Ah! My Goddess: A charming loser college student makes a contract with a beautiful, kind, gentle goddess to keep them together forever. It’s a shounen harem series but one of the most female-friendly harem anime out there.
Angelic Layer: Dress up your Barbie and make her do combat with other Barbies! With a secondary focus on friendship, family, and light romance.
Aoi Hana: Lesbian high school girls and a theater club. High melodrama.
Chance Pop Session: Three girls meet by Chance and end up attending the same music school by Chance and become pop stars while discovering their past connection. Chance. Idols, romance, and melodrama.
Chi’s Sweet Home: An adorable kitten is adopted by a family that lives in a no-cats apartment complex. Adorable kitty antics ensue. Episodes are only three minutes long so I post them in story groupings.
Full Moon: A girl with throat cancer wants to be a singer and makes a deal with the shinigami who are supposed to collect her when she dies. She gets to sing until her death and she’ll go with them without trouble. Traditional idol magical girl.
Futago Hime: Two idiot princesses assigned to save their world stumble through the trials they face mostly by luck. Magical girl princesses, definately kid-oriented.
Glass Mask: A girl with no talent other than acting abandons all she has to follow her dream of becoming an actress.
Hanasakeru Seishonen: A very sheltered rich girl is told to figure out who her pre-approved prospective spouses are and pick one. A man-harem that reads more like a collection of mystery short stories.
Hime-chan’s Ribbon: An elementary school girl gets a magic ribbon that will let her transform into any person on Earth for one hour. Magical girl.
Kanon: A boy returns to the town he once spent school vacations at and meets lots of cute but tragic girls.
K-On: A haphazardly thrown together music club has a lot of fun and occasionally get their act together to put on a live show. Comedy and slice-of-life high school girls.
Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne: A magical girl with the spirit of Joan of Arc neutralizes evil artifacts in the name of god. Thanks to her abandonment issues this is one of the angstiest magical girl shows I’ve seen.
Kannagi: A parody of the Ah My Goddess formula, but with a troublemaking, selfish goddess, and a less cohesive plot.
Lucky Star: High school girls being high school girls. Some episodes they go to conventions or celebrate holidays, other episodes they sit around talking about food. It varies. Slice-of-life.
Mao-chan: Elementary school girls join the Japanese military to fight cute aliens as cute magical girls. It’s a public relations thing. Magical girl parody.
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: A girl obsessed with the supernatural creates a club for her amusement, recruiting a time traveler, alien, and esper without ever realizing it.
Munto: Heaven is having an energy crisis and an odd but cute high school girl has the power to save it. Almost brain-meltingly confusing but the high school girls keep it just grounded enough. Magic and drama.
Ouran High School Host Club: A girl who is mistaken for a boy gets roped into joining the Host Club, becoming the secret princess adored by all. Romance, comedy, and extreme man-harem.
Please, My Melody: Plush bunnies wielding magical artifacts travel to Earth to make dreams come true. Incredibly cutesy and centered on characters from Hello Kitty, yet incredibly subversive when you least expect it.
Please, My Melody ~Spin-Around Shuffle!~: The second season of Please, My Melody is largely more of the same, though one of the bad guys from the first season gets roped into becoming a bunny super hero to help My Melo in a pinch.
Rozen Maiden: A shut-in boy ends up tangled up in the magical war between very elegant living dolls. Magic and drama.
Sea Story (aka Umi Monogatari): An innocent mermaid and a jaded fortune teller become magical girls when an ancient evil is released. A dramatic and elegant magical girl series.
Shugo Chara (aka My Guardian Characters): Eggs and “characters” that hatch from them represent what kids want to become. One introverted girl has three characters and becomes magical girls with them to protect the eggs of other kids. Hard to explain but the series is well on its way to becoming this decade’s Sailor Moon.
Taishou Baseball Girls (aka Taishou Yakyu Musume): In 1925, girls of an all-girls middle school attempt to form a baseball team, armed with only a limited understanding of the game and next to no supplies. Sports drama with a little romance.
Tokyo Mew Mew: Five girls are effected with animal DNA that lets them transform to protect humanity and Earth from aliens seeking to reclaim the world humans have abused. Magical girl with strong environmental themes and plenty of romance.
Pretty Cure
Yes! Pretty Cure 5: The forth season of Pretty Cure centers around five magical girls with a butterfly theme to fight an evil corporation.
Fresh Pretty Cure: The sixth season of Pretty Cure centers around three magical girls who wear cute corsets and foofy skirts to fight gothic lolita bad guys.
