We Are All Magical Girls
Ashley Panichapat
Magical girls are girls that transform and fight evil.
We are all magical girls.
You don’t have to be a girl to be a magical girl. It isn’t a gender, or a job, or something you earn. It’s not a title that gets handed to you. It’s a mindset. A choice. Something you decide to step into.
But evil isn’t always so obvious. It’s not just monsters or villains. Sometimes it’s doubt. Apathy. Fear. The quiet belief that nothing matters. A magical girl faces those things anyway, with whatever strength she can find.
This thesis explores the process of becoming one. Told through visual storytelling across five chapters locked away in star-shaped compacts and handmade magic wands, each book folds out to reveal a facet of being a magical girl and the stage of the journey where it takes place. Together, these pieces hold what was once avoided or pushed aside: a part of me that wanted, very simply, to believe in something.
Becoming a magical girl isn’t a single transformation. It’s something you come back to. Again and again. It means recognizing that light and darkness coexist. That growth isn’t instant. That choosing to care is, in itself, a kind of power.
There might be magic in the world. It’s just not always easy to see.
We are all magical girls.
But becoming one is a decision.