I think this is what Harry Potter would have looked like if the Japanese had gotten their hands on it first.

In the world of Maburaho, where status in society is based on magical ability and how many times you can use it, young Kazuki is on the bottom of the totem pole. Other students in the elite Aoi Academy can use magic thousands of times. Kazuki can use magic eight times before he's dust … literally. Cats have more lives than this guy has talent.

But despite being the school loser who everyone makes fun of, Kazuki one day finds himself to be a hot commodity: He walks into his dorm room to discover a fantastic young woman in underwear, claiming to be his wife. A short time later, another well-proportioned girl tries to bed him. Shortly after that, another – the smokey, violent type - tries to kill him.

You see, Kazuki may be loser by the world's standards, but his lineage links to the most powerful set of magical users ever. The first girl, Yuna, is from Kazuki's past, and she's trying to uphold a vow. The second girl, Kuriko, wants his … genes, to produce the most powerful magic user the world has ever seen. The third girl, Rin, is on a mysterious mission from a secret sect of magic users, and her orders are to get Kazuki. Oh boy.

The three fight with each other over Kazuki ("I'll let you have him when I'm done," Kuriko says to Yuna), causing destruction of the school and headaches for our poor young man. The rest of the school, especially the boys, quickly comes to hate Kazuki, with both jealousy and the taboo of such a young marriage playing a part.

While all the other students use their magic willy-nilly – making copies of themselves to skip class, attacking each other with fireballs in the hallway, setting traps for each other – Kazuki has to reserve his limited powers. But with all this new attention – especially from Yuna – Kazuki slowly depletes his magic, episode by episode.

Sexually charged doesn't begin to describe Maburaho. The school doctor invites the teacher to the nurse's office ("plenty of beds are open") and from the opening minute we see the girls of the school in little but bras and panties. Yuna is the one most ready for a romp in the hay, and she could care less what happens to Kazuki after she beds him.

This anime is beautiful, with lovely landscapes and lovelier females. All the characters are sharp, light and curvy. The backgrounds are sometimes inspired, sometimes weak and bland, and every now and then the contrast between foreground and background is poor. But for the most part, this show looks very nice.

The episode-by-episode tale (four on this first volume) turns into missions that require magic and flashbacks to childhood, but really, Maburaho runs on a pretty simple concept: what does an anime boy do when he's suddenly the most wanted lay in school?

Cute girls anime are usually bright, but, man, this thing is just bathed in sunlight. This show is colorful and the transfer to DVD reflects that. No noticeable problems in the full frame presentation, with solid colors and blacks, and simple soft backgrounds.

Sometimes the background music overrides the dialogue, and the sound effects are a little over the top, but the series sounds just fine in both the English 5.1 and Japanese 2.0 options. No problems with distortions or drop-outs. Call me a pervert, but it tickles my tummy hearing some of those Japanese female voices. They sound sexy, damnit.

The special features include a pretty Art of Maburaho moving art gallery, a set of original Japanese promos, clean opening and closing animation, DVD credits, and six ADV previews. The highlight is an interview with ADV translator Richard Kim, which is insightful. I like bits like this, that give anime laymen like me an idea on what it takes to put together domestic anime DVDs. This is a fun show, but poor Kim was probably seeing crosseyed after sitting through the entire series a half dozen times to properly translate it. "As far as I can tell, Maburaho isn't a word." Ha. The more often anime companies add little things like this to their DVDs, the more happy I am.

A preview of volume two is also included, and the insert folder looks and reads like a school newsletter, with news stories, gossip columns, and a magic trick.

Who am I kidding, Maburaho isn't about anything more than a nerd who suddenly has sex appeal. Comedy, legs and breasts, that's all that's going on here. To try and look any deeper is a waste of time. If you like stuff like this, then this DVD is Recommended. And you're forgiven your tastes.