Just for giggles (And possible use as an odd NPC) I'm trying to put together a magical girl character. Unfortunately I've run into a problem or two.

Powers are Free Fall, Great Leap, magic sense, imrpoved senses, and some sort of combat skills all geased to the Magical Girl using some crappy-looking costume jewelry as a fetish. But figuring out a reasonable combat power is being a problem.

A magical girl should have some sort of energy bolt of magic zap to use. I was planning on a physad for her powers, but no physad power fits the bill. There's Distance Strike but a magical girl shouldn't have insanely high melee combat skills, and geasing improved melee combat to "Only when distance striking" seems idiotic to me, plus I'd still have to have regular melee combat skills. I could go Magician's Path but I really don't want to if I can come up with another canon option. I also won't be taking any firearm skills because a magical girl with an uzi just doesn't seem to work. I'm starting to think I just can't make a magical girl who will stay alive 10 minutes on a run, style notwithstanding.

I'm guessing this is a TV show or a movie or something? Anime?

Make her a mage or sorcerer. That'll solve your problems pretty fast.

@Zazen: Magical Girls are their own genre of bad, usually anime, fiction. They typically are high-school age girls who have some locket, pendant, wand, etc. that grants them magical powers. Typically this is not spell-type magic but the ability to transform their clothing (Often mysteriously becoming naked during the transformation), act athletic (sometimes) and dish out a single magical attack of some sort that always kills the bad guy (As I said, it's generally bad fiction).

Staples of Magical Girldom are:

1) Talking Cats, Dogs, Birds, or some other spirit-guide. This can be handled as a free-spirit contact, presumably a trickster taking advantage of some naive fool in the SR universe.

2) Bad costume Jewelry: Magical girls tend to wear hideously ugly brooches, tiaras, bracelets, earrings, etc, each of which grants magical powers.

3) The Monologue: Magical Girls invariable give a 10-minute speech about their cause or whatever before attacking. I'd add this as a second geas but I need to use up my Geasa on Costume Jewelry.

Killing Hands and/or Distance Strike would be a more canonical way of handling it. You're totally free to describe a Distance Strike attack as a ball of flame, a bolt of lightning, a pair of tiger claws shooting from your wrists, butterflies shooting out of your mouth at bitchslapping your opponent with their wings, or an invisible burst of kinetic energy. Regardless of how it's described, it still has the same net result, but it does fit the bill.

That sounds like all anime I have ever seen Moonstone.



She could be a phys-ad magician. You know path of the magi.

Either Sorcery adept, full mage, or physmage would work for you. Pure adept doesn't fit as nicely.

A Sorcery adept could either have quickening, or a ton of sustaining foci. She's apt to need a Talisman geas anyways, so it's not a big deal. The same is true for full mage, but also allows you to summon taking animal spirits. (I'd suggest Coyote or Raccoon shaman-- both those totems are apt to get the joke.) Physmage allows you access to the widest array of powers, but is weakest overall.

Shadow: Not all anime is like that. Star Blazers, for one, you may be familiar with and isn't "magical girl" crapola. The classic example of "magical girl" anime is Sailor Moon; if you want to get the idea, watch as many episodes as you can before your head explodes.

It's also worthy of note that most American voice actors are horrible. There's a big difference between dubs and subs. Even Sailor Moon is watchable in the original (okay, more watchable) langauge with subtitles.

For truely good Anime, watch Berserk. If you like the basic martial arts style, there are a lot of options, though I like Recca no Honno pretty well. Some of the characters from either make good physads.

Shoujo Kakumei Utena is a good example of how close you can get to Magical Girl and still be good.

~J

the series was more like a pre-quel to the manga, so it had to end that way. (at least thats how I understand it) But thats where he got his bad ass hand cannon and repeater cross bow from the first episode, so ya know.

Check Toonami on Saturday night, or just late night 11 to 3 or 4 (ignore OTHF). Some decent anime, some lousy.

Back tothe 'magic girl' genre, I'd also suggest some mystic armor power sense these characters seem to be able to shrug off anything shy of a tactical nuke. as far as physical damage goes.

I came across a magic-girl parody a couple of months back, though I am not sure just how serious magic-girl is supposed to be anyway. But, I think it sums up what it is while still mocking it...

http://www.sgvy.com/

Or, for yet another completely different take on the magical girl genre...

Well here's at least a first-draft for my Magical Girl. Although I did giggle plenty while writing it, now I actually want to play her, I guess something is wrong with me. I'll have to wait until somebody in Dumpshock starts a humor-theme PbP I guess.

@Firewall: That's a hilarious comic. Thanks.

Magical Amazing Pretty Princess Makoto (MAPPM for short)
Makoto's (Real name May) not sure who she is or who her parents were. She's been an orphan as long as she can remember. Bounced from one overworked under-funded orphanage to the next, she managed to escape any and all magical searches by the corps, but not a search by the mysterious Spirit Kawai Neko Genki. Claiming to be an Animus (Everybody else suspects he's a trickster). Neko discovered an abandoned subway car with thousands of ancient comic books inside, which he introduced Makoto too. Obsessed with magical Girls, Makoto studied the comic books, and in a twist even the crazy spirit couldn't predict, managed to build a hermetic library out of them and start using real magic based on the comics. Makoto is convinced there's some great evil threatening to invade Earth from another dimension, or maybe space, or actually it might be a conspiracy (She's still working out the details) and she has to prepare to battle it and save the world! Also she's broke. But still! It's time to Save the World!
Makoto is a real idiot savant. Incredibly intelligent, she's also very naive. Dressed in some old Securetech armor she long since Fashioned into a mass of ribbons and form-fitting lacy-looking body armor festooned with bits of costume jewelry used as Fetishes, Makoto is actually useful on a Shadowrun mainly for her ability to provide excellent spell defense, often augmented with her "Magical Anti-Evil Field of Love and Happiness" (Magic Static Spell). Surprisingly, she's also intimidating as heck to others, apparently many people are afraid of someone who's obviously packing lots of magic and also certifiably insane. She's trying to get together the Nuyen to purchase an enchanting shop to add to her subway car so she can start building magical weapons to fight against all evil. Also she could use some more comic books, she's read through just about all of these.

Edges: Daredevil
Focused Concentration
Extra Contact
Flaws: Distinctive Style
Phobia, Uncommon, Extreme: Adult Fan Fiction (Do you know what they DO to Magical Girls in those things?)

Attributes: (60)
Body: 4
Quickness: 6
Strength: 2
Charisma: 6
Intelligence: 6
Willpower: 6
Essence: 6
Magic: 6
Reaction: 8
Initiative: 2d6

Combat Pool: 9
Spell Pool: 6
Karma Pool: 1(2)
Total Armor: 7/4
Active Skills: 
Skill
Level
Sorcery 6
Conjuring 6
Enchanting 6
Athletics 4
Etiquette 6
Intimidation 6

Knowledge Skills
Comic Books 6
Geology 6
Talismongering 6
Safehouses 6
Spirits 6
Magical Threats 6
Paranormal Animals 3

Magic: Physad/Wujen (30)
Magic Power 4 (Geas: Incantation)
Freefall 4 (Gease: Fetish)
Improved Reflexes 1
Improved Sense: Thermographic Vision

Spells: (All Fetish Limited For Drain)
Nova 4
Laser 4
Armor 4
Transform 4
Heal(Exclusive) 4
Fashion(Exclusive) 4
Mana Static 4

Gear (0pts,5,000Y)
Healing Fetish
500
Manipulation Fetish
300
Secure Jacket
850
5/3
Secure Long-Coat
650
4/2
Rating 1 Hermetic Library
1,000
Herbals x4
200
Silver
100
Crystals x3
300
Squatter Lifestyle, 1mo
100

Contacts (All L1):
Kawai Neko Genki
Free Spirit
Talismonger and Advisor on Magical Girl Matters

Lowboy
Ork
Street Waif, source of Street-Level Information

Barry Merche
Human
Fixer

Naw, Catgirls and Tomboys typically manage to carry around miniguns (Didn't All-Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku have the minigun in a backpack?). Magical girls don't use guns at all (though some of them mysteriously pilot mecha), they just use the power of love and friendship to blow monsters away.

Hehehe. That's a pretty cool take on a character. I approve of the lack of katana.

I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as 'good anime'..

And I've seen it all.. I've got a bunch of otaku friends, and they've forced me to watch all the 'good stuff'.. I wanted to vomitted the whole time I was subjected to Battle Royal. Evanglion? It made me want to stab my ears out..

If I may, those seem like pretty mainstream ones. I won't recommend any animes, but like all forms of media, there's always the silent wonders and cult hits, which might more fit your idea of good animation.

Anime is quite diverse. Some never gets brought over from Japan, those that do tend to be on the mainstream side, which might not be your cup of tea.

Incidentally, sometimes when I read cyberpunk and people tell me the world is japanified, I seriously can't see any japanese influence. Not a drip of manga culture anywhere, just mohawks and yen.

Gunbunnies generally don't pull huge guns from nowhere, they just have dozens upon dozens of handguns and reloads stashed everywhere...or if you're Minnie Mae, grenades and plastique. Magical Girls rarely use guns, just their magical powers. Sometimes they'll use a single melee-type weapon or bow and arrow though (Chinese-style sword or katana, large axe, etc).

It's the heroines of Shonen action/romance manga/anime who pull huge crap out of nowhere...usually microphones/bullhorns when yelling insults or large mallots when the hero does/says something stupid and/or gets into a compromising position of some sort.

BTW, Battle Royale isn't anime, it's a live-action movie. The book is much better, sort of a Lord of the Flies meets 1984 And you might like stuff like Cowboy Bebop, Battle Angel Alita, and Ghost in the Shell as they're all at least marginally cyberpunk and are generally serious in tone. And I DARE you to watch Grave of the Fireflies without crying by the end. Anytime I take shit from someone for watching anime, I get them to watch that. Sure, it won't turn you into an instant anime fan, but I've yet to find anyone who wasn't moved enough by that film to not bother me the next time I spend $30 on a DVD of a "cartoon".

The Abstruse One

Watch Subtitled anime. Don't even bother with dubs. With only a few minor exceptions, dubs are all horrible.

The Abstruse One

Meh.. Even the subs I've watched didn't impress me.. And, again, my friends are some pretty big freakin' otaku.. I've been sujected to tons of this garbage.. I didn't like any of it.. I will admit, the subs didn't suffer from the horrible dialogue, but I still wanted to stab my eyes out while I was watching it, making it difficult to be bothered to read the subtitles.

Believe me, I've tried.. I've really tried to get into anime.. The closest thing to a decent anime that I've seen so far was Akira. I actually liked that one.. But the style of it wasn't as bad as most anime.. Apart from that exception, I've never been able to enjoy anime.. I just loathe it. Sorry, but that's a fact.

Yep. They're called Shojo Mallets. It's a cliche.

Ech. Akira's got to be one of the worst animes I've seen. And I've probably seen about 30 series all the way through, another dozen or so movies, and parts of another 20 series at least.

anime comes in all shapes and sizes, thats true. and the simple lines and big eyes are part of the style mostly (alltho there are some manga (ie comics) that have a more realistic drawing style). personaly when im watching anime (or action movies for that matter) i just disconnect my sense of realism. they are made to be an escape form real life, nothing more nothing less...

mmm planescape: torment, one of the best games of all time. and anachronox, used a dated graphics engine so almost everyone dismissed it but was a fantastic game. also one of my top 10.

Please allow me to suggest Jin-Roh. It's considerably more "realistic" in artistic style than most, so that may assuage at least one of your complaints. The plot is pretty down-to-earth, and deadly serious. And the music is great.

I have liked, Ruroni kenshin, though sometimes ridiculous, it is a good story, Gasaraki if you want a near future that can be startelingly like out own I liked that... Cowboy Bebop is good, though I have yet to see all of it. I really like myazaki, Mononoke Hime, Spirited away, Castle in the sky... good films.

the truth is if your freinds are watching only the super-deformed anime, I could understand not liking it, but there is good thought provoking anime out there, if you look.

-mike R.

Battle Angel, Grave of the Fireflies, Memories, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Kite… I definitely think you're just not watching the right stuff.

Rurouni Kenshin was good in the first season, amazing in the second season, and lame descending into bad in the third season. The OVAs, on the other hand, were awe-inspiring.

At some point I need to finish making that Battle Angel/Shadowrun conversion that I'd been toying with the idea of for a while…

~J

Oh, Gasaraki, absolutely! A more-realistic mecha anime. A little too close to reality, actually, what with the US invasion of a mid-east country over suspected WMD, corporate manipulation, and resurgent Japanese nationalism. The whole thing was really kind of subversive on that last matter. Pretty interesting, considering it predates certain real-world events.

Well, since the subject is already completely off-topic, I might as well throw in my two cents before it gets shut down. Speaking as an anti-otaku, I can appreciate that you guys think anime is the be all and end all, or very awesome at least, but seriously, some people, like myself and, apparently, Lose, just hate it. Forcing us to watch more and more and more in order to try and change our minds is not only aggrevating, but doesn't work. As a matter of fact, it merely confirms that we don't like anime.

I, also, have been subjected to lots and lots of anime, and the only thing I've ever even remotly enjoyed wasn't even anime, it was Blade of the Immortal. And yes, I'm quite aware that you can name ten anime I would 'obviously' enjoy if Blade didn't make me vomit, but it ain't happening. So please, stop with the attempted conversions. You'd think it was a religion you guys were trying to force on us or something.

To keep this to Shadowrun styled cyberpunk esque discussion:

I second the Jin-Roh suggestion. And lets not forget Ghost in the Shell, Blood, Metropolis, X, Lain, or Helsing.

On a lighter note: Dragon-Half (sorta half modern/half fantasy) but funny as hell.

I honestly don't think any of them count as Magical Girl though... maybe Lain?

I'm not a big fan of anime, either. At least not the "real" anime most people rave on about. I find most of it largely pretentious and boring, which for some reason translates as "cool" to some people. I feel exactly the same way about the Goth genre, too.

Now I can handle movies like Spirited Away, mostly because I'm a big fan of mythologies. But flicks like Ghost in the Shell and stuff like that? Major snoozefest.

no, I just hate any "all (insert category) are bad" comments, I would defend Rap the same way I do anime, even though I personally don't like most rap. it's an aversion to extreme categorization that I don't like.

Alita is awesome Kagetenshi... though I liked the Manga more than the adaption.

for it's right twisted nature, I also love Vapmire Princess Miyu. it's pretty strange, and has some pretty magical girl influence in a very warped way...

and for one no one has probably ever heard of but I really enjoyed (even though the animation was not that good, the story was very good) Rose of Versaille.

not trying to convert anyone, just sharing suggestions.

I too have tried to adapt alita like stuff to SR, it is not too far fetched. the manga even has pchycometry and stuff like that too (bolt soldiers are just a scary concept!)

-Mike R.

I don't recall busting down anyone's door (or reaching through the computer screen) to "force" anime on them. I merely made a suggestion. Anyone who doesn't like anime (and is on this thread anyway, strangely enough) can take it or leave it. I respect your biases on the subject, you respect mine.

I don't believe anyone is forcing you to do anything. We simply think you've been watching the wrong stuff and trying to suggest what you might like.

Of course, anime doesn't appeal to everyone, so if you're so dead set on not liking it, you're not going to listen to us anyway

There are many subjects which people hate even though they've only scratched the surface. Take furries for example, there are people who immediately scream ZOMG FURRY when an RPG has a logical reason for including them as races (I dunno, historical and mythical intepretations?). It's true that there are many furry-things that exist for the sake of nothing else but being cute and/or immoral, and unfortunately, this 'bad side' gets more attention, so anything involving animal humanoids such people see after that is gonna get the shun tag because they're already seen the bad side and really don't like what they see, and aren't open to anything else because they think the bad side traits will be prevalent in every furry.

And then there are those who simply don't like the idea, bad side or not. Could be a belief thing, or just personal disgust for whatever reason. Unfortunately that's because all of us have an opinion on things, one man's trash may be another man's lunch and all that.

I suppose the former is what we think you guys are, which is why we're trying to show you the good side (remember, we're still not forcing you ). If you're the latter, then, well, can't be helped, hmm?

ZOMG?