Magical girl

The magical girl (mahō shōjo) subgenre of anime and manga archetypically feature young girls who use an external object and/or trigger phrase to undergo a transformation which grants them superhuman and/or magical abilities, and who have a talking animal sidekick who acts as an adviser; a series can lack some of these archetypal qualities and still be considered "magical girl". Though the most popular and well known series have the heroines fighting an evil to protect the Earth, this is not a requirement of the genre; a popular sub-genre has the transformation age up the protagonist so that she can become a celebrity like a singer, and some series have the protagonist fighting mundane evils rather than one that threatens the entire world. Older magical girls were known in Japan as majokko, literally "witch girl".

"Sally, the Witch" (Mahoutsukai Sally) from 1966 is considered the first magical girl anime.

Occasionally there are transgendered versions of the magical girl; the magical boy.