Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
This post looks at characters of the past and where the old trends stand now, we start with female characters, males will get their own eventually.
1. Valkyrie Girls
Also known as the Valkyrie Bitch, these harlots are no nonsense action types, the best example being Black Lagoon's Revy.
They enjoyed a boom during the cyberpunk era of the late 80s and are still in demand today thanks to Chainsaw Man.
2. Wrestling Girls
Prominent in the 80s, wrestling girls influences can be found in shows like Dirty Pair, it's existence today is split between tag team partnerships between two females, also known as the Lovely Angels trope or literal wrestling sports anime with a twist like Keijo.
3. Tsundere Girls
Popularised by Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura and continuing long into the 00s the tsundere hot and cold personality was a core part of romance anime, they are a dying breed these days replaced by socially awkward girls and girls who just tease the male characters.
4. Magician Girls
This is a fascinating one that comes with a unique story of a particular Japanese Idol who managed to break the American market that I'll be tempted to talk about, in it's day, the magician girl commanded admiration but is now an embarrassing fetish.
5. Delinquent Girls
Credited with being the very first lead action girl in the medium, the Delinquent Girls starting from the mid 70s were an inspiration to all who followed after, it's also credited for making the Sailor Fuku uniform an anime staple, not Sailor Moon. Very rare to see nowadays but kept alive prominently by Vtuber Kson.
6. Idol Girls
The age of City Pop and the popular anime idol of Macross Lynn Minmay, gave rise to the idol singer along with magical idols Creamy Mami. These days it's based on collectable card games for girls but is still very much popular.
7. Mysterious Girls
Popularised by the now late Leiji Matsumoto, the mysterious girl has an aura of intense beauty and mystery about them, on a journey of self discovery with very little to go on, you can't help but follow them, hard these days for these types of characters to stay relevant when the internet knows everything.
8. Fantasy Girls
Prominent lead females in fantasy anime everything from the Magic Knights of Rayearth to Lina Inverse, they dominated much of the 80s and 90s. These days they are harem bait for isekai protagonists.
9. Space Girls
Also known as bridge bunnies, these girls are seen as supporting roles on a larger more prominent battle ship, sometimes piloting mechs. Sci-Fi isn't much of a thing anymore but Gundam finally gave a female character top billing.
10. Drama Girls
The mature girls who engage in sometimes forbidden romances, all the rage in 80s shojo, largely forgotten these days as it just doesn't sell well.
11. Thief Girls
Since Fujiko Mine and the girls of Cat's Eye gave thief girls a place, they've always managed to keep a real sex appeal, ironically Lupin and Cat's Eye will crossover later this year keeping the honour among thieves alive.
12. Classic Girls
And finally we have classic girls or European girls. Take a popular piece of literature from Europe and turn it into an anime. Not a big deal anymore and Magus Bride only barely qualifies for the same genre.
If you want me to expand on any of these posts, drop a comment.
As a little side project following up to Easter weekend I'm going to discuss some anime toys. Today's subject will discuss Virtual Pets with the next few episodes discussing Card Games, Models, Classic Toys and ending the week with Mini cars followed by a review of Dash Yonkuro.
So let's begin.
Raising a Japanese Alien Blob
The Tamagotchi craze began in 1996 invented by Aki Maita. The design being an egg shaped electronic toy smaller than a pager. The concept has always been the same, an alien drops an egg onto Earth and you have to raise it to adulthood through a number of tasks such as feeding, exercise, studying, playing, cleaning poop, pretty much anything you would do with an infant. How your Tamagotchi looks all depends on how well you raise them, although judging by the basic shapes of these creatures, there was alot of limits in what you can get.
I had a Black Tamagotchi myself.
Tamagotchi is still around but it doesn't pull as bigger sale as it used to, even with the advances in technology, but most point to what happened the following year and our next entry as the beginning of the end.
The Birth of Pokemon's most worthy Rival
A year on from the Tamagotchi craze came Digimon. While the concept was pretty much the same, the difference came in the fact that you could battle each other by connecting two together, also the smarter use of pixels meant more unique creatures could be produced on screen. The first generation Digimon only used the Agumon line along with a few select creatures from the early series with future models sporting more characters using all the Digi Destined monsters, this would continue through much of the anime seasons that followed.
I owned an original Digimon and a first gen Digivice.
Most people would know that the anime far outlived the original toy.
Your Very Own Super Fighting Robot
A brief mention on this, during the run of Megaman NT Warrior they actually made the Net Navi device used by the characters along with the battlechips used to power them up. It didn't sell as well as the video game but did okay enough but it was partially inspired the next innovation.
Raising Bugs and Dinosaurs with Cards
Sega took the idea further with Mushiking which takes everything learned from the early days of virtual pets and combining it with trading cards of insects, this would also lead to the later Dinosaur King which uses Dinosaurs instead. It had a fair go at it but it's what this turned into that still exists today.
Raising a Kawaii Pop Idol by Collecting Cute Outfits
Sega clicked further with the idea of cards with Hime Otogi Lilpri which led to the creation of franchises such as Aikatsu, Pretty Rhythm and PriPara. It was the most natural transition of the idol franchise who had struggled to claim back it's popularity following a slump in the 90s and 00s. In these games you collect and match cute outfits for your idol to wear. This is still going on today with no signs of stopping.
We started with Alien Blobs now were at Kawaii Pop Idols going through Monsters, Robots, Insects and Dinosaurs along the way.
End
