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Since quite a few years back, it's been quite commonplace in fantasy anime and manga to represent casting magic as some kinds of 2D circles or geometric figures with patterns, possibly multiple ones, as in the image on the right (Frieren). I see this idea used in almost all – if not all – anime and manga now.
It hasn't always been that way though. Older anime and manga used other and different kinds of representations, say from blinking stars (image on the left, Majokko Megu-chan) to smoke, or even just sound effects.
I'm just curious: does anyone have any info or links to share about how this "2D representation" came about and why it's become so popular? Cheers!
I bet anime pulls a lot of its visual inspiration from games especially JRPGs. Can't think of any examples off the top of my head but I've definitely played games where a magic circle appears at the feet of the caster.
There's also a magic circle in the background of the original Dark Magician card in Yu-Gi-Oh!, which I think goes back to the late 90s. There's also a magic circle in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime in the seal of orichalcos season which would have been the early 2000s.
I'd hazard a guess it showed up in a lot of Squaresoft's games a lot, around pre Final Fantasy 7 era.