Term · Anime culture
Mahou
The Japanese word for magic, best known abroad from the two words that come after it.
In Otakana the clue reads: The Japanese word for magic
- Type
- Term
- Series
- Anime culture
- Letters
- 5 · Hard
Mahou is 魔法, magic. The first character carries a sense of demon or malign spirit, the second means law or method, so the compound reads closer to the rules of the uncanny than to conjuring tricks. It is the ordinary word: a fantasy novel uses it, a stage magician's poster uses a different one, and any anime with a spell in it will say it within the first episode.
Abroad the word arrived attached to a genre. Mahou shoujo, magical girl, starts with Sally the Witch in 1966, adapted from Mitsuteru Yokoyama's manga and often credited as the first of the line. Toei then ran the format for decades before Sailor Moon fused it with the costumed hero team in 1991 and turned it into an export.
The genre has argued with itself ever since. Cardcaptor Sakura plays the transformation as pure pleasure, with a new outfit every episode because a friend enjoys sewing them. Puella Magi Madoka Magica in 2011 asked what a contract with a wish-granting creature would actually cost, and a generation of viewers has been suspicious of small talking animals ever since.
Spelling MAHOU
MAHOU is one of the rare entries that keeps its long vowel on the tiles. The Japanese 魔法 is mahou, written mahō with a macron, and here the U stays rather than being trimmed the way it is in dojo or Tokyo. Five letters, three vowels, and the trap runs backwards: typing MAHO leaves the row one short.