Publisher: Pioneer (Geneon, USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 mins
Production Date: 1996 – 1997
Currently in Print (as of writing): No
Story Outline: Sasami Kawai finds herself being courted by a woman named Tsunami to become a magical girl when she delivers a CD from her mother’s record shop to an old house. Tsunami is actually the top candidate to become queen in parallel world of Juraihelm. Though Sasami initially rejects the offer, she is forced to accept as another magical girl, albeit and evil one, named Pixy Misa starts causing havoc in town. Unbeknownst to Sasami is that Pixy Misa is actually Misao Amano, her best friend. The quiet introverted girl has been is being used against her will by a losing candidate to be the queen of Juraihelm, Rumiya, who will do anything to stop Tsunami from becoming queen.
Mini Review: A complete remake of the OVA series, with Sasami’s family being reduced to just her and her “dandy” father (played fantastically by Kazuki Yao) and her mother. Unfortunately Sasami’s mother is not played by Rika Matsumoto as it was in the OVAs, however she does make an appearance latter in the series. Some of the character designs are redone such as such as Sasami’s mum and dad, but the basic plot is practically identical as the OVA series. Surprisingly the show is really high quality. The animation looks fantastic. There’s a lot of well written humour in the series as well with lots of anime parodies. However the last quarter of the show takes a turn for a fair wack of drama leading up to the climax of the series, which surprisingly is quite good. All of the cast from the “Tenchi Muyo!” OVA series make in here in one form or another such as Tenchi who is an assistant director on a Sentai TV show! Sasami’s fellow schoolmates aren’t all that developed and become a bit clichéd in their actions, but luckily they are relatively unimportant to the show. The core here is Sasami and Misao friendship. Overall a rather surprisingly well done show, especially for something which seems such a throwaway concept. Probably the best thing I’ve seen in a little while. 7.5 out of 10. Oh and by the way, the packaging says the disc is regions 1 and 4, but my discs are coded for region 1 only.
Remaining Backlog: 21 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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