Majokko Meg-chan

Meg's a Magical Girl and she'll steal your heart!

Majokko Meg-chan is an early Magical Girl Anime. Based on a proposal by the production company Hiromi Productions, a TV series was made by Toei Animation in 1974. This particular story codified many of the tropes that would later become staples of the Magical Girl genre.

The story centers on Meg, a young witch who has been sent to Earth as part of her Magical Girl Queenliness Test. She is adopted by former witch Mami Kanzaki and her muggle family and spends the series learning about human relationships, battling magical enemies, and maturing into a woman worthy of claiming the throne of the Witch World.

In addition to its success in Japan, the series was later broadcast in several European countries, including Italy (where the heroine was renamed Bia and where the show is still fondly remembered), France, and Poland. It was also dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese, but there is no official English version.

Tropes used in Majokko Meg-chan include:

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Chou has light blue skin.
• Animals Hate Him: Chou is hated by all animals, save for his two sidekicks of course. Gombei initially dislikes Non, but warms up to her after saving her life and realizing that she's Meg's friend...kind of.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Rabi
• Big Bad: Saturn
• Big Friendly Dog: Gombei
• Bragging Theme Tune: Similar to that of Cutey Honey - in fact, even sung by the same vocalist (Yoko Maekawa).
  • This time, the narrator (Meg) does the boasting herself, bragging about how her breasts are proof that she can do anything and how she can manipulate boys into doing what she wants.
• Butt Monkey: Chou, the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
• Cats Are Mean: One of Chou's sidekicks is a cat.
• Coming of Age Story: Doubling as Magical Girl Queenliness Test
• Cute Witch: One of the first.
• Darker and Edgier and Hotter and Sexier: Specially when compared to other series. How so?
  • It included a truly evil character as an antagonist (Saturn). Prior to this, there was a perception that young girls couldn't handle such things.
  • The subplots sometimes touched more serious social issues like Domestic Abuse, extramarital relationships, drug abuse, Parental Abandonment, etc.. For this reason, nine of the 72 episodes were cut from the Italian version.
  • Meg not only lost fights, but she had to face serious consequences (deaths, injuries, humiliations, etc.) that couldn't be undone with magic.
  • It featured Fan Service in the form of Panty Shots, slight nudity, a blatantly Les Yay-tastic relationship between Megu and Non, and Megu being a Fille Fatale. It also included Lovable Sex Maniac characters (Megu's stepbrother Rabi and Dirty Old Man Chou).
• Dark Magical Girl: Non, also among the first ones.
• Dirty Old Man: Chou
• Driven to Suicide: In one particularly dark episode, a newspaper boy ends up jumping off a bridge to his death.
• Hair Decorations: Meg wears a yellow flower in her hair.
• Fan Service: Quite a lot for its time.
• Fiery Redhead: Meg
• Fille Fatale: Also Meg. The girl is pretty aware of her good looks, is coquettish and outspoken (unlike the more mellow heroines of the time) and the OP of the series has her singing about using her beauty to woo the guys and get what she wants from them.
• Flying Broomstick
• Girlish Pigtails: Two of Meg's friends, Roko and Emi.
  • Also Leon, a mischievous witch-in-training that drops by once.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: This is how Meg and Non usually cast magic.
• Hypnotize the Princess: Chou comes up with a brainwashing device that makes girls take off their clothes. Meg falls under its influx and starts stripping... until Non destroys it. Interestingly, this episode was NOT one of the ones cut out in the European versions.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rabi and Non; Meg herself qualifies to an extent for a good part of the series too.
• Loveable Sex Maniac: Meg's stepbrother, Rabi.
• Magical Girl Queenliness Test: The reason for Meg's journey to Earth and the source of her rivalry with Non.
  • They BOTH fail in the end and are sent back to Earth for further training - Meg, having grown to love her human family and friends, is overjoyed; Non, not so much.
• Mini-Dress of Power: Meg and Non both wear these, but only Non's comes with knee-high boots.
• Ms. Fanservice: Meg - though often unwittingly.
• Muggle Foster Parents: Toyed with. Since Mami is actually an ex-witch, after taking Meg in she uses her magic to trick everyone into thinking Meg is the Kanzaki's eldest daughter instead of Mami's protegée.
• Off-Model: The show's animation is pretty poor in general and there is barely an episode without any glaring animation mistakes. One particular bad example is one medium shot (!) where the animators forgot to put Meg's still frame into the scene, so she just suddenly appears out of nowhere when it's her turn to talk.
• Ravens and Crows: Chou's other sidekick is a crow.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Meg and Non, who are Color Coded for Your Convenience.
• The Rival: Non. However...
  • Rivals Team Up: Meg and Non end up working together at times.
• Sempai Kouhai: Leon sees Meg as her sempai.
• Shout-Out: One episode shows Meg watching Cutey Honey on the television.
  • In another episode, a model of Great Mazinger is seen in the window of a toy shop. Cutey Honey and Mazinger were both also Toei Animation shows.
• Sugar and Ice Personality: Non.
• Team Rocket Wins: One gets the impression that the producers of the show wanted continue past the last episode, as it concludes with both Meg and Non failing their test and being sent BACK to Earth all because Chou manipulates them, and he gets off scot-free for it. Of course, considering his extreme Butt Monkey status, one could consider this a Throw the Dog a Bone moment.
• Tomboy: Meg, especially compared to other heroines of the time like Sally Yumeno, Mako Urashima or Akko Kagami.
  • Non, whose hobby is wearing a black leather jumpsuit and riding around on a motorcycle, may also qualify.
• Too Hot for TV: At least nine episodes were considered such, in Italy, and the episodes that were dubbed sometimes featured edits for content. This carried over into the Polish and Portuguese dubs, which were based on the Italian.
• What Is This Thing You Call Love?: The witch world doesn't have families, so at first Meg has a hard time understanding the love her Muggle Foster Family feels towards her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Meg and Non by the end, so very much. A Type II example.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Non