Magical Girl Friendship Squad: Origins

• Alex (voiced by Brianna "Bedes" Baker[5]) who thinks of becoming a barista at a coffee shop in the local area, before meeting Nut.
• Daisy (voiced by Anna Akana[6]) is a friend of Alex. She is also a stoner and antihero.
• Nut (voiced by Anika Noni Rose[7]) is a red panda who gives Daisy and Alex the ability to transform into magical girls, allowing them to work together to save the universe.

• Corporate executive (voiced by Daisy Hobbs)

• Verus (voiced by Estelle[8])

Magical Girl Friendship Squad Origins is an anime-inspired animation created by Kelsey Stephanides.[9] The show began airing on Syfy's new adult animation block, TZGZ in January 2020.[2][10][11] This pilot series was written by Diana McCorry, who created Human Kind Of.[12] Stephanides stated that this series was a parody of the magical girl subgenre and set up the characters, which later were expanded upon in the main show.[13]

In 2015, while in school at New York University, studying Media, Culture and Communications, Stephanides, an avid fan of the magical girl genre, came up with the idea for the show.[14] After talking to her professor, James Belfer of Cartuna, he told her to pitch it to Cartuna, which loved the show. As a result, the production on the series began, meant to be a "short-form pitch to networks," and it was pitched around for years until 2019, when SYFY picked it up, wanting to reboot it, polish it more, and have longer episodes. That led to the creation of the main show, Magical Girl Friendship Squad. Stephanides also noted how this pilot show effected the main show, like the idea of Nut, an animal companion and partner which helps the protagonists, and is somehow the creator of the universe, saying it is "hilarious and adorable."

After its release in January 2020, it continued to air on SYFY's programming block through the year.[12][15][16]

The show is produced by Cartuna, a New York animation studio.[6][17] Krystal "K" Downs is the animation director,[18] Kelsey Stephanides is the showrunner,[6] and Diana McCorry is development producer (and writer) of the show.[19] Like with the main show, Adam Belfer and James Belfer were executive producers, although for this pilot show, Daniel Shepard and Stephanides were also executive producers.

Anna Akana voiced Daisy in this series and would also do so in the main show, titled Magical Girl Friendship Squad.[6] Additionally, Brianna Baker voiced Alex, Anika Noni Rose voiced Nut, and Estelle was a guest star.

Six episodes of the adult animation, inspired by Sailor Moon and other magical girl anime, began airing on Syfy,[20][21] features two women, Alex and Daisy. The latter is a lesbian who sleeps with a woman during the second episode of the show.