Magical Girl Anime
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50 free Magical Girl Anime trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Magical girl anime runs on a simple promise: an ordinary schoolgirl says the word, the ribbons fly, and she becomes someone who can save the day. That promise has been kept for decades, first by young witches who caused comic chaos in their neighbourhoods and later by teams of heroines who fight monsters between homework and first crushes. This quiz covers the genre the way its fans know it: the pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s, the Sailor Moon boom, Cardcaptor Sakura, Pretty Cure, Tokyo Mew Mew and the darker turn that came with Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It also follows the idea abroad, to Winx Club, W.I.T.C.H., Miraculous and the American cartoons that grew up on transformation sequences. The opening questions suit anyone who watched one of these shows after school, and the later ones reward viewers who know the creators, studios and history behind them. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the set works for an anime club night or as a warm-up before a rewatch.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Sally the Witch, widely regarded as the first magical girl anime, took its concept from which American sitcom?
Bewitched
Bewitched aired in Japan under a title meaning The Missus Is a Witch, and its suburban sorcery inspired manga artist Mitsuteru Yokoyama to create Sally in 1966.
Q 02In Sailor Moon, the name of heroine Usagi Tsukino puns on which animal that East Asian folklore places on the Moon?
A rabbit
A rabbit is what usagi means, and her full name can be read as Rabbit of the Moon, after the folktale creature said to be visible in the lunar face.
Q 03Marinette Dupain-Cheng transforms into the heroine of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir to protect which city?
Paris
Paris is home to both teenage heroes, who battle supervillains created by Hawk Moth. The French production is one of several European shows shaped by magical girl anime.
Q 04W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club, two Western takes on the magical girl team, both originated in which European country?
Italy
Italy produced both: the first began as a Disney comic in 2001 and Winx Club followed on television in 2004, after Sailor Moon had found a European audience.
Q 05In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which cat-like creature grants a girl one wish if she agrees to fight witches?
Kyubey
Kyubey looks like a harmless mascot but is an alien who leaves out the vital terms of every contract, a twist that upended the genre's cute-sidekick tradition.
Q 06Mamoru Chiba, the love interest of Usagi Tsukino in Sailor Moon, throws roses in battle under which disguise?
Tuxedo Mask
Tuxedo Mask hides his face to aid the Sailor Guardians, though in the anime he mostly throws one flower and leaves the finishing blow to them. Some English versions renamed him Darien Shields.
Q 07The original English dub of Sailor Moon hid the romance between Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune by calling them what?
Cousins
Cousins was the cover story in North America, while in Japan the director had told Haruka's voice actress to play the pair as if they were a married couple.
Q 08Which Cartoon Network series by Rebecca Sugar, about a boy who lives with the Crystal Gems, drew on magical girl anime?
Steven Universe
Steven Universe wears its influences openly: Sugar has cited Revolutionary Girl Utena, and one reviewer named Sailor Moon among its strongest visual and structural models.
Q 09The title of the Disney comic and cartoon W.I.T.C.H., about five teenage Guardians, is built from what?
The girls' initials
The girls' initials spell it out: Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay Lin, who, despite the name they share, are not actually witches.
Q 10Which guardian beast, nicknamed Kero, emerges from the book that Sakura Kinomoto opens in Cardcaptor Sakura?
Cerberus
Cerberus takes his name from the three-headed dog that guards the Greek underworld, yet spends most of his time as a small winged figure resembling a stuffed animal.
Q 11Which studio animated Sally the Witch in 1966 and later produced both Sailor Moon and Pretty Cure?
Toei Animation
Toei Animation made most of the genre's 1970s shows too, and Pretty Cure later borrowed talent who had worked on the live-action Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.
Q 12Cardcaptor Sakura and Magic Knight Rayearth are both the work of which all-female group of manga artists?
Clamp
Clamp formed in the mid-1980s as a twelve-member circle making self-published fan comics, and settled into one writer and three artists whose roles shift with each series.
Q 13Which manga artist created Codename: Sailor V in 1991 and then reworked its idea into Sailor Moon?
Naoko Takeuchi
Q 21Sailor Moon reshaped magical girl anime by borrowing transforming-hero teams from which Japanese live-action genre?
Tokusatsu
Tokusatsu is the home of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider, and Sailor Moon paired its team battles with romance and fashion in a mix that later heroines copied.
Q 22Which artist drew Princess Knight, the 1953 manga about a girl with two hearts that foreshadowed magical girl stories?
Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka wrote it after an editor asked for a girls' comic to match the success of his adventures for boys, and its heroine who transforms to do what she otherwise could not became a prototype.
Q 23Cutie Honey, a 1973 heroine who helped pioneer magical girl anime, came from which creator of Devilman and Mazinger Z?
Go Nagai
Naoko Takeuchi rebuilt the concept when an anime was proposed, turning her solo crime-fighter into one member of a whole team of heroines.
Q 14In Sailor Moon, which talking black cat with a crescent mark on her forehead advises heroine Usagi Tsukino?
Luna
Luna comes from the planet Mau and can also take human form. Her fellow adviser Artemis looks after Sailor Venus.
Q 15In the 1990s English dub of Sailor Moon, what new name was given to heroine Usagi Tsukino?
Serena
Serena stuck so firmly that the dub also turned Princess Serenity into Princess Serena, while the Sailor Guardians became the Sailor Scouts.
Q 16In Winx Club, where does Earth girl Bloom enrol to train after discovering that she is a fairy?
Alfea College
Alfea College is where Bloom befriends four other fairies and forms the group that gives the show its name, fighting enemies across the Magic Dimension.
Q 17In Sailor Moon, bookish Ami Mizuno, the brains of the team, is the guardian of which planet?
Mercury
Mercury is written in Japanese with the character for water, and Ami duly commands water and ice while gathering battle data on a supercomputer.
Q 18In Princess Tutu, the heroine who becomes a magical ballerina to mend a shattered heart is really which bird?
A duck
A duck is the heroine's true form, in a story that draws on The Ugly Duckling and Swan Lake and settles its conflicts through dance instead of violence.
Q 19Smile PreCure!, an entry in the Pretty Cure franchise, reached Netflix in English under which new title?
Glitter Force
Glitter Force was the name Saban Brands gave its English adaptation, which arrived in 2015 as a Netflix exclusive in multiple languages outside Asia.
Q 20Which reckless princess from the dimension of Mewni is sent to Earth to calm down in a 2015 Disney XD series?
Star Butterfly
Star Butterfly is heir to Mewni's throne and carries a magic wand that villains keep trying to steal, in one of several American cartoons that borrow from magical girl anime.
Go Nagai made the original as male-oriented science fiction. A 1997 remake, Cutie Honey Flash, retooled it for young girls in the wake of Sailor Moon.
Q 24In Himitsu no Akko-chan, credited as the earliest magical girl manga, what gift lets Akko transform into anything?
A mirror
A mirror was the gift, remade as a compact for the anime. The show's toy line was the genre's first and a huge hit, and compacts have been a transformation staple ever since.
Q 25In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, what does a girl's contract secretly remove from her body and seal inside a gem?
Her soul
Her soul is extracted and sealed in the gem, leaving the body as a tougher shell for fighting witches, a cost the girls discover only after they have agreed.
Q 26In Tokyo Mew Mew, Ichigo Momomiya and her teammates gain their powers from the DNA of what?
Endangered species
Endangered species lend each girl her powers: Ichigo is fused with the Iriomote cat, and her teammates with a lorikeet, a porpoise, a tamarin and a gray wolf.
Q 27Which Sailor Moon character first led her own manga, Codename: Sailor V, as a solo crime-fighter?
Minako Aino
Minako Aino debuted months before the main series as a lone heroine guided by her cat Artemis, then joined the team as Sailor Venus when the two stories merged.
Q 28In Cutie Honey, schoolgirl Honey Kisaragi learns after her father's murder that she is really what?
An android
An android created by her father, Honey owes part of her design to the character Maria from Metropolis, one of the models her author drew on.
Q 29In Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, what are Tikki and the other beings inside the heroes' jewels called?
Kwamis
Kwamis are magical entities that embody concepts and resemble animals. Tikki, the one for creation, lives in the earrings that turn Marinette into Ladybug.
Q 30Which Japanese word for transformation names the costume-change sequences at the heart of magical girl anime?
Henshin
Henshin heroes began in live-action shows such as Kamen Rider. The transforming heroine who took up the idea in the early 1990s has been a staple of the genre since.