The Egg and the Magical Girl: A Shugo Chara review

2024-12-26

Long time no see! Today is boxing day, and me and my partner have just finished MAHO girls precure in preparation for it's sequel release! Now it has been a few months since my last blog post, and Believe it or not it's all because of this blog post!

What is the significance of using Eggs as metaphor in Magical girl anime? Now I have actually written a blog post about this already which was written all the way back in August, though it always felt a little bit... shallow to me, and didn't really feel like the thoughts were actually complete at all. It is unlisted because of the lack of sense and quality but it is linked above if you want to read it! (Note: you don't need to read it to understand this post ;9) Though the quality of that unlisted post always bothered me, the main reason I never felt like that it was 'complete' was more because I hadn't finished Shugo Chara (or Doki!) at the time of writing. Since it was the main anime that inspired the making of the post as a whole, and is the main example of eggs as a visual metaphor in magical girl series (though not the first nor the last, refer to the post above for many more examples!) I just felt like I needed to have a better idea of it as a series to make any meaningful points about the subject.

Since I have finally (as of a few minutes ago) finished Shugo Chara Doki! I feel like I can finally write this post, and finally let the idea rest.

Disclaimer!! From here on out there will be major spoilers for Shugo Chara and Shugo Chara Doki! With possible minor spoilers for other Magical girl series. This post also contains discussions of fictional child abuse and neglect.

What sets Shugo Chara apart from many others in the Magical Girl genre is its core concept: that every child (regardless of gender or age) is inherently born with infinite potential. While many other MG series tend to have some kind of restriction; be that luck (in being the 'chosen' one), gender, a contract, or some other reason that restricts people from being a MG, Shugo Chara not only argues but constantly plays with the idea that every single human without restriction being has the capacity to be something magical, and that what constitutes as magical can be anything from being a world famous singer, a literal baby, or just a happier person. For Shugo Chara, the egg is used as a playful visual metaphor in ways that elevate this concept in many ways.

Hiding in your shell; a fragile strength

One of the most straightforward ways that the eggs are used in Shugo chara is the idea that people will often hide in shells which are simultaneously strong yet fragile, and hold an even more fragile potential that can eventually outweigh that strength. Shugo charas themselves will often sleep or hide in their eggs, but their owners will also often times hide behind the characters or personas they build for themselves. For some characters, like Tadase and Amu, their characters (as in; their chara change personalities) are mentally and physically stronger versions of themselves created to protect their feelings and emotions, while their personas (their outward personalities; like Tadase's capable exterior, or Amu's 'spicy and cool' exterior) are meant to protect their percieved 'proper' lives. In this way there is a clear difference between the person they feel like are supposed to be, versus who they want to be.

While this dichotomy is inherently interesting, its the third option of who they really are on the inside that makes this so compelling. What Shugo Chara posits is that real strength comes from recognizing all these parts of the self, and letting your true self influence your dreams, and your dreams influence your actions. In the series, this is mainly shown in Doki! Taking Tadase as an example: We're shown early on that he struggles with the difference between his character and his persona, with many a comedic instance of him Chara Changing right in the middle of doing his official King's Chair duties. Both are the hard shell that protects his fragile and weak inner self, but while his Chara change makes him confident and strong, it overcompensates for that weakness by making him egoistical. Meanwhile his Kings chair persona makes him agreeable and capable, but doesn't truly capture his earnest and genuine feelings. By confronting his past, his reasons for having Kiseki, and his own weak self, he can finally find his own real inner strength. This strength is then rooted in his fragility and his genuine desire for love and affection.

Trauma, parenthood, and Shugo Charas.

One of the less straightforward but equally as important ways that Shugo Chara uses eggs as metaphor is in the relationship between parent and child. In many ways, a Shugo Chara is both the idealized self, but also simultaneously both parent/carer and child. One of the brilliant aspects of the show is how it uses this to simplify seriously complex social situations of child abuse and neglect. The two characters which embody this concept are Rima and Ikuto, who both suffer from neglect to full on abuse respectively, and show a lot of similarities in their relationships with their Shugo Chara.

In Rima's case, her Shugo Chara acts as an escape from her parents' constant arguments. In many ways, Kusukusu doesn't only represent Rima's desire to be a comedian but more loosely represents her desire to make others (notably- her parents) laugh. While Rima is outwardly a very different kind of person to her 'Would be' self, her relationship with Kusukusu is one of the strongest in the cast with the two loosely being each others' confidants and closest friends. It's this relationship that forms the basis for the parent/child dynamic the two share, in the absence of consistent love and support from her parents, Kusukusu fills that role for Rima. Likewise, Rima cares for Kusukusu greatly, with her being the only person Rima could trust before her friendship with Amu. Had it not been for Kusukusu, would Rima have been strong enough to live with her consistent isolation? Would she have been able to grow as a person, despite the lack of love and support from her family?

Ikuto's story takes these questions and raises the stakes even more considerably. While we do initially get the feeling that his family life is incredibly turbulent, the exact specifics only become clear as we get into Doki! Much like Rima, Ikuto faces an incredible amount of isolation in his personal life, but unlike Rima this isolation quickly and violently descended into a life of consistent exploitation as a result of a generational trauma he had no choice in. In order to protect his loved ones in the absence of kind adults, he decides to take on the bulk of the ire of the adults in his life creating a self-induced isolated martyrdom. It is no surprise then, that his would-be self is Yoru, a Shugo Chara who symbolizes the freedom and community he could never have. Yoru is a Shugo Chara who has no real affiliation with any of the major players in the fight for the embryo, who has a community of like-minded streetcats who support him, and who loves Ikuto and is loved by Ikuto completely and utterly. In the beginning of the series, Ikuto treats Yoru much like a pet; giving him treats, petting him, and letting him run wild. However as things get more serious for Ikuto we get to see more of what Yoru does for him as well. Yoru, having known Ikuto from such a young age, acts more as a Guardian for Ikuto than nearly any other Shugo Chara (possibly with the exception of Dia) ensuring he is nourished, housed, loved, and cared for to the best of his abilities. When Ikuto disappears, Yoru scrapes the earth in search of him. Yoru's actions towards Ikuto go past that of a pet, past that of a child, and squarely into the realms of familial/parental love. It could be said in fact that Yoru's actions towards Ikuto mirror Ikuto's feelings towards his father, or perhaps what he wishes his father could have done for him. Surrounded by adults who only wish for him to experience pain, who ignore his autonomy, his identity, and actively put him in life endangering situations; Yoru is a source of comfort and safety that Ikuto relies on emotionally and physically. When considering the previous questions I asked about Rima and Kusukusu, I think it's a lot more clear cut that if Yoru did not exist, Ikuto could have never survived the abuse he endured throughout his life, nor could he have possibly grown as a person.

It's never too late to be reborn.

The last point I wanted to explore about Shugo Chara is the idea of Rebirth. Eggs as a symbol of rebirth is perhaps the most common utilization of the visual metaphor throughout written and visual culture. In Shugo Chara, rebirth is more akin to the retrieval or renewal of the self post-ego death.

The earliest and perhaps most interesting example of this is Nikaido's experience having and losing his Shugo Chara. Objectively, his character arc may not be that ground breaking, as a child his teacher changes schools which causes him to realize that his desire to become a robotics engineer is unlikely, which causes him to break his own egg. His character changes drastically after this, becoming a very nihilistic person who seems to prefer to cause emotional pain to others. After a lot of silly nonsense, Amu, Suu and friends convince him that his egg must not be gone since he can still see the Shugo Chara, and we get to see that not only is his old egg still around, but that he had a new one in him as well. He quickly becomes a 'real' teacher at Amu's school, and excels at it quite a bit. While this is all okay, the thing that had me tearing my hair out for a while was the idea that he had gotten hired at this school without any teacher training. I KNOW it's a silly thing to worry about! But as someone who wants to get into teaching, the idea that he just 'got hired' randomly was so frustrating it ruined the immersion entirely for me. It's this precise gripe that makes Nikaido's character so interesting... because he did have a teaching qualification!!! While all of that nonsense with the embryo and Easter was happening, while he roleplayed being a villain, while he acted like he hated children and wanted them to suffer, while all of that was happening already had a qualification in teaching. Despite believing he had no dreams, no would be self, no care nor love in his heart, he still went through the process and time required to earn an extra qualification just to become a teacher. Not only that, there is no evidence to imply that Easter bought him into the school systems, he didn't even forge a CV, he got into that school completely on his own merit BOTH times he got hired! Maddening...! But its for this exact reason that Shugo Chara's point comes across so clearly: Everyone has a heart egg, or had one at some point. Magic is an innate part of every single person in the Shugo Chara universe and this includes adults. For the main part, the reason adults cannot see their or other's Shugo Chara comes down to faith and belief. Nikaido, who must have had his new egg inside his heart the entire time (as evidenced by the fact that he made the effort to get an entire qualification in the first place!) was only able to recognize it in himself after he got the support of others. (Interestingly, the Carer/child reversal shown in the last section is also apparent here, as the students learn from Nikaido and Nikaido learns from them as well!)

On the other end of this spectrum (and indeed, the complete other end of the series!) is the finale of Doki! Which has the two main villains of the series completely change through each other and the support of others. The relationship between Hikaru (Gozen) and his grandfather is as extreme as it gets. Hikaru is so young a character, that his story is somehow more painful than that of Ikuto's. Returning to the question of whether characters like Rima or Ikuto would survive their isolation/abuse without their Shugo Chara, Hikaru is in all ways the answer. Having been brought up so strictly, and in such complete and utter isolation, Hikaru loses his egg at an age so young that the series makes a point to say that every other child his age has the ability to see and interact with Shugo Chara freely. If the ability to recognize them is linked directly to a person's faith and belief, the idea that Hikaru had willingly thrown that away is a punch in the face metaphor for his loss of innocence and childhood. To be so young yet so empty is a tragedy, one that turns him into a husk of a human, completely unable to interact with anyone else. His grandfather, seemingly a power hungry dictator who only lives to serve, is a grieving parent with no ability to care for the young.

It is at this junction that I want to bring up my final point on Shugo Chara. The existence of an Egg inherently implies the existence of a parent. Eggs are offspring at the end of the day, and while not all egg laying creatures will remain to care for their children, it may be true (or perhaps, it is implied?) that every single egg laying creature spends at least a short amount of time protecting their young, even if that is only inside of themselves. Shugo Chara has no shortage of parents nor parental characters. From adoptive ones, elder siblings, birth parents, and so forth. Something that always leaves me wondering is who gets to become the protagonist in stories like this? Who gets to become the strongest character, and why is it that they are the ones who are 'chosen'? What is it about Amu that made her the way that she is? My theory is that it's not just Amu's own kindness that makes her so strong, but the kindness that she inherits and learns from her parents. When we look at all the different Shugo Chara having characters, the ones who are the kindest and strongest are the ones who recieved the most love as children. This doesn't mean that children who are not loved will never amount to anything however, all it means is that it is the ones who recieved that love initially who are strong enough to help those around them become their own best selves.

Hikaru, despite his upbringing, is able to change. Amu and friends force his grandfather to reconcile with the fact that he is the problem, and this allows them both to grow. While the mistakes of adults cannot be erased- not for Rima's parents nor Nikaido nor Hikaru's grandfather- those who were able to become kind are able to stand up for those who were not given that chance.

There's so much to be said about Shugo Chara, not all of it is positive and quite a lot of it is speculative. For what it is I am shocked that it's not as popular as its contemporaries of the time, but I do mostly chalk that up to the significant amount of gender-play and unhinged sexual moments of the story. I completely understand why the second season (which is objectively much more exciting than the first one!) didn't get an official dub back in the day, as accurate censorship of scenes and characters may have ended up being too costly or time consuming an effort. In the places that did get a more full version of the story I've scene a continuing effort to enjoy the series (particularly in Korea!) and that's something that brings me joy.

Thanks for sticking by me throughout this massive post, it was a large effort but I learned a lot through it! For future posts, expect an essay I made for university that I had to scrub down for lack of space (word counts be damned!) about the Egyptian revolution, and my work on a comic I did for my classes. Stay weird everyone, bye bye!

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