Akazukin Cha Cha
Daniel:
Akazukin Cha Cha
[Akazukin Cha Cha (based on having seen one episode in the departure lounge of Singapore's Changi Airport)]
When I was travelling to the Far east this summer, I had a long wait between planes in Changi airport in Singapore. The departure lounge there, where I had to wait for 8.5 hours on that occassion, is the best that I have ever been to, and it is full of restaurants, internal parks, mini-museums, and televisions playing 24 hours a day set to all kinds of channels. Near one of the televisions, I spotted a large group of Japanese businessmen watching a very cute, simplistic-looking animation. Since I am a serious anime fan, I couldn't resist going over to watch, and what I found amazed me. A group of interested-looking salarymen and slightly bored-looking 3-year olds were watching something that at first glance made Hime-Chan no Ribon seem grown-up!
But the more I watched it, the more I realized that it was actually pretty cool- and much more adult than it first appeared, with puns and word-games that many might not consider especially suited to young children. But then again, that's also true of the "Mr. Men" books!
The series focusses on a young girl studying to be a witch. Her classmates are 2 boys called Shiine and Riiya, who both love her and fight over her all the time. But when they're in trouble, which they often are, they combine to form Magical Princess Holy-Up (!!!). Shades of Voltron/ Mexter 1- all those mecha series where robots combine to form super robots- and this is a very funny variation on that theme. The teacher, Seravi, is also a very interresting character, because he is nowhere near being an authority figure. He's more like a parent/friend, but one who is not above the children in any way.
Anyway, Akazukin Cha Cha is so cute, lovable and funny that I'm incapable of making an objective judgement on the quality of the series. I love it, but then again, I have a weakness for cute anime. I highly recommend this series to anyone who shares my weakness for anime that would make a gerbil die of sugar-poisoning!
Alon:
Well, what can I say. Akazukin Cha Cha really IS one of the cutest anime shojo series I've ever seen. I like it a lot, although I personally like Hime Chan No Ribbon better. The advantage of Akazukin Cha Cha is that it's really funny. Most of the jokes are animated-jokes, so anyone can understand them. I also noticed that when Cha Cha becomes princess "Holy Up", she looks a lot like a SAILOR MOON character... heh. I recommend this series to anyone that like kawaii shojo. It's really fun to watch.
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