Mahoujin Guruguru

Well, I haven't posted anything about it before, but sis and I've been watching this series for a week and a half (or two weeks) till the end. It's a hilarious anime.

Basically, if you're a RPG lover, you'll have a good laugh. If you aren't, well, it IS funny nevertheless, but it just won't be the same. It plays on the common stereotypes of the swordsman hero and his partner, the usually female spellcaster.

The hero, Nike, IS blond as usual and his companion, Kukuri, IS a spellcaster and a girl, but that's where it ends. The show is an amazing mix of twisted stereotypes. For the first 30 episodes or so the so-called Hero won't do ONE thing except be kicked around, and occassionally give a good critical strike. Eventually, he learns to absorb the energy of his surroundings and form it into a sword. Pretty RPG-ish isn't it? Not really. You'd have to see him absorb the energy of the Kita Kita Oyaji (Old Kita Kita Man), a 70+-year-old male dancer, with hula skirt and all. And hair on his legs. Or the energy of a school. The first forms a sword which forces someone to dance until exhaustion, and the second one gives out math problems with stupid answers.

Kukuri is the last of the Migu Migu, masters of the Guruguru magic. Such magic depends on engraving magic circles on the ground. Apparently, they're long gone, but the last Migu Migu before Kukuri left circles everywhere: yes, everywhere. Cake recipes, windows, school gardens... and in the way the Kita Kita guy moves his hips around. You can imagine how hard Nike had to try and convince her to watch that long enough.

The Kita Kita Oyaji: last dancer of an almost extinct style, which is supposed for girls. In his town, there's only one girl, and she told him (in a pretty forceful way) she'd rather do anything than learn his style. Thus, he embarks on a quest to find a successor. Thinks a dance can fix anything and has a dance for anything, to everyone's chagrin. Nike and Kukuri try everything to get him off their backs, to no avail. The guy's resilient as a cockroach as well (he fell down a cliff THREE TIMES in an episode and didn't even hurt himself)

Also, there's Gail and his female companion, another spellcaster. He thinks he's the true hero; definitely the pair looks better than Nike and Kukuri, but all they do is get kicked around. Period. At least he kept Nike out of eating a poisoned meal which was made for "the Hero".

Last but not least, you can't forget the Sappari and Daikonran faeries. "Sappari" is a Japanese expression which means "nothing at all", in a million ways. For example, after you comply with nature's call, you can say "Ahh.. sappari!" (Whoo, I dumped it all out there!). If you don't understand something, you can say "Sappari wakaranai" (Can't understand a thing), and so on. Daikonran is the Big Confusion fairy. Basically, it appears when everyone is shouting, jumping and screaming at the same time. It appears FAR less often than the Sappari faeries, which are called on EVERY episode and even once to battle as a Guruguru spell. They even got their own 5 minutes of the show, explaining the life of a Sappari faerie.

Other characters include a talking poodle (who is actually the chief of the Dark Magic Clan), a dark sorceress called La-La (Run-run, actually), a bunch of annoying kids, Kukuri's mental image of Nike (with Rocket Punch attack and all), a swordsman who fights having his sword poke out from the... most unexpected places, a stripper, a priestess who is possessed once a year, an old spirit called Wanchin... the list is quite long.

The art isn't anything spectacular, but it does the job very well. Animation is nice, too. The OP and ED songs aren't stellar, but you won't feel like skipping them either. What's remarkable is that they've kept a chibi-like style along the whole show, and only drop it for comedy. Of course, this is again due to the RPG part: if anyone's played any old-school RPG (SNES, NES, Genesis), everyone remembers the squished short sprites that represented any character.

A very fun series to watch, really.