This is what it feels like, sometimes. Only it's never been quite so cool and graceful.
I refer more to the transition portrayed in the video below. I shift my focus, sometimes snap back to the default world, blink right back to the imaginarium, and there remains an overlay of the default world when I'm in the other. It's not quite Sucker Punch when the otherworld takes over completely.
"Mirror, tell me something:
Tell me, who's the loneliest of all?
Fear of what's inside of me
Tell me, can a heart be turned to stone?
Mirror mirror, what's behind you? Save me from the things I see.
I can keep it from the world, why won't you let me hide from me?
Mirror mirror, tell me something: Who's the loneliest of all?
I'm the loneliest of all."
Magical girls (魔法少女, mahō shōjo, also known as mahou shoujo or majokko) is a sub-genre of Japanese fantasy anime and manga which feature young girls who use magic.
- Wikipedia
Once upon a time, Sibling got me into Sailor Moon. It was in the same time slot as the Power Rangers, which all of my classmates were watching, so I did whine about that, but then I stopped and pretended to be a fan because I'm a total pushover. I think that Sibling sensed that I wasn't really into it, because she did say that I didn't have to be into it just because of her, and I lied and said no, no, I really was into it, and I'd gladly be the annoying and adorable Chibiusa. So, I have no right to resent her, and I don't resent her either... it's just part of my history, that I gave up common interests with my own peers for a family that turned out not to be worth it.
That she wasn't worth it doesn't mean it was all bad, though, just... overwhelmingly bad and wrong. Looking to the pithy scraps of something not entirely horrible, well, Japanese anime had Big Damn Robots. Not that campy American live action series or cartoons didn't have Big Damn Robots, but the BIG DAMN ROBOTS in Japanese anime and video games just tended to be more appealing to me than the Western counterparts. And, that probably wouldn't have happened if Sibling hadn't been introduced to Sailor Moon.
But the magical girl genre wasn't something that ever really captured me, until now, and even so not that much. Just enough to deserve mention in my little cuckoo-bananas themed blog.
I finally got around to watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I wouldn't call it a gritty reboot or a dark subversion, because half of it is sincerely light-hearted. It's simply that genre, done perfectly. The characters aren't static (or, kindly, "archetypal"). The power-ups have their cost, particularly that of hiding the heart... which I've done, and which brings me to how much metaphysical accuracy I see represented in that work of fiction. The use of grief seeds reminded me of what I consider an innate metaphysical property of gray haematite gemstone: to absorb miasma. The pocket dimensions are very otherworldly, and the way they're portrayed, they can catch people up, even those who are not in some altered mind state.
And, of course, there's the caution never to trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
I also see a lot of high-faluting spiritual philosophy in how the story plays out: the Sisyphustic efforts of reincarnation cosmology, all coming to a head in a Christian and/or Buddhist apotheosis.
And then my cousin gets me into RWBY, an animesque magical girl series with a Grimm Brothers fairy tales motif.
And I feel paranormal resonance.
Recommended Links
Magical Girl as Totem, by Jackadreams
I Am A Magical Girl, from Otherworldly Sorcery
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