Studio Pierrot, the production company behind popular anime like Naruto, Bleach and Tokyo Ghoul, premiered their brand-new animated show Magical Sisters LuluttoLilly this April. This is the sixth installment in the Pierrot Magical Girl Series, coming 28 years after the studio’s last magical girl anime effort, Fancy Lala. In a recent interview with Oricon News, Yohei Fukui, anime producer at Studio Pierrot, talked about where LuluttoLilly fits in the long history of the genre, and how it distinguishes itself as a uniquely Pierrot magical girl show.
With Magical Angel Creamy Mami as its most recognized title, Pierrot’s Magical Series was a big definer of the genre in the 80s. But as the genre has evolved throughout the decades, with intense battles, stories of tragic fates, and even horror twists becoming commonplace, LuluttoLilly deliberately opts for maintaining the studio’s flagship magical girl style, adapting it for a Reiwa-era audience.
As Fukui explains, Studio Pierrot took the time to explore these new possibilities while also not breaking the “no battles allowed” rule which has been laid out for all of their other previous magical girl shows. He also hopes that the new anime will come as a change of pace among the information-packed media of the 2020s. Interestingly enough, the anime also seemed to be a breath of fresh air for Studio Pierrot’s staff, who have for a long time worked on many popular action and battle-heavy anime.
“Our company has produced numerous works like Naruto and Bleach that lean heavily into battles, but this time, the producer in charge [of LuluttoLilly] was like, I’m so tired of battles (laughs). In the current day and age when it’s easy to get tired from informational overload, we felt that there is a need for an anime with a tender and soothing worldview. Instead of an anime that you have to watch with your eyes glued to the screen, we wanted something you can casually watch while you unwind,” Fukui explains.
Being the studio’s first new title in almost 30 years, Fukui admits that a lot of pressure and expectations are being put on the studio. “However, we were also determined to show the world Pierrot’s magical girls once again, among the many magical girl works out there.”
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That’s not going to work! Powerscaling websites like the Outskirts Battledome, Vs Battles Wiki, and SpaceBattles are just going to figure out how to powerscale that series..!
There will be one OVA episode where they briefly fight something. Then the weeb boards will explode in bickering and analyzing power levels.
I can’t dude, that looks like Gumball if he was a magical girl
Serious question from someone who has no idea how the magical girl genre works: I thought the point of the magical girl transformation was something like sailor Moon where they power up to fight battles. What do they do with the transformation when they don’t use it for fighting powers? I know this sounds like a “how do you solve your problems without violence” question, but I hope you can see where I’m coming from, seeing how many other anime series solve their problems with violence.
Easy they will use the power to fix things magically. Got beaten up at school bip bop boop now you didn’t
This show is following along the lines of 80s and onwards Magical Girl shows produced by Studio Pierrot, such as Creamy Mami and Fancy Lala, which were the progenitors of the Magical Girl genre as we know it. The core conceit of those was always about a young girl’s fantasy wish fulfillment of being able to turn into an older teenager with superpowers who could use those to achieve global pop star fame or the like without having to actually Live as an adult, and those had generally few “fight scenes”, if any at all, focusing mostly on original songs and interpersonal drama. Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura and later Precure have all established popular Magical Girl shows as battle anime, but the type of show still persists to this day in things like Aikatsu and Pripara, which are ostensibly idol anime with transformation sequences. Basically instead of transforming to “solve problems” or “save the world”, think of this show as a kind of Hannah Montana instead, with much lower stakes and a focus on letting young girls live out a fantasy of having magic powers and a bustling music career.
Few people will watch it we need action,fantasy,comedy
This is going to bomb. Sure there will be people who like it, but magical girl transformations without battles sounds dumb. Literally what would be the point/plot? Not my cup of tea when it comes to genre, but this isn’t going to go over that well. The community is going to crash out period.
Slice of life anime exists… not everything is flash and bombs and beat em ups geez…
I like Urusai Yatsura, Sailor Moon, Ranma, Azumanga Daioh and Spy Family but this Shojo looks too aimed at young girls for me. If a had a daughter I would show it to them though.
You’re tired of battles because you’re weak and you ended up seeing magical girls…