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LONG (Anime TV) VERSION: Akazukin (Red Hooded) Chacha is the story of a young girl named Chacha who lives with her Sensei, Seravy. Seravy is the
best magician in all the land and tries, often in vain (Chacha is kinda slow), to teach Chacha how to use magic. He also talks to a doll, and through it via ventrilaquism. A lot of the
humor in the show comes from Chacha's botched attemps at magic, such as attempting to summon a bouquet of flowers(pronounced 'hana') and instead getting a bouqet of noses (also pronounced 'hana' and yeah
it's kinda gross ^_^). Her two best friends and traveling companions in the anime are also rivals for her love, not that she'd catch on. As he would introduce himslef, Riiya is a good and strong boy who can change into a very cute
warewolf whenever he wants. Riiya, however, isn't very smart. If one were to call Riiya a complete moron they'd still be overestimating him (when shown a picture of a baby chick, then shown a picture of a dog,
a cow and a chicken and asked which one was the chicks mother, he answered "egg"). The other rival is Shiine-chan, he's the straight arrow of the group so to speak. Because his master, Dorothy, really can't do anything around the
castle (the old 'woman never learned to cook or clean' thing) she pushes all of the housework on to him, it's a good thing he considers them his hobbies. Shiine-chan's magic is much more reliable than Chacha's and he also like to change
into different things (squirels, eagles, trampolenes, scissors, candles, etc..). Throughout the series they meet weird villans, even weirder teachers, and make friends with everyone.
Chacha and Riiya have been friends for a long time and Shiine-chan meets up with them in the first episode of the TV series. It's in this first episode that Chacha is given a magical pendant that allows her to "Holy Up" (kinda like a 'Power Up') with
the help of Riiya, who's been given a bracelet, and Shiine-chan who has a ring. When they combine their powers of Love (ai), Courage (yuuki), and Hope (kibou) Chacha transforms and fells the evil moster of the week with her Beauty Serene Arrow (no, I'm not kidding). This is where the
show can start to drag, the transformation scene is quite long compared to other magical girl type shows so you end up seeing about 5 minutes of the same animation every episode. This is quite sad because the other 20 min in the show just fly by, many times
you spend the entire show laughing at the jokes, forgetting all about that transformation scene, when the music you know all to well starts to play. It's about then that I'd reach for the remote and fast foward. The first 26 episodes or so are quite 'monster of the week' and do little more
than hint that there is a plot hiding somewhere (this IS NOT a bad thing). The middle of the show drags a bit, there is still plenty of comedy but it doesn't come as often and a couple of the episodes are actually *gasp* touching. It is in this section of the anime that Chacha learns she
is the princess of the kingdom and the decendant of the great Queen Joan who defeated the demons a long time ago. So she must journey to the castle along with Riiya and Shiine-chan to defeat the Evil Magic Lord and Restore the kingdom to peace, and to release her parents because they were turned
to stone statues. The show continues, fortunatly, and Chacha and friends eventually lose the magic jewerlry and all returns to the randomness from before (Chacha actually gets some new magic jewelery but it's not nearly as annoying).
No Show would be complete without various love geometric shapes and Akazukin Chacha is no exception. All of the main secondary characters from school have cruses on one of the main characters which adds a lot of fun to the show. Kurozukin (Black Hooded) Yakko-chan is madly in love with Chacha's teacher
and when she finds out that her beloved Seravy-sama is wasting his time with Chacha she immediatly sees her as a rival. Yakko-chan's daydreams are quite amusing and although they are a running gag they never really get old. Marine-chan, a mermaid, happens to fall in love with Riiya when the class takes a
trip to the beach. She joins their school the next day but because of her lack of research ends up in a different class ^^;; she also never seems to figure out that Riiya is a warewolf. Orin-chan is a ninja, and a very shy, quiet, cute one at that. She is my favorite character in the show and her first
love happens to be Shiine-chan. She's quite a good ninja although she does mess up from time to time, her little flag that she uses to root for Shiine-chan just sets her above the rest, it's just a shame that she doesn't show up until episode 12. Dorothy (Shiine-chan's master, Seravys's old childhood love and
rival for strongest magician) plays a bit of a love intrest towards Seravy, though neither of them will admit it. It does play well off Yakko-chan (and Shironeko for a couple episodes later in the series) however.
Studio Veralie did a great job of resubbing the original Artic fansubs (this show isn't available commercially) with improved translations and lots of notes throughout the series
explaining the jokes and puns. All said and done, this is a great show that will apeal to magical girl lovers, comedy lovers and those who enjoy Japanese as a language.
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