Moon Prism Power and Ancestral Light: The Magic That Raised Me

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The first anime I ever watched was Sailor Moon. I was too young to articulate it at the time, but something in Usagi Tsukino’s clumsy charm sank deep into me. She was a crybaby, boy-crazy, lazy, a hopeless romantic, and unapologetically girly. She wasn’t the top of her class, she wasn’t the most disciplined fighter, and she certainly wasn’t the picture of the “model heroine” you’d expect to save the world, and yet, she was chosen. She was worthy before she was excellent.

That truth—absorbed through episodes of bright colors, friendship speeches, and moon tiaras—has stayed with me in ways I didn’t expect. As a Black woman, I’ve spent my life moving against the pressure of “Black excellence,” the quiet but exhausting rule that you must be ten times better to get a fraction of what others are given. Usagi’s story whispered a different gospel: your softness, your imperfection, your very ordinariness can be enough. You can still be the one to carry the crown. Carrying the crown, I believe, is my purpose in my matrilineal lineage and while I am a far cry from excellent, like Usagi, I too am worthy.

Magical girl anime is built on the moment of becoming. The transformation sequence—be it Usagi’s ribbons of light, Akko’s Shiny Rod awakening in Little Witch Academia, or Vivio’s inherited power in Nanoha ViVid—is a ritual. The raised hand, the sacred words, the calling forth of an item bound to you alone. Transformation in this genre is not about hiding who you are; it’s about stepping into the fullness of it. In that moment, the mundane self and the magical self become one.

In Sailor Moon, those sequences were deliberate and ceremonial. Usagi’s cry of “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” was an invocation. The swirling ribbons, the glowing brooch, the final pose— each element mirrored the patterned structure of ritual magic, where repetition and symbolism build a shift in energy. Scholar N’Donna Rashi Russell notes that magical girl transformations function as a “liminal threshold” between the ordinary world and the magical one, a passage that is as much spiritual as it is physical.

As an adult, deep in my work on Black Feminine Cultural Mysticism, I can see how these moments trained my spiritual muscle long before I had the language. Transformation sequences are, in their own way, spells. The repetition of movement and words is not unlike the prayers I speak over my altar. The calling of energy into the body mirrors the grounding I do before ancestral veneration. The careful adornment—crowns, staffs, gloves, pendants—recalls the way ritual dress functions in African diasporic traditions, turning the body into a living shrine. And then there is the matter of guidance. Magical girl heroines rarely walk alone. Usagi is guided by Luna, yes, but also by the memories of her past life as Princess Serenity, ancestral knowledge disguised as reincarnation. In Sailor Moon Crystal episode 9, “Serenity –Princess–,” that past life surfaces fully, not to erase Usagi’s humanity but to fold ancient power into her present self. She is the same girl who oversleeps and gets detention, but she also carries the memory and duty of a Moon Kingdom princess. This pattern (power arriving through lineage) appears throughout the genre. In Nanoha ViVid, Vivio inherits abilities and memories directly from her ancestor, a magical transmission of skill and responsibility. In Matoi the Sacred Slayer, Matoi’s ordinary life as a shrine maiden is transformed when she becomes the vessel of a divine spirit, tying her magical power directly to ancestral and spiritual heritage. Even Little Witch Academia echoes this through Akko’s devotion to Shiny Chariot, a mentor figure whose legacy shapes Akko’s identity and mission, a form of chosen lineage that functions much like spiritual inheritance.

A History of the Magical Girl Genre

The magical girl genre’s roots stretch back to the early 1960s. Princess Knight (1953) by Osamu Tezuka is often cited as a prototype, featuring a heroine who transforms into a heroic identity. In 1962, Himitsu no Akko-chan became the first true magical girl manga, giving audiences a heroine who used a magical compact to transform—an object-based ritual still central to the genre today.

In 1966, Sally the Witch became the first magical girl anime, borrowing from the American sitcom Bewitched and establishing the image of the girlish witch learning to use her powers in a human world. The 1970s brought the majokko boom—series like Mahōtsukai Chappy (1972) and Majokko Megu-chan (1974) layered in mentorship, friendship, and the more dramatic, choreographed transformation scenes that became genre-defining. By the 1980s, magical girl narratives were growing more complex, culminating in the 1990s with Sailor Moon, which fused magical girl tropes with team dynamics, romance, and tokusatsu-inspired battle structure.

Later series like Revolutionary Girl Utena deconstructed the genre entirely, turning transformation and ritual into allegory, and recent works like Madoka Magica have reimagined its stakes, but the bones of the genre (ritualized becoming, lineage, and transformation) remain intact.

Hoodoo: Ritual, Resilience, and Ancestral Connection

While the magical girl genre was evolving in Japan, another tradition—Hoodoo—was being carried forward in Black American communities. Hoodoo is a spiritual and magical practice rooted in West African cosmologies, shaped by the transatlantic slave trade, and adapted for survival in the American South. It blends rootwork, herbal medicine, divination, and, centrally, ancestral veneration.

Unlike institutionalized religion, Hoodoo is a vernacular system—practical, adaptive, and intimate. As scholar Yvonne Chireau describes in Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition, Hoodoo persists because it is deeply grounded in lived experience, transforming everyday actions into acts of power and sanctuary. The lighting of a candle, the preparation of a mojo bag, and the placement of specific roots or herbs on an altar. each action is intentional, layered with symbolism, and rooted in both ancestral memory and the immediate needs of the present.

In Gullah Geechee traditions, herbal medicine and Hoodoo are intertwined, passed down through generations as a way to protect, heal, and strengthen the community. The act of preparing a spiritual bath or burning protective incense is both a functional and symbolic transformation, turning the everyday self into the protected, empowered self.

Where the Currents Meet

The magical girl genre and Hoodoo might seem worlds apart, but their core mechanics are strikingly similar:

Theme	Magical Girl Media Example	Hoodoo / Ancestral Practice Parallel
Transformation as Ritual	Usagi’s “Moon Prism Power, Make Up!” with brooch, ribbons, and pose	Spiritual baths, candle work, or altar prayers as activation rites
Ancestral Power	Usagi as Princess Serenity; Vivio’s inherited magic; Akko’s mentor legacy	Invocation of ancestors, lineage-based spiritual work
Accessible Magic	Ordinary girls becoming heroes through belief and ritual	Everyday people enacting Hoodoo practices for protection and empowerment
Tools of Power	Compacts, wands, Shiny Rod, transformation jewelry	Mojo bags, ritual herbs, amulets, and other consecrated objects

When I light a candle and speak to my ancestors, I feel the same shift I felt watching a magical girl raise her wand. Both acts require intention. Both rely on inherited or guided wisdom. Both mark the moment when you cross the threshold between who you were and who you are becoming. I sometimes think about how often, in the anime and manga community, you’ll find people who are spiritually curious, open to unseen forces, and drawn to ritual. Perhaps it’s because we grew up watching girls turn a brooch or a wand into a miracle. We’ve seen what it looks like to move from doubt to conviction in a swirl of light. We’ve been told, in one form or another, that even the most ordinary among us can be chosen, and that magic, once awakened, is something you tend every day.

In that sense, the magical girl genre didn’t just keep me entertained; it kept me believing. It gave me a language for my power before I knew I would need it, and it planted in me the understanding that transformation (whether on a moonlit balcony or at the foot of my altar) always begins the same way: by saying yes to the magic that’s already yours.