"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, the premise set, the show this time offered up another four episodes; 13) Magic Vest, 14) Negative Girl, 15) Orange Stone, , and 16) Pinch Hitter. Starting off with a misunderstanding about some clothes donated to charity, the gals find that a magic vest slips into the pile as it causes significant problems to their lives. Capable of finding the truth from anyone who wears it (or crushing them to a slow painful death), they hesitate when it finds its way into the hands of a loved one. The show then takes a turn for the curious when a bi-polar gal pal of Maya obsesses over Kaji, much to the chagrin of the gals who have staked him out as the object of desire long before the weirdo sets her sights on him. Next up was the chase for another power stone where Nina's powers as a witch are tested by an unseen uncle who wants to push her into realizing her own power rather than repeatedly relying on her computer. Last up was the baseball episode where Kaji is hurt and Ayu must find a way to keep a promise. In all, a standard set of episodes that treaded familiar ground with magical mishaps, love interest misunderstandings, and the usual rivalries of the witches (Nina and Maya).

I have found some decent moments in the previous episodes and this volume had its share too but the generic situations, the never evolving characters, and the trappings of the formula prevented me from thinking of the show as anything better than a Rent It. Its really not a bad show if you're a slavering fanboy of this type of show but the attraction of any anime series is how well it uses what elements it has and the kind of creativity it shows in using them. In that sense, the Manga will always seem more interesting to me unless something substantially different takes place in a later volume.

Picture: Ultra Maniac 4: Magical Feelings 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 4: Magical Feelings reminded me of the old saying "more of the same". It wasn't a bad set of volumes but the predictable characters, generic settings, and the limitations of the creators trying to milk out the common material all added up to a volume that would be called sophomore slump had it been the second volume in the series. If you've come this far in watching the show, by all means keep checking it out but there simply wasn't a whole lot of new ground to interest anime fans here and I don't want to try and put one over on you. Nina and Ayu's internal struggles would've been more interesting to explore but the two dimensions employed here simply didn't take full advantage of the material and that weakened the show a lot. Still, give it a look and you'll see what I mean.

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