Gah, another super late post from mua. But I’m back with more mahou shoujo and yes, my poor opinion of it has yet to change. In this episode, we welcome the appearance of the trusty sidekicks (or more accurately, familiars) of our two girl witches. For the demure and submissive Vanilla, we have a cutesy mouse, Blanca - who happens to dislike being called a rat. Do not let the cutesy appearance fool you though; this mouse is confident (or rather, arrogant) and aggresive. A pretty wierd master-familiar combination I would say.

For the spunky Chocolat, we have da frog. Yes, a frog. And this frog even has the spunk to arrive late (late after their summoning I mean) and reveals himself to Chocolat much later than the rat. This is a more matching pair I’d say. And that’s almost the first half of the episode. Just before we see the episodic competition between Vanilla and Chocolat for “hearts”, we see The Prince entering the scene proper. The handsome, egoistic and mysterious older student who picked up Chocolat’s yellow “heart” for her in the previous episode actually says good morning to Chocolat. Given Chocolat’s rude spunky personality (that happens to not return The Prince’s greeting), The Prince’s fan club becomes Chocolat’s next enemy. And what of The Prince’s agenda, greeting Chocolat and all? See the screenshot below (with subtitles).

The next half begins the battle for hearts, with each familar giving “expert” advice to their masters - with differing results. While both familiars give respectable advice, the results primarily differ due to their masters. Chocolat’s excellent performance - in gymnastics - merely gets her called a “monkey”, while Vanilla’s cute failure in executing even a proper jump (well, she does fall on her bum) gets the pity of her male classmates + of course, their love.

And expectedly, we are treated to another heart gathering scene (something I think we’ll most definitely see in every episode), but this time, it’s a massive haul for Vanilla. Not surprisingly, Chocolat ends up with nil for the day.

Well, so far, I’m not very impressed with Sugar Sugar Rune. It’s mahou shoujo with nothing really new to bring to the mix. While there are a few good moments to SSR, it doesn’t have the cute factor of other mahou shoujo like Pretty Pretty Cure (not that I found that very good - plot-wise - either). Mipple, Mepple and Porun were really cute and had distinctive, though not very fleshed out, personalities. In comparison, our dear rat and frog doesn’t seem cut it. But I suppose with just 1 episode with them, it is still too early to tell.

And to wrap this summary up… here it goes: The Daily Heart Count, yay! 1500 ecure (the points scheme for calculating the value of hearts) for Vanilla, and zilch for Chocolat.

I promised myself I would never ever watch any anime series of this type (i.e. witch-based + school girls transforming into supergirls-style). Oh, the pain involved: Corny transformation sequences and really akward spell names. But here I am blogging about Sugar Sugar Rune. I’ve failed myself, haven’t I?

Don’t take me wrong. I’ve watch witch-based anime. Take Mahou Shoujo Tai - a relatively undiscovered gem. Read PSGels’ summary of Mahou Shoujo Tai’s 36th episode at Star Crossed, which echo exactly my sentiments. I’ve watched school girls transforming into supergirls-style anime too, with Pretear and Pretty Cure as examples. But Sugar Sugar Rune brings these genres to new “heights”.

The series begins with an introduction of our cast, with the main characters being the two witches Chocolat and Vanilla (hmm…). Both have been selected as Queen Candidates and are tasked with collecting “hearts” in the human world. The one with the most hearts will thus become the new Queen.

Now, what are “hearts” you might ask? Well, these are the elusive crystals that can be collected by witches from humans who are either surprised or in love with the witches in question. So it seems that the “goal” of our dear witches is to make as many people in love with them as possible.

After the girls are sent to the Human World, Rockin’ Robin - a veteran guy witch (not sure what they are called in the series yet) - welcomes the girls and later, shows off his talent in collecting hearts (especially from females) at the school where both of the girls are posted to. But the most monumental scene in the episode was when Chocolat realised that the Human World was the opposite of the Magic World. While we value politeness in the human world (i.e. Vanilla-style), witches in the Magic World made great friends if they were nasty and scary (i.e. Chocolat-style). That’s different all right.

To make things clear, the guy in the screenshot above is a character introduced at the final parts of the first episode (not Rockin’ Robin). He’s the standard mysterious, handsome, classy and super-egoistic guy. We know nothing about him yet, but I have a funny feeling he’s the bad guy or something like that.

So, the story does seem to be original to some extent (to the credit of the anime creators). But, did I tell you that you use a heart-shaped “heart-holder” to store your hearts and that the number of hearts collected at the end of each episode are weighed and calculated? Oh yeah, at the end of episode 1, Chocolat scores with 1 yellow heart (a.k.a. “piss” and trust me, I didn’t come up with this) while Vanilla ends up with 0 hearts. Moreover, there isn’t even any moral to the “story” (well, most of these type of series have them).

Since I’m the type that completely watches any anime I start, no matter how bad it gets, I’ll probably finish this one too (if it gets completely subbed that is). Arghh, so far, it just seems as if I never blog anything good. (Note to myself: Is this why no one else blogs about Sugar Sugar Rune and Itsudatte My Santa?) It’s either that, or I’m a real pessimist.

anime, animation, summaries, sugar+sugar+rune