As someone who hasn’t had that much exposure to the magical girl genre yet, I find that I’ve tended to think of the “big 3” magical girl shows as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Precure, and for a “big 5” add Ojamajo Doremi and Tokyo Mew Mew to the aforementioned… But really, I feel like the main determining factor for inclusion in this list is more than anything just that I’ve repeatedly heard about them, and that isn’t objectively the same as actual popularity and influence, although there is certainly a correlation.
So what would your lists look like by comparison?
My only real exposure to magical girl anime is Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura like you. Though I did enjoy SM very much because it’s like animated tokusatsu.
You know, theres a 2003 - 05 Live Action Tokusatsu remake of the first season of Sailor Moon (manga) which changes some stuff. It has some funny af episodes (either bc of the low budget, or bc the actors are really funny. Specially Usagi’s mom, Ikuko).
Nice I’ll have to check it out.
But it’s not that good and it’s only in Japanese. I like it because it’s so cheesy that it’s funny (either intentionally or unintentionally, specially that EP where Usagi goes missing and Ami and Makoto, who is way taller than Usagi, have to pretend to be Usagi so Shingo and Ikuko wouldn’t notice it). I think there are two TV specials, so it’s best to skip EP 0. Usagi’s actress has a yt channel where she reviews the series and also ice cream parlors.
spoiler
one that shows Sailor V and Usagi before the Sailor Moon thing. And an Epilogue episode where Ikuko, Shingo, Motoki and Naru already know Usagi is Sailor Moon and Luna (who can turn into a human girl named Sailor Luna, which I suppose it’s a replacement for Chibiusa but a bit less annoying) is just there living with the family (which is pretty funny tbh), and Mamoru and Usagi have to defeat the Shadow of Queen Beryl (which is a teen idol pop) for one last time before their marriage.
As someone not really qualified to speak on this, my impression is that the two magical girl shows most casual anime fans would be familiar with are Sailor Moon and Madoka Magica
Edit: Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura both benefitted from pretty extensive localizations, Sailor Moon being comparable to Dragon Ball Z in terms of success. Madoka came out during the height of the streaming boom, and was basically Evangelion but for girls.
