Shining Maidens, The

The Shining Maidens

• Daphne (The Fighter): A warrior who uses a standard broadsword. The headstrong leader of the group. [British]
• Emiko (The Mage): A magical girl-styled witch who carries a magic wand and a spell book and fights using various spells. The quiet researcher who likes showing off in battle. [Japanese]
• Tanisha (The Thief): A ninja-like bandit who carries a pair of knives. The snarky, sneaky one. [Black, possibly African American]
• Katarzyna (The Beast): A muscular catwoman who fights using various wrestling moves, along with her claws and teeth. The bruiser who's a softy at heart. [Unknown "race"]

The first attempt to create visual designs for the Shining Maidens was in 2019, while their current designs date to roughly early 2023, courtesy of Kisekae, no less. This project is mainly inspired by the long-running franchise Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the genre of side-scrolling beat-'em-up video games (including, of course, the various TMNT games in the genre, though Golden Axe and The King of Dragons are honorable mentions). It also takes after female-focused fantasy franchises such as Queen's Blade and Bikini Warriors... which, it should be noted, are both published by Hobby Japan.

The tentative setting is a standard fantasy world, but with a primarily female population and random elements and anachronisms such as modern-day metropolises and futuristic factories complete with robots. This all plays into the parodic nature of the project, alongside the character designs.

The "Shining" in the team's name refers to what metal weapons and armor do in addition to alluding to how the members are wacky and larger than life, while "Maidens" is there to balance the name out and make it fancy-sounding. (Incidentally, Shining Maiden was the name of a Korean gacha game from 2020, but it came and went within about a year, so a name collision is unlikely.)

[Also see the Cyber Knights, as they're meant to be generic "enemies" for the quartet. More will be coming eventually.]