(Illustration by John R. Neill.)
August 21 is Ozma's birthday in L. Frank Baum's Oz canon. Coincidentally, I also happen to be reading The Road to Oz this month, which revolves around Ozma throwing a birthday celebration. I only started reading the Oz books in full-swing earlier this summer, but I have been aware of Ozma for quite some time. My first indirect exposure to Ozma was through J.M. DeMatteis's tragically short-lived comic book series Abadazad, which portrayed an Oz-like magical kingdom ruled by the Fairy Queen Ija, clearly patterned after Ozma, but unique in her own way.
Reading the Oz books has been a lot of fun, and a breath of fresh air for me, especially after going through the rather dark series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and its follow-up film, earlier this year. But perhaps both series are similar in some shared history and tropes...
A few years ago, Tumblr user Allieinarden commented that L. Frank Baum had a hand in creating the Magical Girl genre, which many will know is the genre that characters such as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Princess Tutu, and of course, Madoka Kaname, are a part of. I've thought about how to describe the genre to someone who isn't overtly-familiar with anime, and the best I could come up with was "It's like a Disney Princess... Combined with a superhero (but not always)." Allieinarden pointed out that, like modern Magical Girl shows, Baum's stories featured female protagonists, many of whom at one point wield magic, with an emphasis on friendship between said protagonists (both male and female).
Though a bit of an exaggeration, there is some truth to Allieinarden's sentiment. Both the Oz books and many Magical Girl shows pull from classical fairy tales. One of the first examples of a Magical Girl show in Japan is Sally the Witch, witches being a standard fairy tale character (See this video for an in-depth look at the her). Baum himself set out explicitly to create an "American" fairy tale when he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In his essay "The Fairy-Telling Craft of Princess Tutu," Bill Ellis writes that the titular character's transformation from an awkward girl struggling in ballet class to a magically-gifted ballerina, in addition to being "a conscious use of a well-known motif from maho shojo [Magical Girl] anime," is also very similar to the transformation of the titular character from fairy tales such as "Cinderella."
(Aschenputtel/Cinderella, by Alexander Zick.)
Indeed, when Ozma is first introduced, she's in the form of a young boy named Tip, who is stuck working for the witch Mombi. Characters being down on their luck or stuck in some kind of rut before encountering magic are common motifs in both fairy tales and Magical Girl stories. And Ozma's dress and staff do seem to be archetypal ancestors of the kind of costume and wands used by Magical Girls, as well. Her relationship with Dorothy Gale also mirrors many relationships Magical Girls have with their non-magical friends.
In the end, it may be a stretch to say that Baum directly lead to the Magical Girl genre being formed. But there is no denying that the genre and the Oz books owe a lot to the fairy tale tradition. It really brings to mind my undergrad professor's words about how everything is connected.
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