. A real-life magical girl did not need a pose and a catchphrase—because they were embarrassing. Just thinking about being forced to use them made her shiver in horror.

But in the chat log, Snow White’s pose and catchphrase had worked so well. Maybe because she was more like an anime magical girl than a real-life one. Yes, that had to be it. If other magical girls did such a thing, it would obviously look like a disgrace.

Lounging around in her room, Kano transformed into Ripple on a whim, and for no real reason stood in front of her full-length mirror, gazing at the form reflected there—at her sculpted face, the perfectly balanced proportions, her costume. It was a bold image, but also one that suited her.

The magic ninja: Ripple.

“The f-fate of… The fate…of a…”

No. Don’t be shy. Throw away your shame. Ripple filled her tone with spirit and tensed her gut. Sticking up her index and middle fingers, she sandwiched shuriken between them. Getting down on one knee, she brought her right hand in front of her face.

“The fate of a villain is to live in darkness, to die in darkness! And the fate of the ninja is to finish off those who make to leave their cave in search of light, the most villainous of all! Before you die, the magic ninja Ripple shall let you witness her secret technique. Take this as your gift to the lord of the underworld!”

“Ripple, what are you doing, pon?”

Ripple, who had been facing the mirror, slowly turned around. A hologram rose up from the magical phone that she’d left on top of her futon, and the mascot was staring over at her with his expressionless eyes.

Ripple silently got to her feet, picked up the magical phone, and turned it off. She sighed, detransformed, crawled into her futon, shoved a pillow against her face, and screamed.

“AHHHHHHHH!”

  Calamity Mary

Seeing the chat log everyone had been talking about, she thought: These kids are crazy.

Shrieking and chittering together, they babbled on about how magical girls needed poses and catchphrases. She couldn’t understand it. They said they’d think some up.

Had there ever been a scene in Little Witch Riccabel where the protagonist had thought up her own transformation poses or catchphrases? Searching all through the memories of her childhood and thinking back, Naoko found no such thing. Riccabel didn’t have to think about it—it had always been there.

Naoko Yamamoto set her glass on the table and stood. Then she chanted the spell that had naturally come to mind when Fav had told her that she had become a magical girl.

“Calamity Miracle Kuru Kururin! Transform into the magical gunslinger, Calamity Mary!”

She posed and looked in the mirror. The beautiful, ferocious lady gunslinger was reflected back at her. This was how you had to use a spell and transformation pose. It wasn’t something to use as a topic for chummy conversation with your buddies. You should just use it in secret, without anyone ever seeing.

Calamity Mary gave a thin smile and winked at the mirror.