Ultra Maniac, written by Miho Maruo and directed by Shinichi Masaki. Music by Toru Yukawa. Starring Akemi Kanda, Yuie Hori, and Hiroshi Kamiya. Based on the manga by Wataru Yoshizumi. Ashi Productions, 2003. 26 episodes of 24 minutes (approx. 10 hours and 24 minutes). Not rated.
Available on Crunchyroll.
The oddly named Ultra Maniac is a minor classic of the magical girl genre from the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although lackluster in its animation and presenting a more-or-less conventional plot, it contains enough unusual elements to make it stand out, and its satisfying ending comes as a genuinely pleasant surprise even if it could have been better set up.
This anime is based on a manga by Wataru Yoshizumi, who’s most famous for Marmalade Boy. The manga and anime versions of Ultra Maniac, however, bear little resemblance to each other, as the former is more of a romantic comedy with magical elements while the latter is a straight-up magical girl show complete with the standard transformation sequences and McGuffin hunt.
The bizarre title is apparently in reference to the enthusiasm for manga that a couple of the characters have (maniac or mania being an older term for otaku), though this is downplayed in the anime to the point that the title is merely weird.
The story is unusual in that it is told from the perspective of a non-magical character. Our protagonist is Ayu, a middle-school girl who is captain of the tennis club. Like all girls in anime with a modicum of athletic ability, she is the idol of all the other girls in the school. Happenstance makes her the best friend of Nina, a scatterbrained girl who is actually a witch from the magic world. So poor is Nina at magic that she relies on a magical computer to do most of her magic-casting for her.
The story goes back, you might say, to the roots of the genre, in that many of the antics evoke Bewitched, the television series that is supposed to have inspired magical girls in the first place. It depicts an ordinary human constantly befuddled by the antics of a magical companion and her associates. Ayu is secretly in love with a boy named Tetsushi, and Nina makes various well-meant but ill-advised attempts to assist Ayu with her love life, which always backfire as a result of Nina’s clumsiness and general lack of magical skill.
Most of the episodes are one-off fillers featuring either some spell of Nina’s going awry or else visitors from the magical world causing trouble. These troublemakers include a trio of little girls who are an obvious homage to The Powerpuff Girls, but my personal favorite is Luna, a perpetually depressed Goth girl with no social skills who falls in love with every boy she meets.
An overarching plot (which does not exist in the manga) does develop, however: Nina is on a mission to acquired five magical gems, the “Holy Stones.” But she doesn’t want them to scrub the deck of a ship; she’s looking for Holy Stones to increase her magical power. What’s more, if she acquires all five stones, she’ll become a princess in the magical world.
Her rival for the stones is the dark magical girl Maya, a character original to the anime. Considerably more skilled than Nina, Maya is obsessed with black magic and is willing to do whatever it takes to acquire the stones and win the contest, even if it means crushing anyone who gets in her way.
Although most of the episodes are stand-alone, the overarching plot allows us to see the characters mature. Nina becomes more level-headed and adept at magic as the story progresses, and she eventually takes a serious interest in her magical studies. Considering how many magical girls never grow out of their dumb-and-clumsy phase, or get power handed to them without ever applying themselves, this is refreshing.
Ayu also gets a chance to grow as the show develops: While she at first reacts with comical shock to every magical happening, by the end of the series, she has grown accustomed to magic and comfortable with it. Eventually, she’s even eager to take part in Nina’s magical schemes, such as when she allows Nina to hit her with an aging spell … so the two of them can turn into adults and sneak into a club.
The love triangles in Ultra Maniac are saccharine, but the animated version finds an excuse to add some unexpected twists. The relationship between Ayu and Tetsushi develops more-or less as expected—
More surprising, however, is how things develop between Nina and Tetsushi’s best friend Hiroki. At first, everything looks too convenient—Ayu and Nina are best friends, and they’re crushing on two different guys who also happen to be best friends—but then new revelations come to light that add surprising twists and complications, which I won’t spoil. I’ll just say that I was impressed at how the show subverted my expectations but still built to a satisfying conclusion.
Some of the final revelations, however, come too quickly and might have been better placed, or at least alluded to, earlier in the series.
Unfortunately, in spite of the satisfying ending, these love interests are easily the show’s weakest links. Ayu and Nina are both likable characters, and various crazy people from the magical world show up from time to time in order to keep the comedy going, but Tetsushi and Hiroki are virtually identical in both appearance and personality. They’re generic nice guys with little in the way of distinguishing characteristics. I constantly got the two of them mixed up while watching the show, and I had to look them up repeatedly while writing this review to remember their names.
The animation in the show is stiff, and there are several CGI shortcuts. The music is decent but not remarkable. In presentation, the only real stand-outs are some of the environmental designs for the magical world, which are satisfactorily fantastic. What really makes the show work are the unusual perspective of its protagonist and a few deft twists at the ending.
While not perfect, it is in the end a quite entertaining magical girl show.
