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Sunshine Revival 2025: Challenge 5.5
Jul. 18th, 2025 10:19 pmScreaming about some of my favorite things reminded me: I have a whole selection of other stuff I should talk about!
Specifically, I'm tackling magical girl stories that aren't super popular like Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Most of these are going to be comics or physical books, but there's a few TTRPGs to add as well!
Manga and Web Comics:
Phantom Thief Jeanne by Ariana Tanemura: A 90s manga blending the magical girls and phantom thieves with some Christian flavoring. Yeah, there are crosses and god, but you're not going to find any mention of Jesus, that's for sure. It's a darker magical girl story, more along the lines of the Sailor Moon manga.
New Magical Me by Prinnstar, Chuuney, and Greenie_Olivelie: Magical girls who defeat the big bad, grow up, and find themselves needing to come back together as working adults. Features a trans MC and very sweet friendships between the main characters. This is definitely a slow burn plot. If I were to compare it to a more popular series, I would say if Pretty Cure was targeted at adult women.
Books:
A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon: A Korean magical girl novella about a 29-year-old woman working dead-end jobs barely getting by who meets a gal dressed in really cute outfits and declares her destiny is to become a magical girl! Seolyeon does an amazing job bringing these characters to life, as wells as highlighting the struggle of being an adult stuck in dead-end jobs. There's such a quiet hope for a better world and better life in so few pages. It tops out at 154, so it's a fairly quick read.
MagnifiqueNoir by Brianna Lawrence: A two book series (so far) that is a love letter to magical girls featuring Black women. Book 1 follows the main characters coming together and learning to work as a team, while giving us a good look into their personal struggles as well as their day-to-day life as college students. Book 2 dives into the history of their mentor, the source of their powers, and who is the mysterious Prism Pink. MagnifiqueNoir lovingly shows it's inspirations on it's sleeve, from anime to video games. Also, the insert images are fantastic!
TTRPGs:
Glitter Hearts by Greg L: A RPG system where you and a group can play your own magical girl stories a la Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon. It's for 3-6 players.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians: You get to play disaster lesbians with a heavy focus on emotions and building relationships. While it's not magical girls exactly, it still can be played that way and exudes the best qualities of the genre anyway (love, friendship, acceptance, etc). It runs on the Powered by the Apocalypse system, which tends to be a bit simpler than the usual d20 systems like Dungeons and Dragons. I haven't gotten a chance to play it since I only recently picked up a copy of it, but if nothing else, check it out for the sick art!
Hopesworn: A solo RPG where you play as the last surviving magical girl of your team trying to protect what's left. It's a hack of Ironsworn, and still a bit unfinished as of now, but I genuinely like the concept of the game and hope it continues development.
Magical Girls
Specifically, I'm tackling magical girl stories that aren't super popular like Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Most of these are going to be comics or physical books, but there's a few TTRPGs to add as well!
Manga and Web Comics:
Phantom Thief Jeanne by Ariana Tanemura: A 90s manga blending the magical girls and phantom thieves with some Christian flavoring. Yeah, there are crosses and god, but you're not going to find any mention of Jesus, that's for sure. It's a darker magical girl story, more along the lines of the Sailor Moon manga.
New Magical Me by Prinnstar, Chuuney, and Greenie_Olivelie: Magical girls who defeat the big bad, grow up, and find themselves needing to come back together as working adults. Features a trans MC and very sweet friendships between the main characters. This is definitely a slow burn plot. If I were to compare it to a more popular series, I would say if Pretty Cure was targeted at adult women.
Books:
A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon: A Korean magical girl novella about a 29-year-old woman working dead-end jobs barely getting by who meets a gal dressed in really cute outfits and declares her destiny is to become a magical girl! Seolyeon does an amazing job bringing these characters to life, as wells as highlighting the struggle of being an adult stuck in dead-end jobs. There's such a quiet hope for a better world and better life in so few pages. It tops out at 154, so it's a fairly quick read.
MagnifiqueNoir by Brianna Lawrence: A two book series (so far) that is a love letter to magical girls featuring Black women. Book 1 follows the main characters coming together and learning to work as a team, while giving us a good look into their personal struggles as well as their day-to-day life as college students. Book 2 dives into the history of their mentor, the source of their powers, and who is the mysterious Prism Pink. MagnifiqueNoir lovingly shows it's inspirations on it's sleeve, from anime to video games. Also, the insert images are fantastic!
TTRPGs:
Glitter Hearts by Greg L: A RPG system where you and a group can play your own magical girl stories a la Pretty Cure and Sailor Moon. It's for 3-6 players.
Thirsty Sword Lesbians: You get to play disaster lesbians with a heavy focus on emotions and building relationships. While it's not magical girls exactly, it still can be played that way and exudes the best qualities of the genre anyway (love, friendship, acceptance, etc). It runs on the Powered by the Apocalypse system, which tends to be a bit simpler than the usual d20 systems like Dungeons and Dragons. I haven't gotten a chance to play it since I only recently picked up a copy of it, but if nothing else, check it out for the sick art!
Hopesworn: A solo RPG where you play as the last surviving magical girl of your team trying to protect what's left. It's a hack of Ironsworn, and still a bit unfinished as of now, but I genuinely like the concept of the game and hope it continues development.
