Tweeny Witches

Tweeny Witches
File:TweenyWitches.jpg Movie Poster
Genre	Magical girl
Anime
Directed by	Yasuhiro Aoki
Studio	Studio 4°C

The Adventures of Tweeny Witches, original title: Mahō Shōjotai Arusu (魔法少女隊アルス, literally "Magical Girl Squad Aluce"), is an anime series produced by Studio 4°C. It was translated and dubbed into English by the anime television network, Animax, who broadcast it in its respective networks in Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and other regions, and has been licensed for distribution in the United States by Media Blasters. The animation series uses computer graphics and actors' recording, a first for Japanese television animation where the voice actors' lines are recorded before the animation is done when the traditional method is the reverse.

Story

The protagonist of the story is Ellis, who mysteriously enters the world of the witches. Herself an enthusiast of witchcraft she is delighted, however she is not satisfied with the way of the witches, insisting that magic only be used to make people happy. She is marked as a troublemaker when she released all the sprites the witches have captured for use as the source of magic spells. Later in the series, the witches interact with the world of the wizards as both try to save their worlds from destruction.

Naming

As a matter of fact, the main characters name is not Alice, which would be Arisu (アリス) in Japanese. Rather Arusu (アルス) is a very close variant of that one, making her name an allusion to the "Alice in wonderland"-terminology. In latin letters Arusu (アルス) should be spelt as something along the lines of Aluce. However, Animax has rendered the pun by calling her Ellis, which while having the same pronunciation as Alice, is still a different name.

Characters

The Magical Girl Team

Ellis (or Aluce (アルス, Arusu) in Japanese)

Voiced by: Sachiko Kojima

Ellis is a cheerful and supportive person. She means to do well and is not disheartened when others put her down, instead she encourages them. Ellis loves magic (as well as sweet chestnuts) and believes it should only be used to make people happy. Her father, Jidan, gave her the True Magic Book when she was young and was the one who taught her that magic should only be used for happiness and never destruction. At the beginning of the season, the book brought her to the magic world when she fell off the top of the school. Despite being human, she was able to learn magic fairly quickly and is better than some of the native witches in the magic world. At the end, she decided to go back to the human world with the help of one of the Interdimensional Maidens where she found her mother and father talking in the kitchen.

Eva

Voiced by: Ryo Hirohashi

Friend of both Ellis and Sheila, she is a friendly witch with a small amount of power. A spell to stop her growth was casted on her and Sheila for their failure to keep the sprites from escaping from their holding facility. Though neither Sheila nor Ellis consider her a burden because she has weak magic, her actions in the season shows that she thought of herself as weak and will constantly go out of her way (and abilities) to make herself more useful, often getting into trouble. Her magic becomes stronger later in the series. When witches started losing their magic due to the destruction of the magic world, Eva eventually became afflicted by the same ailment. The Grand Master, leader of the wizard world, took advantage of her weak heart and her desperation to keep her magic. He needed a witch to summon the forbidden Black Magic and Eva betrayed her friends by helping him. She was later saved by Ellis and the black magic was dispelled..

Sheila

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima

The most knowledgable and adept witch of the trio, she initially disliked Ellis and her loud attitude. She is stubborn and obnoxious. A spell to stop her growth was casted on her and Eva for their failure to keep the sprites from escaping from their holding facility. For the first half of the series, she was concentrated on recapturing all the sprites in order to remove the spell (she was mostly concerned with removing the spell from Eva). Sheila is the daughter of a witch and wizard. But according to customs, she must live in the witch's world away from her father. Her mother abandoned her early in life to stay with her husband in Wizard World. This hardened her heart and she became the perfectionist we see in the show, bent on becoming a powerful witch and depending on no one but herself. Ellis' pacifist beliefs annoyed her at first, but had a change of heart later in the season, becoming one of the Ellis' strongest allies and supporters. She was later entrusted by the Grand Master of witches to find the traitor among them, who the wizards need to perform Black Magic. She suspected one of the three sages, unaware that the future traitor is closer to her than she thinks. Though she may seem gruff, Sheila has a good heart.

The Witches

Ateria

Voiced by: Atsuko Tanaka

One of the three sages of Witch World. When she was younger, during a raid of Wizard World to retrieve the True Magic Book, she met Jidan who was being held prisoner in Wizard World. Against the rules of Witch World, she married Jidan who had a son named Renon. She left them later to hand-over the True Magic book to Witch World. But the book was stolen by Jidan while she cried in her sleep. She tried looking for her husband and son after she realized that she didn't really want to pursue her ambition and that she truly wanted to stay with them. Unfortunately, she never found them until Ellis arrived years later to the magic world. She realized through Ellis that there are more important things than preserving tradition and the pride of witches.

Grand Master

The leader of the witches. Not the same person as the Grand Master of Wizards. She later entrusted Sheila with the task of finding a traitor among the witches.

Kuu

A young witch who is very untalented with magic. Witches who cannot perform magic by the time they are sixteen are sent to the human world, a fate all witches fear. Ellis helped her gain confidence in herself. When Ellis turned herself to stone to save the witch's town from a rampaging sprite, Kuu used her own hair to perform the counterspell that would turn Ellis back to normal. Later in the series, she appeared again when her grandmother became one of the witches who lost their magic.

The Wizards

Sigma

A young wizard and the son of a prophet. He helped Ellis and her friends enter the Wizard World in order to help Grande obtain the True Magic book from them. At the end, he failed and was thrown in prison. Sigma's father was killed by the Grand Master when he tried to advise him not to use Black Magic because of he prophesized that a savior (Ellis) will come and save the world. Later in the series, it was revealed that Sigma was actually working covertly against Grande in order to help his father's prophecy come true.

Will

One of the last magic-using wizards. He and his comrades where driven out of the kingdom where science is becoming more important than magic. In the past, he helped Jidan and Renon hide from Alteria. Later, he helped Jidan's daughter, Ellis, save her friends and sprites.

Grand Master of the Wizards

Leader of the wizards. Not the same person as the Grand Master of Witches. Seeing the eventual destruction of his world, he wanted to use the forbidden Black Magic to save it, which he believed would create a new world for them to live in. He needed the True Magic book, all the different types of sprites, and a witch. The witch needed to be vulnerable, one who always felt like they are missing something inside. He found Eva. He helped her gain more power and when she lost that power, he knew she would do anything to regain it.

The Humans

Jidan

Ellis and Renon's father. He was an archaeologist investigating the mystery of the Raven statue when he fell into the magic world. He was arrested in Wizard World due to the Grand Master's paranoia about humans. He was later rescued by Ateria. The two married and had a son despite the rules of Witch World and lived happily for a while until Ateria became more ambitious. Taking the True Magic book (intending to keep it from being used for harm) and his son, he snuck aboard the vessel that travels across the interdimensional sea to the human world. Unfortunately, he was separated from Renon during the travel and made it to the human world alone. There he met Yoko, married and had a daughter, Ellis. He gave his daughter the True Magic book for safe keeping, knowing that the people of magic world cannot reach it or find it in the human world. He somehow travelled back to the Magic World and was imprisoned again for six years before escaping. Jidan sacrificed himself to save Ateria. However, at the last episode of the season, Ellis found him talking to her mother in their apartment in the human world. How he escaped death and made it back to Yoko is currently unknown.

Renon

Ellis' half-brother, son of Ateria and Jidan. Separated from Jidan, roamed the Interdimensional Sea as the pirate Renon. He would ambush the vessel taking failed witches to the human world and take all of their food and supplies. He found Ellis in one of those vessels and called himself her mirror. They found their way back to Witch World where he was mistaken for a girl until Ateria corrected the mistake. As a child, he developed a hatred for his mother for abandoning him and his father. Upon finding her, he wanted to kill her, but later had a change of heart when she offered herself in his place after he was taken hostage by wizards.

External links

• (Japanese) Official website
• Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu ({{{type}}}) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia