Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)

This anime is of the 'magical girl' genre, but unlike Sailor Moon or Cardcaptors or Shugo Chara, it's a bit darker.

For those who may be unfamiliar with this type of story, the magical girl genre involves stories about girls (usually ordinary girl next door type of girls) who are contacted by some magical being, and are given the choice to accept magical powers. They are then obligated to use these powers to combat evil magic already in the world, or to complete some task with their magic.

In this story, the girl's name is Madoka, and she is a sweet, good- hearted girl. She doesn't have anything that distinguishes her from any other girl... in fact, she may be lacking in several areas in comparison. Everything changes for her however, when a new exchange student transfers into her class. The girl stares at Madoka, who oddly enough had had a dream about her the previous night. The girl warns Madoka that if she values her friends and family, she should not make any changes to herself. Madoka of course finds this odd, but disregards it. Later that day, she hears a voice in her head calling out for help. The voice belongs to this cat-like creature, who the new transfer student is apparently trying to kill. Madoka and her friend are then exposed to the hidden world of witches and magical girls. The cat-like creature, named Kyubey, explains that he has the power to grant a chosen girl any one wish in the entire world. But in exchange for that wish, the girl must agree to become a magical girl, and devote her life to hunting down 'witches' or evil spirits that are the cause of many unexplained evils in the world. Madoka and her friend Sayaka are both chosen by Kyubey, and try to learn more about this world, to see if any wish they might make would be worth giving up their freedom, and maybe their lives. However, the transfer student is adamantly against Madoka becoming a magical girl, and does everything in her power to prevent this. Kyubey said that Madoka would be the more powerful magical girl who had ever existed to this point if she were to choose to turn. Is the new girl afraid of her power? Is there anything Madoka would wish for that would compensate for what she might lose? Why is someone as insignificant as Madoka so important in what seems to be the fate of the world?

As I said before, this is a darker manifestation of the magical girl genre. There is a very real possibility of death with every battle the girls may face, and indeed we witness several deaths. A couple, quite significant to the plot. The girls are fighting against these monsters, but they are also fighting against themselves for territory. If a girl kills a witch, she gets to cleanse her source of magic with what is left over from the witch, and if the girl doesn't do this, something bad may happen to her. As the story progresses, we find out that being a magical girl is not at all a fun thing, that a lot of sacrifice and heartbreak and loneliness results from the wish they make. We also learn that there may be more to the contract with Kyubey then we might have been initially told. The show deals with the idea of 'good deeds', and how much of yourself you would be willing to give for the benefit of someone else, without getting anything in return. It makes you wonder, is there anything you would want enough to sacrifice your life for, or at least your livelihood? Just how valuable are the relationships in your life? What would you give to keep them, or let them go? Just how much do you actually care about others? And more interestingly, what do you consider about yourself to be human? Your body?

An interesting, if not somber, show. The animation was interesting as well. The anime was very detailed at some points, but the scenes with the witches played around with animation styles. Another interesting thing about this show is that the main character of this 'magical girl' show, is for the most part, the only main character who is not a magical girl. It re-imagines the genre, and positions it for an older audience, who maybe grew up with the more traditional magical girl shows. It takes a little while to get into, but it brings a new level of complexity to the genre. It's only 12 episodes long and can be seen online.

The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff

The Gale family is an interesting one. Things seem to work in their favour more often than not, you could even call them special... Or witches, same difference.

Alysha Gale is a 24-year-old who, after losing her job, is forced to move back home with her extended family. Her family is large and in each others business and runs on something of a coven-like structure. The women rule the roost, and power increases with age. Things are normal, if depressing for Alysha, until the day when she receives a letter from her eccentric grandmother, stating that if she is reading this letter, her grandmother is dead. This is concerning news because it takes a lot to kill a Gale woman, and if you attack one you attack them all. Her grandmother's letter instructs her to go across the country to manage a store she was running there, and to settle any affairs she had outstanding. When she makes her way to her grandmother's store, she finds that the store is not as ordinary as your normal junk shop may be, nor are its patrons, and not is the town. On top of the everyday weirdness, she discovers that a sorcerer (not a friend to witches) has sent his apprentice to keep an eye on Alysha to make sure she doesn't interfere with his... plans. There's a big threat coming to town, and if the sorcerer's afraid, it's definitely something powerful and not good. What will Alysha do about the apparent danger in the city, not to mention some... interesting characters she comes across.

I enjoyed this novel, though it took a while to get off the ground. The author sort of just throws the reader into the culture of this family without really taking time to explain the rules or behaviours. In a way it's interesting because that is how a stranger would approach a culture like that, learning bit by bit along the way. On the negative side however, a more effort is spent at the beginning of the book guessing at what's happening and trying to figure out just who this family is and what they are than your average book requires. This writing technique also subliminally adds to the clannish nature of the family and the difficulty one would have actually getting to know them as an outsider. That said, once you are introduced, the family culture it is pretty intricate and fun. I liked Alysha as a main character. She was lost and unsure of who she was or where she was going pretty much throughout the entire book, but despite that, she always took challenges head on and ultimately had the spirit of a leader and a fighter. That spirit grew stronger as the novel progressed. There was good character development throughout the book. Most of the main characters and even some of the minor characters showed various levels of growth over the span of the story. Both the plot as well as the character development were well thought out and provide the reader with a lot to pay attention to. She also has a lot of fun with the dialogue, letting her characters be both bitingly sarcastic and comfortable with some puns, which can be fun in moderation. Overall this was probably not the best contemporary fantasy I have ever read nor the most gripping, but it is a fun read with interesting characters and an engaging plot.

The author is Canadian and the story takes place in various Canadian cities, so there is a bit of Canadiana that the author plays around with throughout the story, so if you know something about Canadian culture you'll be slightly entertained or annoyed, but if you don't then you might be slightly confused at times.  A disclaimer for younger readers is that there is suggested sexual content. There are no explicit scenes but there is plenty of suggestion, and sex is linked to how the witches manage their power and how the family dynamic works. It's a good in between books book.

Kiki’s Delivery Service

This movie is in my list of most watched movies. It's about a witch who (after going to live on her own for a year) loses her ability to fly and has to struggle with herself to find who she is to be able to fly again. Every witch has a special power that she does best, like her own personality manifested. When Kiki loses her power, its like the struggle a lot of young girls (and boys) go through to find out why they're here and who they are.

I first saw this movie when I was in grade 7, and her not knowing what her power was at first, finding it, loosing it and then how she gained it back by realizing what was truly important really touched a chord in me. I thought to myself 'hey! I go through that all the time!' and watching her rise out of her inability always made me feel better about myself when I was feeling a bit sad. Showing a light at the end of the tunnel if you will.

I recommend this movie to all young girls as its a truly touching movie of finding your own way in the world, your purpose, which is to be the best you you can be.

Baba Yaga and Vasilisa The Brave by Mayer Marianna

Basic plot outline (so if you'd wish to remain oblivious please skip over the first paragraph)
 
This is the story about a girl who is sent by her step mother to the evil witch in the woods to borrow a light. It starts off like the Cinderella story with the father remarrying a woman with two daughters and then dying, leaving his daughter to be mistreated by the stepmother and stepsisters. The stepmother is jealous of the girl's beauty and sweet disposition in comparison with her own daughters so she sends the girl out into the woods to seek out the evil Baba Yaga to ask for a light. the thing about the witch is that very few people who meet her live to tell about it. The witch eats people and has a house built out of their bones. So the girl goes obediently to the witch and she takes with her a doll her mother made her before she died, and the doll is magical, because it was made with her mother's love. So when she gets to the witch and asks for a light the witch agrees to give her a light if she can complete the tasks set before her, which are to cook huge meals and clean everything. The Baba Yaga leaves and the girl frets over what to do and then her doll comes alive and does most of the chores for her. The witch is satisfied and gives the girl one of her lights which when she presents to her stepmother, burns the stepmother alive. At this point, though she wasn't the strongest heroine ever, I'm hopeful for a strong ending, thinking maybe she won't need to get married at the end of the book to justify the plot... but she does, and it's not a bad thing, I'm just getting a bit bored with the same ending over and over (in both adult and children's stories).
 
This story had more of a classical fairy tale feel to it. It had a dark atmosphere to it with the beautiful illustrations, which at some points I could see very small children being afraid, of the Baba Yaga for example, but for the most part I felt they kept the story pretty clean. It could have definitely been very much more graphic, which I would have loved, but this is a children's book. What I enjoyed about this book was that things had to be a certain way, things HAD to get done, like in older stories. Even though the stepmother treats her very poorly, the girl still obeys her and minds her, and from a feminist perspective this can be seen in a very bad light. A submissive girl with no back bone and no will of her own, an abusive relationship in essence. But, if you look at it as something produced a time long ago, when morals were different, and from a fairy tale perspective, where (if you know your mythology) everything has rules, very strict rules that must be followed, as the sequence is almost as important, if not more so, than the final product, it's more fanciful and exciting and much more archetypal, like the an old fairy tale. In most of today's stories we tell kids that nothing binds them and they can do whatever they want, and while it is good to leave an abusive relationship and all kids must learn that this is a good thing, people will always be bound by something, something that stays their hand or forces action, maybe sometimes against their will, and a lot of children today (myself included) don't really grasp this concept because all our lives we've been fed the fairy tale that we control our own destiny and what i say goes.. but that's not always the reality. Lessons like this can be learned from fairy tales of this nature.
 
Craft's illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and I wish there were more of them in this book. The subject matter had the potential to be scary, so I think the scenes depicted were selected carefully and on some pages only a small picture was provided in the corner... but this illustrator is so good that anything she does is magnificent. I wish the whole book was full pages of her illustrations. The prose was good as well though. It had a decent flow and was over all pretty well done.