Some of you, who have been around for many years, may know I have a project on magical girls, or “mahou shoujo”. I used to have Mahou Shoujo Monday posts, for instance, and a brief history of mahou shoujo from the early days to around the mid-2010s. I often call my blog my first “child”, and it was something I started in the autumn of 2006. My second “child” would be this mahou shoujo project, which has been in the making for a while now.

Today I thought I’d give this project a proper introduction and answer some questions you may have, whether or not the project is news to you. I mean things like:

• What is the “Mahou Shoujo Guide”?
• Why mahou shoujo?
• What does it mean?
• How long have you been working on this?
• What do you want to gain from it?

You know, questions like that.

So, let’s start with the beginning: A weekend morning in 1996 or 1997.