Picture Perfect Paranoia

I accidentally stumbled onto this Wikipedia article (in English) while looking into the origins of the sexual connotation of the word “Jailbait“. I assure you it was unintentional on my part.

So it actually surprised me when I though that Cardcaptor Sakura was the defining series of the Mahou Shoujo genre. Guess I was proven wrong.

From what I can gather about the show, it’s about this off-worlder¹ from the World of Magic^TM, sent to the (normal) Planet Earth to learn how it is to live a normal life. A jailbait teenager, if you will, with enough power to cause disorder in the human world. She has a normal family² to share her life with, and from them she learn mostly basic human concepts. Emotions, feelings, reactions, you name it. She also has to fight against the denizens of the world she came from, donning a costume most watchers of Mahou Shoujo are familiar with, using magic attacks with often silly names, and then coming back with no lectures from her parents regarding where she has been most of the day.

Now I hadn’t seen this one personally, as it has mysteriously evaded my Old School Radar^TM, but from what I’ve seen from various clips of the show scattered courtesy of YouTube, I can say that female fanservice, both upper and lower bodies, in the Mahou Shoujo genre, have existed long before the popularity of one of CLAMP’s greatest shows³ came into the foray.

¹We could guess that she’s from another dimension. Not from the world of ordinary humans, to be exact.
²plus a perverted younger brother to boot
³Also, I think Cardcapor Sakura is popular for its share of ambiguous couple pairings.