Sally the Witch (魔法使いサリー, Mahōtsukai Sarī?), is the first magical girl genre anime in Japan. This may (even more broadly) be the first shōjo anime as well. The first magical girl manga was Himitsu no Akko-chan but it took longer to be adapted into an anime. Both series deal with henshin style transformations (such as Sailor Moon), but neither is the first anime to feature this. Another henshin magical girl anime that aired between the two anime was Princess Knight.
Sally was also one of the first ongoing anime series produced. The series was originally black and white when it began production, but later started producing episodes in color.
The first manga series was drawn by Mitsuteru Yokoyama in 1966, and was, according to Yokoyama, inspired by the American sitcom, Bewitched (known in Japan as Oku-sama wa Majo, or "The Missus is a Witch"). The anime series was produced and aired from 1966 to 1968 in Japan by Toei Animation. Unlike Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28-go, the series never received a U.S. broadcast, but was aired in Italy (Sally la Maga), French-speaking Canada (Minifée), Poland (Sally Czarodziejka – the Polish version was based on the Italian version) and South America (Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, as La princesa Sally).
A second Mahōtsukai Sally anime, also made by Toei, aired for 88 episodes on Japanese TV from 1989 to 1991, and also was released in French (Sally la Petite Sorcière), Italian (Un regno magico per Sally), Polish (Sally Czarownica), Spanish (Sally la Brujita) and Russian (Ведьма Салли). The 1989 series is a sequel to the original, in which an older Sally returns to the human world, reunites with her old friends, and embarks on a new round of magical adventures.
Notable features this anime established in the mahō shōjo genre:
- The heroine must keep the secret of her magic. If she reveals the secret, she will be punished.
- When heroine uses magic, she needs her magical phrase and an enchanted object like a baton (Sally's magical phrase is "Mahariku Maharita Yanbarayan," a phrase with as much meaning as "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (from Disney's Cinderella)
- A magical servant follows a heroine in a mundane world.
- Two sub-heroines of tomboy and girly girl are established as the heroine's sidekicks.
These features still influence the magical girl genre in today's anime.
Famous quotes containing the words sally and/or witch:
“Is not prayer also a study of truth,—a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite? No man ever prayed heartily, without learning something. But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach every object from personal relations, and see it in the light of thought, shall, at the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will God go forth anew into creation.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A witch is one who worketh by the Devil or by some curious art either healing or revealing things secret, or foretelling things to come which the Devil hath devised to ensnare men’s souls withal unto damnation. The conjurer, the enchanter, the sorcerer, the diviner, and whatever other sort there is encompassed within this circle.”
—George Gifford (16th century)