The mahō shōjo or “magical girl”, genre of Japanese animation and manga has maintained a steady, prolific presence for nearly fifty years. Magical Girl series for the most part feature a female protagonist who is between the ages of nine and fourteen - not a little girl but not yet a woman. She is either born with or bestowed upon the ability to transform into a magical alter-ego and must save the world from a clear and present enemy. The magical girl must to work to balance her “normal life” – domestic obligations, educational obligations, and interpersonal relationships – with her duty to protect the world. I will argue that the "transformation" of an ordinary girl into a magical girl heroine is a mechanism of personal and spiritual growth within a liminal space that provides the heroine and the female fans who read these series with the tools needed to grow in a supportive community. I will build a framework using Joseph Campbell’s mythic narrative and Vladimir Propp’s folktale morphology to illustrate how the narrative pushes the heroine to grow and mature in a way that honors her individual self. Furthermore, I will illustrate how female fans disseminate these works as consumers, creators, and producers. Magical girl series, particularly ones marketed to school girl audiences, are published in manga magazines that encourage engagement between the readers and artists while initiating young readers into the world of manga. / Graduate

當好萊塢式的超級英雄在全球影視文化圈刮起炫風之時，日本次文化中亦有一群「娘子軍」，推動了日本動畫、漫畫的發展，諸如《美少女戰士》、《新世紀福音戰士》，至2011年成為日本推動軟實力外交「Cool Japan」的主打動畫—《魔法少女小圓》，都展現了日本動漫市場被名為「戰鬥美少女」的角色（character）和文類（genre）所引領的實態。這些巾幗不讓鬚眉的「美少女」，是動漫畫中的戰鬥主體，卻擁有別於歐美文化中結合力與美的女超人及女戰士的特質，她們同時擁有戰鬥的能動性，在身體表象上又具有纖細瘦弱、容易受傷的受動性，更甚是成為男性觀眾的性慾客體、女性自我實現的投射。如此對「少女」的憧憬與操作慾，實乃根基於日本近代文化的一種特殊現象。 在日本動漫充斥著色情與暴力而為人詬病之時，宮崎駿動畫電影因其所蘊含的藝術價值而和我們認知中的「御宅動畫」產生一線之隔。作品中披荊斬棘、自力更生的女性形象讓人耳目一新，然仔細探究宮崎駿動畫的人物設計和敘事結構卻與上述類型動畫中的戰鬥美少女特質不謀而合，甚至其作品《風之谷》中的娜烏西卡更被譽為是替戰鬥美少女定型的元祖角色。因此，本研究擬梳理少女文化與戰鬥美少女的發展，並以宮崎駿自1984年起至2013年執導的十部長篇動畫電影為研究對象，檢視其作品在角色形塑上是否使用戰鬥美少女模式包裝其理想的「少女意象」，期以理解「少女」之於日本社會有何種意涵與價值。 本研究發現，宮崎駿動畫除了酷愛以「飛行」強調少女的神聖性，其去性化的純潔無垢的少女意象，更符合近代日本對少女所設下的社會框架，而在敘述手法上卻體現了日本文化中普遍具有的過度男性凝視與母性肥大的主題，從而證明戰鬥美少女實非顛覆父權的利器，反而加深了既有的性別刻板印象。 / While Hollywood’s superhero movies are blowing up entertainment industry all over the world, there is a kind of young female character toting weapon in Japanese subculture and promotes the development of Anime and Manga. From Sailor Moon to Neon Genesis Evangelion, also Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which played an important role in Japan’s foreign Policy titled “Cool Japan” in 2011, the Japanese animation industry seems to be led by this kind of character or genre called “Battle Heroine”. These girls are prepubescent and pretty, but not inferior to boys and man. Although they are different from western superwoman and female warrior shaped in Amazons, they still hold the initiative in theirs fights. In the same time, they also maintain the passivity came from their vulnerable bodies and naive personality. Therefore, the battle heroine turns to be an object of desire for male audiences or a projection of self-actualized for female audiences. In fact, such desire to manipulate young girls, who were named “Shōjo” in Japanese, was based on the culture of modern Japan and became a special social phenomenon in recent times. Despite the fact that Japanimation was condemned by public because of teeming with violence and pornography, it is no doubt that director Hayao Miyazaki is appreciated for the artistic value in his awarded animations and makes a fine line between his films and “otaku anime”. The woman images in his animations can be refreshing because of its independence and brave behavior. However, when we have made a careful study of character design and narrative structure in his works, we may found that there is a coincidence between these characters and battle heroines in otaku anime. Furthermore, Nausicaä in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is widely regarded as a stereotype of battle heroine. As a result, the thesis was intended to prioritize the development of Shōjo culture and battle heroine animations, and research whether Miyazaki attempted to shape female characters in battle heroine way to show his ideal Shōjo images or not among ten films directed during 1984 to 2013. Moreover, the meanings of Shōjo to Japanese were also discussed in this thesis. Throughout the research, I have found that Miyazaki tended to use “flying scene” to emphasize the deity of Shōjo characters, and the desexualized Shōjo images are familiar to the gender norms made in modern Japan. On the other side, the narrative approach of Miyazaki’s films revealed the exaggeration of maternal instinct and the redundancy of male gaze which have generally existed in Japanese culture. In my observation, these results proved that battle heroines are created to strengthen gender stereotypes instead of subverting the paternity rights.