i'm under the impression a good chunk of the magical girl fandom has no idea of what the word parody even means

it's NOT synonymous for "show i couldn't like with some comedy elements on it", i shall inform

boueibu isn't a parody, is a homage

sarazanmai isn't a parody, it's just quirky

tokyo mew mew olé isn't a parody, it's a spin-off

fairy ranmaru isn't a parody, it's an earnest (even if fanservicey) show with some callbacks just like a lot of mg shows do

you wanna know what's a magical girl parody? dai mahou touge

want another? magical girl ore

and you know what those have in common? they mock the genre, sometimes even in a mean-spirited way, which is something none of the shows above ever did

"but the boys in boueibu find the situation ridiculous!" well, if you go by that standard futari wa pretty cure is also a parody, because cure black also finds the whole situation ridiculous at first in a very similar fashion

and i don't think y'all wanna call precure a parody

i still remember watching futari wa and being like "i can't believe boueibu called back to it! no wonder precure fans compared boueibu to it! cure black is as no-nonsense as en!"

boueibu paid an earnest homage here; they wouldn't even bother with the callback if it was mockery

dai mahou touge, on another hand, did a callback to old magical girl series, but didn't really bother with the source works at all

it wasn't as mean spirited as magical girl ore, though; it was a GOOD parody, in which it was hilarious and had really well animated wrestling moves

i couldn't like magical girl ore because it was too mean-spirited; i really couldn't get over the fact "male bodies are the ideal ones for fighting", it was too misogynistic and mean to my liking, to the point i dropped it. it had potential to be a great parody, but... nope.

magical boy shows never really were misogynistic to the point of saying girls couldn't be magical girls; in fact the one boueibu character who says IN THE MOBAGE he doesn't understand why earth is so obsessed with magical girls is zundar, a villain not quite known for his tact

(he doesn't even say it in the anime so that's to be taken with a grain of salt)

in sarazanmai things are actually VERY serious; no one should be offput by them transforming into kappas or diving into giant monster butts to save the day, as it's all part of the show's themes (desire, taboos, queerness); ikuhara is a specialist in making serious quirky series

i have no idea what tokyo mew mew olé is about but from the manga panels i've seen, it looks a lot like your standard magical girl shows but gender flipped; there's a romance between the protag and a girl and the boys transform to save the day and stuff

"but the outfits in tmm olé are kinda sexualized" oh dear, the girls in tokyo mew mew are 12 years olds who use leg garters and have strangely placed tattoos, if you're going to complain about the spin-off, mind the original work as well, shall we?

as for fairy ranmaru, it's also mostly gender-flipped tropes as well; i really doubt anyone would bat an eyelash if those fairies were sexy girls instead of sexy guys and many would in fact be like "step on me uruu" if they saw hypothetical girl!uruu's heels

in the end, i don't know what magical girl fandom wants from magical boy fandom when magical boy shows have been so far a perfect gender-flipped variation of magical girl shows, but with appropriate masculine concerns where they apply

i thought mg fans liked gender equality?

i feel a great part of why some mg fans think magical boy shows are parodies instead of perfectly serviceable gender-flipped shows is a dash of queerphobia; sure, they say gnc is good, but only if it's under very strict standards; break those barriers and they dislike it

when i try to think about what they want (precure with boys), i think they don't /really/ want a precure with boys, because if it was strictly so, they'd call it a parody simply because they have an idealized image of magical boys that conflict with how realistic boys usually are

here's the dilemma: you either write a magical boy show entirely with idealized boys and have fans call it unrealistic (and they WILL), or write it with realistic boys and have them call it a parody

you can't win and magical boy shows are fated to never be accepted in the west

but if magical girl fans can't accept magical boy shows for what they are, there's an audience who can: queer people, in special queer masc people, who want to see themselves become sparkly magical beings as well

and guess what? THEY will be the ones magical boy shows will begin to attract. the queer, the non-conforming, the marginalized, the quirky and the weird. the ones society can't accept but who still want to shine.

and you know what? unintentional or not, this is an amazing thing.