In Part 1 of this series, we took a brief look at how mahou shoujo (magical girl) anime grew from its cutesy, harmless origins into a full-fledged genre about realistic girls who kick ass and control their own destinies. But even though certain anime like Mai-HiME (2004) and Heartcatch Precure (2010) incorporated some very dark subject matter, it wasn’t until the release of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (2011) that the magical girl genre got its big gut-punch deconstruction.

This article was written for Honey’s Anime, so please read it on their site.