[Reckoner]

Magical girl. When one hears this term they of course think of magic + girl. But is that all there is to the genre? There seems to be many different interpretations or traditions to this genre which differentiate shows from being magical and magical girl.

Some things I often hear from people about what defines magical girl are things like female dominated cast, magical powers, glorious transformation scenes, some sort of mascot or entity giving characters powers, etc.

However, is this really it? This just seems to be the traditional magical show in the past, something like Sailor Moon. I don't ever recall hearing a rule that mahou shoujo always needed to have fancy transformation sequences like Nanoha, or that it had to be practically devoid of male characters. This just seems to be rigid rules employed by traditionalists.

For all intents and purposes, why isn't Shana considered a magical girl show? Shana is a girl, wields supernatural powers, and even has a bit of a transformation. She's fighting some kind of destructive forces. Personally, I think the traditional approach to mahou shoujo is much too rigid.

So what do you think, AS users? What defines the magical girl genre for you? Why do we exclude titles like from Shana from it, for no apparent reasons?

Is even the recent Madoka a magical girl show? The show subverted many of the ideals of mahou shoujo, subverted many of the tropes. Its battles were weirdly magical, but not really atypical (Think of Homura's fighting style). Is this really a magical girl show either?