Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami

If you've ever seen an anime and thought, "Wow, this anime has really good background art", and "Wow, this episode preview at the end looks amazing!" chances are it was made by Shichiro Kobayashi. An icon of Japanese animation, Kobayashi has had a fruitful career spanning over thirty years as the art director for several iconic shows. While known generally for his vibrant and highly detailed palettes, Kobayashi brought the animation technique known as "postcard memories" or "harmonies" to life alongside director and innovator Osamu Dezaki and character designer Akio Sugino, which are cels of animation superimposed with gouache to give off a lasting image.

Kobayashi's influence defined anime background art, and his output has been replicated by other art directors since—his own studio, Kobayashi Production, consists of students and proteges alike that have equally contributed to formative works in anime.

The following list is a selection of shows that contains Kobayashi's most notable and prettiest backgrounds, and I highly encourage you to check them out.

Documentary on Kobayashi: https://youtu.be/V1tiKOsCz2M
Kobayashi Production's credits: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/company.php?id=1460

If there's any person who defined the archetypal 80s anime character art style, Akemi Takada would be a strong contender. Debuting in the industry as a guest character designer for Ippatsu Kanta-kun, Takada would be assigned as the main character designer only a year later for the sequel of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, a show she was a fan of during her university years. After four years of working for Tatsunoko, Takada went freelance and truly hit her stride with her involvement in the adaptation of Urusei Yatsura, adapting Rumiko Takahashi's art style to an anime format (she was responsible for turning Lum's rainbow-colored hair into the trademark teal it is known today). Takada would later work on another Takahashi adaptation, taking after Yuuji Moriyama stepped down from the character designer role in Episode 28 of Maison Ikkoku.

Takada has a quite interesting evolution in her art style over the years. One way of comparison is through how different her character design of Lum looked from Episode 1 in contrast to her appearance in the later episodes of the series. Over time Takada's style would get more individuality, her characters more model-like, their eyes getting softer and gentler, their fashion sense more pronounced and elegant. This is most evident in her character designs for Kimagure Orange Road in 1987, which can be considered a culmination of her style and possesses many of the features that her characters have had ever since.

Like other interest stacks I have created, the following list is a selection of her most important works in chronological order. She is one of my favorite character designers ever, so I hope you consider checking them out. Or at least buy one of her artbooks.

Halcyon Realms's La Madonna artbook review - http://halcyonrealms.com/anime/la-madonna-takada-akemi-art-book-review/
Character design sheets for Maison Ikkoku - https://www.catsuka.com/gengal/artworks//maison_ikkoku
Lum's character design + a podcast about Urusei Yatsura in the thread - https://twitter.com/bunnycartoon/status/1260227769298026503

Based on the popular magical girl inphographic guide https://i.imgur.com/vFQ3vaZ.jpeg with notes attached to each entry

This is split into 2 Categories:
B. (starts with Utena) I've only seen Madoka Magica and I want to learn more about the genre, but idk if I'm ready for kids' shows.
If at the end you're ready to explore the mahou shoujo genre in full force, jump to Category A.

A. (starts with Precure) I like cute stuff and the magical girls aesthetic, and I can actually handle stuff aimed at little girls.
If at the end this isn't enough for you, congrats, you're into mahou shoujo and you should start doing your own research.

A list of magical girl shows released between 1966 and 1998. Made using this awesome tumblr post: https://chiibinomonodamon.tumblr.com/post/99031991319/there-you-go-every-fcking-magical-girl-from

Anime aired in Spain's TV channels (public or private), listed with the Spanish title. Might be missing some or be messy: I wanted to add the most important but also the less obvious. Excluding most sequels & movies.

IMPORTANT: Check part 2, 3, 4 and 5 + OVA.

-------------------------------------------------------

ES: Anime emitido en los canales públicos o privados de la televisión de España, con sus títulos en español. Pueden faltar algunos animes o estar desordenados: he querido añadir lo más importante pero también lo menos obvio. Excluyendo la mayoría de películas y secuelas.

IMPORTANTE: Ver parte 2, 3, 4, 5 + OVA.


key words: canal sur, animax, k3, tve, neox, clan, tele5, jetix, buzz, boomerang, tvc, cuatro, lasexta, antena 3, cartoon network, castilla la mancha tv, televisió de catalunya, canal plus, autonómica, local, canal 9, locomotion.

part 2: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/7353
part 3: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/7361
part 4: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/7562
part 5: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/8140
OVA: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/8137

List of anime with pretty colors, cute characters or pets/mascots.

before sailor moon took the mahou shoujo genre by storm in the early 90's, many magical girl series were (in my opinion, anyway) often more like pre-cursors to the nichijou-kei/slice of life and kirara-kei/cute girls doing cute things genres that are popular today.

in a time of economic turmoil in japan, sailor moon was a perfect series to receive an anime adaptation because it could--theoretically--appeal to multiple markets across gender-genre lines, giving it a "two for one" value to its production committee members. for example, sailor moon was able to incorporate elements of popular battle series' (that, supposedly, appealed to young boys) into a story that was aesthetically and thematically more familiar to the (supposedly) young girl readership of shoujo manga. add to this stellar combination an appeal to the important consumer demographic of the "first otaku generation" of the 80's, especially in regard to sailor moon's denotation as a "BISHOUJO senshi" in a sailor suit, and the companies sponsoring that anime adaptation had a brilliant piece of intellectual property that had nearly endless potential for merchandising.

the older magical girl series', especially those released in the japan's economic bubble period of the 80's, were more directly focused on the latter two of the three demographics described above. yes, most of them were supposedly intended as entertainment for young girls, but as the bishoujo era of the 80's kicked off, production committees could no longer deny the popularity of shoujo manga and anime with otaku consumers.

this list will contain mahou shoujo anime series that premiered before the premiere of the sailor moon anime adaptation. i'll attempt to order them from most to least important to viewing the genre from this perspective, but certainly my personal biases will come into play, so yes, i'm putting minky momo before sally the witch. please forgive me.


FORMAT:
common english or alternative titles
seasons the listed anime ran through


for more info, i highly recommend patrick galbraith's book on Otaku and the struggle for imagination in japan:
https://www.dukeupress.edu/otaku-and-the-struggle-for-imagination-in-japan

sources and further reading:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160401013143/http://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03904/
https://isaacmeyer.net/2014/07/episode-60-womens-activism-in-japan/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43553398
https://www.amazon.com/Animerica-Anime-Monthly-September-Spectacular/dp/B0072N4D60

Studio Pierrot produced various Mahou Shoujo series between 1983 and 2006 that ended up being called the "Studio Pierrot Magical Girls".

"Tokyo Mew Mew" and "Sugar Sugar Rune" can count or not depending on the point of view because they have little to nothing in common with the other series.

Compiling older magical girl in case anybody wants to do a deep dive into the genre. Anything before 2000.

In 2012, The Asahi Shimbun announced the 104 TV anime that they considered to be the most representative and memorable of all TV anime between 1963 and 2012. It's a good starting point for exploring general TV anime history, and the shows are all worth giving a shot. The list was not ranked, and ordered by release date.

(70s): https://myanimelist.net/stacks/13206

1-3 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/14457
4-5 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/14459
6-7 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/14693 <= YOU ARE HERE
8-9 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/14694
10 - https://myanimelist.net/stacks/14695

maximum of 24,000 members and a minimum of 10,000

Using this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLZYtFRoMGQ | Magical Girls Timeline 1966-2020] as reference for this stack, I made it in hopes it might help people who are into this genre find anime they haven't watched/didn't know existed yet.. or really just people who'd like to get into something new.

There are 4-5 anime I haven't included simply because they're ecchi and I really wanna try to keep this, well, non-ecchi.

Part 2 here: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/15925

After Mahoutsukai Sally - the first animated series adapted from a manga that was targeting the "shoujo" demographic (young female audience) - there have been many more works that were targeted to this new market following the initial success of "Mahoutsukai Sally"

This list attempts to collect some of the most important of those works, starting from the beginning. This is done so that people who are interested in or new to the history of "Shoujo" anime can gain atleast some kind of understanding of the history and the development throughout the years.

I will try to write my short spoiler free review/thoughts for each of the entries on this list to explain further why I think the entry is important as far as the history of "shoujo" anime is concerned.

In short these are the series that I think everyone who is interested in shoujo anime, the history of shoujo anime or history of girls entertainment in Japan in general when it comes to animation, should be atleast aware of.

Note: The term "shoujo" used in this list is being used to refer girls entertainment in general and not just adaptations from shoujo manga.

Shoujo Anime: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/16071
Shoujo Manga: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/22135
Longest Shoujo Anime: https://myanimelist.net/stacks/26291
Classic Shoujo Manga: https://myanimelist.net/clubs.php?cid=84956

Anime I have seen in vaporwave/future funk videos or thumbnails


Nothing after 2005

source: boredpanda.com