To Prevent World Peace is a magical girl story . . . from the point of view of the villains. Someone has to save the world from overpowered magical girls!
About the Setting:
Kendra's world is not ours. At first glance it probably seems similar, and with good reason. But the differences between her world and ours go quite a bit deeper than "it's our world, with a magic system thrown in."
Her world is an alternate universe of our own. Anything before the twentieth century was identical; the first difference came about a decade into the century, when a child moved into this world from a different one altogether. Sunny (Sönnig, in her native language) was the world's first magical girl, and she created the magic system all other magical girls use. No one knows how she did it; she wasn't in any condition to explain afterwards.
As a direct result of Sunny's actions, World War I (the Great War, in this world) ended early, in a stalemate. Because Germany was not forced into economic crisis from war "reparations," the Nazi party never gained a following, and there was no World War II. In fact, since Sunny herself was German, Germany was the historical center of the magical girl magic system, and it is still considered a center of world power and moral virtue.
Not everything in this world's history is an improvement on our own. Magical girls tend to be a force for both peace and stability -- or, as villains would claim, "stasis and stagnation." Russia, China, and Japan have remained imperial, and Japan and China are perpetually at war with each other. In Russia, magical girls are recruited into public service as domovoi; in Japan and China, magical girls are conscripted into military service as kamikaze and tienlong. In Korea, magical girls are currently struggling for independence from Japanese rule through the Righteous Army.
Brazil is the major military power of South America, and its rule is not always benign. Because of this, about five years ago, a small piece of Brazil declared independence and successfully broke away. This new country calls itself Terra de Liberdade e Mágica, or "Land of Freedom and Magic," and it is generally referred to as "Mágico" because of its extremely strong emphasis on magical girls. While Germany remains historically important, Mágico is rapidly replacing it as the cultural center of the magic system.
Australia is the world's major exploratory power. It currently remains the only country to have sent astronauts into space, to have opened trade negotiations with countries in other worlds, and to have colonized Antarctica. Because Australia is an English-speaking country, English is as commonly spoken in this world as our own. However, America and England are both only moderately important on a global scale, and Australia is no longer a British colony.
Aside from technology that is generally behind ours -- there are no computers and very few cellular phones, for example -- their United States is fairly similar to ours. Feminism gained ground more quickly, and segregation ended a bit later, but they still happened at around the same time. Canada is independent from Great Britain, and they ban alcohol under Prohibition. (Prohibition never happened in the United States.) Both governments encourage magical girls to volunteer with law enforcement, and they both have lower crime rates as a result of this.
Joan of Arc is the Catholic patron saint of magical girls. In France, she is called the "sainte des saintes," because the French word for "magical girl" is sainte ("holy one" or "saint").
In Germany, magical girls are still called Sönnigkindern ("Sunny children"), in honor of the person who began their magic system.
About the Author:
My first exposure to the magical girl genre was in 1994, when my family moved to Hong Kong. I'd never seen the show, but there were these cute paper dolls everywhere that I started collecting, and a friend of my little sister's informed me they were from some series called Sailormoon.
Seven years later, I had moved back to the United States to go to college, and a new friend told me about this storytelling medium she was wild about called "anime." I'd dimly heard the term before, but never thought much about it, especially since anything that seemed to have that label looked masculine and dull to me.
Perceptive as this friend was, she decided to force me to watch Fruits Basket (then a brand new series; there were only fifteen episodes out), however unenthusiastic the prospect made me. Two weeks later, I was hooked and demanded to know what else she had. And that was how I met my second anime and first magical girl series, Prétear.
I fell for that series, and the entire genre, like a ton of bricks. Soon I was hunting Pretty Sammy, Nurse Angel Ririka and Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, as well as devouring the only-half-published manga Saint Tail. While most examples of the genre contained much that was silly and/or formulaic, there was something about the genre that spoke deeply to me.
In no time at all, I knew I'd need to do a magical girl series myself someday. I was batting around ideas at about the same time I developed my comic strip (which was not inspired by the genre), but neither my art nor my ideas were good enough to create anything satisfying. Years passed, and I continued to experiment, looking for artists to collaborate with me, trying to practice my own art into acceptability, and writing and tossing script after script.
Finally, after yet another failed collaboration in late 2006, I decided I would bite the bullet and try drawing an entire manga short story by myself. My first attempt fizzled in dismal failure, but I learned sufficient from it that when a better idea gelled in my head, I was able to complete it. I called this "The Competition," and decided I would finish a new manga short story every year for the next five or six years running.
Things started smoothly in the following year: my second short story clicked into place quickly, with very few false starts or wrong characters that needed cutting. And then it caused a brand new problem by exploding on me.
This story was not originally supposed to happen. I had an entirely different full-length manga I was planning to do, once I'd finished five or six short stories. Instead, I stumbled and tripped my way into this one.
But I can't regret it, since I love this story. And I've realized I need more practice with my art and writing before I start the next one, anyway.
