I desperately want more of this magical girl pilot animatic

Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl is an affectionate parody of magical girl cartoons, centered on Aika, a magical girl who really doesn’t want this, thank you very much. The pilot animatic is just over 10 minutes long, but it’s a roaring good time, with some hilarious gags (and several nods to the magical girl genre), stellar voice acting, and a deeply compelling plot. Does Aika have a former team? How did she get her powers? Will she ever get to live a normal high school life with her new best friend?

The pilot is the passion project of Disney Television Animation storyboard artist and director Kiana Khansmith (Big City Greens), who posted the original character concepts on Tumblr last August just for fun. The idea caught on, with many people drawing fan art of the characters and Khansmith making more comics about them. Very quickly, it turned from just a fun concept into a whole pilot animatic, with full voice acting.

Khansmith said in her Tumblr FAQ that she’s not sure where the project will go from here now that the pilot is out.

“If it does well, I might consider pitching it around, but I’m also content with it just being a pilot and then doing little comics about the characters,” she wrote.

Considering it has racked up 1.2 million views in just a couple of days, I’m hoping that we get a full series order one day. As a magical girl fan — and someone who loves seeing animation in the YA space get more popular in America — I would personally love to see more.

Check out Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to be a Magical Girl on YouTube, and follow Khansmith on Tumblr and Instagram for more behind-the-scenes looks.