"Ayu Tetsushi is in her second year of junior high school and is known as the cool popular tennis club girl that all the other girls idolize. To tell the truth, Ayu only acts cool in order to impress Tetsushi Kaji of the school baseball club. Then, one day, Ayu meets Nina Sakura, a transfer student who had found Ayu's missing purse. Nina's strange personality had left Ayu a little perplexed. Furthermore, Ayu finds out that Nina is a witch that came from the kingdom of magic to study abroad. This is a story of one girl's hope of love and another girl's study of magic and their friendship to overcome the challenges set before them. Get ready for the Ultra-Cool, Ultra-Funny, Ultra-Romantic Ultramaniac!"

Okay, while the romance genre of anime is not in my top twenty choices of all time, the premise was sound and I had a lot of fun watching the show as it established the characters. Unfortunately, I never saw the second volume of the series and that limited how much I cared to see the topic of today's review, Ultra Maniac 3: Magical Stone. I watched anyway since I enjoyed the initial offering and there was a fair amount to like but I noticed that even missing several episodes, I didn't miss a whole lot. Almost by definition, this means the intervening episodes were disposable and not all that important to the series but I digress (as I'm apt to do). Here's what the box cover said this time:

"Because of the arrogant Maya, everyone's life is turned on end. Firstly she engages Yuta's help to look for the Holy Stone, then sends a cursed doll to disrupt Nina's life, and then Maya's butler comes from the Magic Kingdom which causes problems for everyone including Maya! After all this, Ayu catches Kaji and Maya embracing by the riverside. What is going on here?!"

Okay, we know that Nina is a witch and her best friend is a regular gal named Ayu. We also know that the two chase boys as they go through the normal situations young gals go through. Nina's cousin Yuta figured prominently this time, as did a rival witch named Maya. So, what made this set of four episodes appealing? Well, that's just it; the course of the series wasn't bad but it was limited to almost generic situations. The batch of episodes here was 9) Item, 10) Jack Straw, 11) Knight Spirit, and 12) Lovesick Night. Most of the time, Maya is trying to interfere with Nina's new quest to obtain some magical stones; stones that could elevate either of them considerably up the ranks of witches in their home kingdom, if not actually make them the most powerful witch of all. While having a central enemy is common in anime, it simply didn't work for me here, perhaps because I missed out on some minor details in the second volume.

Further, while the voodoo doll bits were funnier than average (in Jack Straw) much of the rest of the show fell flat, especially the parts with Maya's butler Sebastian. He was as creepy as you'd expect a transvestite chasing an underage girl would be and limited the appeal of the show for me to some extent. The usual boy/girl misunderstandings came into play too and for me at least, they distracted from the better parts of the show (I know the series is focused as a romance genre but this was the least developed aspect of the series so going into it looking for that might disappoint more than a few of you out there too). I'm going to rate this one as a Rent It but it did have some bright spots that'll keep me checking back into the later episodes if given the chance.

Picture: Ultra Maniac 3: Magical Stone was presented in the original 1.33:1 ratio full frame color it was shot in for Japanese television. The colors were bright and accurate, the dreamy quality used on such shows wasn't overdone, and I saw no compression artifacts when I watched this one. The style of animation employed was a mix of the more traditional and the CGI but aside from a lower budget look, it wasn't hard on the eyes at all.

Sound: The audio was presented with the usual choice of a 2.0 Dolby Digital original Japanese track or a similar English dub, each with a subtitle stream offered (actually two subtitles streams, one with the vocals and the other with music and signs). I admit to liking the dubbed track on this one a bit more than usual and it compared well to the original in terms of separation between the channels, a decent dynamic range and a catchy music track that stuck in my head for far too long.

Extras: The only extras offered this time were some trailers and a paper insert that mimicked the front DVD cover on one side and offered up the release schedule for the rest of the series on the other.

Final Thoughts: Ultra Maniac 3: Magical Stone was still cute and may well appeal to younger girls more than it did to me but it started off with more potential than average for this type of show and I was disappointed that it didn't have the kind of follow through I had initially hoped for. The technical qualities were fine and there were some hints of creative genius but in the end, it seemed obligated to revert back to the romance genre more often than I preferred and that weakened it as a whole. Still, it was worth a look to fans of the various genres involved, even if only to see the best episode of the pack, keeping in mind that you'll get more out of it by watching the series in order (as is usually the case).

If you enjoy anime, take a look at some of the recommendations by DVDTalk's twisted cast of reviewers in their Best Of Anime 2003 and Best Of Anime 2004 article or regular column Anime Talk.