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.