Being in the magical girl genre, “Dream Clover” is set to take as much as possible from the clichés set by other magical girl series. Or avoid them as much as possible. I started plotting out the characters, stories, and “magical girl elements” without giving much thought to clichés. Instead, I’m looking at clichés used and avoided as an after-thought.
Clichés I’m including:
- Sarah Cloverfield uses a wand with a magical jewel to transform into the magical girl, Clover.
- She uses the jewelled wand to perform magical feats.
- Magical characters are “color coded” with the source of their power (such as Clover having green hair, eyes, and clothing to match her green jewel).
- To an extend, there’s the “collection” aspect (not a cliche to the “magical girl” genre, although seen in series such as “Cardcaptor Sakura”). The plan right now is for three jewels to need collecting, although this would cover only a portion of the story.
Clichés I’m avoiding:
- No animal companion or talking animal guide. This means no Ruby (Saint Tail), Luna (Sailormoon), or Cerberus (Cardcaptor Sakura) character.
- No magical transformation sequence. Outfits do not vanish to be replaced with a new outfit. The only thing that changes when becoming a magical girl is hue.
- No double identity. No Meimi and Saint Tail to Asuka Jr (Saint Tail). No Clark Kent and Superman to Lois Lane (Superman). If you know someone, then you’ll recognize her as a magical girl. She looks the same.
- No love triangles. At least, I’m not planning on any, as there’s currently no focus on romance planned. I don’t see anyone on my cast list who could be a Méilín (Cardcaptor Sakura) or Lina (Saint Tail).
- No school settings. Sarah is home-schooled, along with her neighbor, Samuel.
- No stock attacks. There will be no magical phrase used to unleash a magical attack that is used to defeat every opponant.
- No upgrades. There will not be a “next level more powerful” transformation item or attack item.
- No monster-of-the-day. It’s less like the Sailormoon animated series and more like the comic series (referring to the first series). The “enemies” are recurring characters, and are included in the cast list.
