A magical girl series, both anime and manga.
It started as a manga series written by Ayahana Min and ran in the
monthly magazine Ribbon.
Chacha is a young witch in training; she's cute, cheerful,
innocent, somewhat incompetent as a witch, and a bit clueless.
Her mentor in the magical arts, Seravi, is the most powerful
magician in the world. The wannabe Evil Overlord of the series,
who is literally called "Evil Magic Lord", wants to get rid
of Seravi. After his flunky fails at this, he becomes aware of
Chacha's existence, and switches to wanting to eliminate her. The
reason for all of this isn't revealed until episode 24.
The magical dohickey that almost all magical girls have is a bit
different for Chacha, since it's in three separate parts. There's
a pendant that she wears, plus a ring and bracelet that she gives
to her two best friends, Riiya and Shiine (who are both in love
with her, which puts something of a strain on the friendship
between the two boys :-). The transformation incantation is
"Love, Courage, Hope", with one word said by each of the kids (she
can't transform unless all of them are together at the same
place). A beam of light ricochets between the dohickeys, and
Chacha transforms into "Magical Princess Holy Up" (I'm not
joking!), a 16 year old version of herself. She has a bow, which
she fires with the phrase "Beauty Serein Arrow... Magical Shoot!"
(this phrase is in English in the original anime), and the magical
arrow obliterates whatever monster of the week she's fighting.
It must be noted that the Evil Overlord and his flunkies are
unusually incompetent, even by magical girl standards, because
Chacha has no secret identity. The bad guys know who she is,
where she lives, who her friends are, where she goes to school,
etc., but they still can't defeat her!
Characters:
- Chacha: The title character. It's rare when Chacha can
get one of her spells to work the way she wants them to work.
Either the result of the spell is a homophone of what she was
aiming for, or is some sort of pun off of what she was aiming
for. While she can fly on a broom, if she has any passengers,
her flying goes out of control.
The word in the title, "Akazukin", comes from the red riding
hood that she always wears. (Akazukin = red riding hood)
-
Riiya: One of Chacha's best friend. His grandfather is
a giant, so Riiya has incredible strength (even though he's
normal sized). He's also a werewolf, and can transform at will
into a fluffy white wolf puppy. Chacha simply adores him in
this form.
Riiya is cheerful, somewhat clueless, easily excited, and really
loves food. In fact, he's a lot like Chacha, the biggest
differences being that she doesn't love food nearly so much as
him, and he doesn't go gaga over cute things.
-
Shiine: Chacha's other best friend, the student and
adopted child of Dorothy, the worlds second most powerful
magician and Seravi's rival. Shiine is a good magician,
competent, studious, intelligent... In other words, he's the
odd man out in their little trio. While Chacha loves both of
the as friends, it's pretty clear that any romantic feelings she
has are for Riiya.
He can ride a broom like Chacha, but is good enough at flying
that he can carry a passenger.
-
Seravi: Chacha's mentor. The most powerful magician in
the world, a master chef, and quite possibly the best sushi chef
in the world; lives in a cute little college. He always carries
around a doll, Elizabeth, that he uses ventriloquism on.
Elizabeth is always direct and forthright, and often says things
that are ruder than what Seravi would say. ;-)
-
Dorothy: Shiine's mentor, lives in a large, impressive
castle. She is jealous of Seravi's position as most powerful
magician in the world, and occasionally plots to do him in
(though she never really means it).
-
Yakko: A competent witch who's in the same class as
Chacha; always wears a black riding hood. She has a huge
crush on Seravi, and always calls him "Seravi-sama". She considers Chacha to be an "obstacle" to
her "love" with Seravi, and wishes that Chacha would just go
away so that she could have him all to herself.
-
Marin: A self-centered, somewhat obnoxious pink-haired
mermaid who's in love with Riiya. After falling head over,
er, tail for Riiya, she follows him and enrolls in the same
school as him (though thankfully not in the same class); when
she dries off, he tail turns into legs. She has a magical wand
which can be used to produce anything related to the sea. She
really dislikes Chacha because Riiya is in love with Chacha
instead of her.
-
Orin: A pint-sized, shy ninja, in the same class as
Chacha. She is a very good ninja, capable of leaping
from one tree branch to another, running up vertical surfaces,
and deflecting ninja throwing stars with her sword. She lives
with her grandfather in a house chock full of ninja death-traps.
Orin is in love with Shiine, though she's too shy to do
anything more than blush. Unlike Marin and Yakko, she holds
no hard feelings for Chacha, even though her love interest is
in love with Chacha and not her.
-
Principal Urara: The principal of the magic school that
Chacha goes to. Has very big eyes, even for an anime
character. She frequently says "ara" (Oh my), like Kasumi Tendou.
-
Rascal-sensei: Chacha's teacher. He always carries
around a pair of whips (with which he is very good), and
often threatens the students with them. However, he never
actually uses them on his students, because he really a big
softy, and cries gushers of tears when he's
happy or sad for them.