Abstract
Magical girl anime - shows like Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon - provide viewers with powerful female role models, but their main purpose is to entertain young girls by using tropes such as small animal familiars, teamwork, love, and justice. In 2011, a series called Madoka Magica premiered, revealing that underneath the bright colors and cute outfits are girls who struggle. This paper aims to show how Madoka Magica empowers viewers and provides them with value beyond entertainment through the way it calls attention to the unrealistic outer image of magical girls shows and exposes the emotional reality of girls who identify as heroes. By showing heroes that are just as real as any other girl despite their fictional nature, Madoka Magica lets viewers see that magic does not make one invincible and that experiencing things like loneliness, depression, and death are just a part of growing up - magic or no magic.