In which Mr. Bones actually makes good on his promises

Howdy again everyone out there in internet land, Mr. Bones returns, and it has been another splendid week here in paradise and another anime absorbed. This week I aim to tell all about Magical Project S parts 1 and 2. The show is what happens when the animation team and writers behind the Tenchi universes are given lee-way to write an original story using characters from said universe in new roles.

Tsunami and Ramia

The premise behind this version of the Tenchi universe is there are two inhabited planets in our solar system, Earth and Jurihelm, Jurihelm is a planet of spiritual people which still have functioning magic, but exist in a different dimension slightly out of sync with ours due to a diverging philosophy plot device. We choose science, and they chose magic, hijinks ensued. Now here is the crux, the planet Jurihelm is picking a new queen, and it just so happens that there are 3 candidates, The winner ends up being Tsunami, who is a big dopey "troll" of a goddess/queen candidate. Tsunami is given a major test to determine if she will become the next queen, this task is that there are scales of good and evil in the holy shrine on Jurihelm, at the moment evil is winning by a long shot and Tsunami must send a mentor to find and train an envoy of love and justice to balance the scales and do battle with evil, insert generic magical girl plot line here for maximum results.

Romio-3rd candidate

The first runner-up, who is a new character by the name of Ramia, proceeds to plot the downfall of Tsunami as soon as her task to become queen is assigned. The third who seems like a blank filler character ends up  getting used later in the series in an interesting way, but I wont spoil it so not to ruin it for those who wish to watch the show themselves. Now the entire show revolves around Sasami becoming a proficient magical girl with the aid of Ryo-ohki the trusted retainer to Tsunami. While erstwhile doing battle with Pixy Misa who is Ramia's dog in the race and is secretly Misao, Sasami's best friend.

The series is actually quite interesting for someone like me who owns all the different animes, OVAs, and movies to see these characters with new personalities and mannerisms. These are the familiar faces I have known since I was but a freshly minted teenager, but they are not the same characters. What do you even say to something like that? You don't...

Lets look at Ryo-ohki, in the original continuity Ryo-ohki is a female cabbit(Rabbit-Cat hybrid), She looked like the image to the right, having and both a child form of about 4 to 5 years of age, an adult form of a woman in her early 20's, and freaking true form of a FTL starship or mech-suit!

While to the left we have the true form in Magical Project S. It is a HE, what? why is Ryo-ohki a guy? They never explain it other than to shoehorn in a 11th hour love interest, WHAT!? The entire show we never see his real human form until somewhere around episode 24, and we are given this silly looking Toad-esk retainer form. This is fine and all but it would have been so much cooler to have Sasami's Mentor/magic pet be female just like every other continuity.

Everyone is different, but I just don't care enough about the rest to bother writing about it. so how does the show play out? It is actually decent. Sasami lives with her mother and father who run a music shop in their hometown. Sasami goes to the local middle school where Mihoshi and Kiyone's characters teach 6th grade in next door classrooms, there are a grouping of secondary characters which fill in standard anime tropes that I cared so little about that I haven't even bothered remember their names. There is loud green haired girl who wants to date the jock soccer player who is crushing on the Misao, who is the moody dark haired friend of Sasami's, and there is the redheaded class rep who keeps going on about the rules. her entire shtick is that repeated joke about rule breaking at school, possibly one of the stupider character tropes to see every episode for 26 episodes. The Jurihelmian's are just silly and dorky and kind of fun, and the entire show feels this way until right near the end of its run. The most interesting secondary character is really Misao, she is the one with issues to work out with her workaholic parents and unfulfilled envious feelings of ineptitude in relation to wanting to be like Sasami, thus the dichotomy of her magical girl persona of Pixy Misa, who is loud and brash compared to Misao's quiet reservedness. The show, despite its forgettable characters, is a light-hearted take on the magical girl genre in an interesting setting of the Tenchi universe.

The actual physical product is interesting as well, the show came out in the late 90's and thus the initial american release was on VHS. However, later it was re-released on DVD in two sets of two DVDs. The first volume in bright pink features Pretty Sammy predominantly along with Ryo-ohki, while set two features Pixy Misa and shadowed in the background is Ramia looking ever so menacing. The first set has become increasingly rare and I was lucky enough to find it last fall for only $40. The physical discs are plain silver production DVDs with silkscreened pictures of the characters on them, nothing to write home about.
The actual show is colorful and funny, it was never given an English dub to save money, however the actual subtitles are pretty good in exception of a few silly word changes in order to keep it in an all ages rating bracket. My favorite being the change of all instances of the word "sexy" with "lovely", real tastemaker stuff there. The shows opening and ending themes are cute, but forgettable, numbers. I really enjoyed the second ending with cabbit Ryo-ohki playing maracas and shaking his butt to the music. The voice actors are expressive and do a fine job of playing their respective parts and I fell that the actual lose story line with one off episodes flowing through character development was a nice way to play out the series story arch.

I hope this weeks review has helped you to decide if Magical Project S is worth your time to download and watch, because lets be honest, none of you are going to buy this! Having said that, that's all from the front lines of the war on my "to watch" anime pile for this week. Join me, here, same Bones Time, Same Bones Day, when I review Lucky Star.

This is Mr. Bones wishing you all the best, and if I don't see you, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night...