Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu

Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu ( Japanese 魔法 少女 隊 ア ル ス , Arusu Magic Girls Troop ), also known by the official English title Tweeny Witches , is an anime television series that first aired from 2004 to 2005. This is the first real TV show of Studio 4 ° C . It tells a Magical Girl story based on an idea by Keita Amemiya and is about an elementary school student whose dream of having magical abilities comes true.

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Arrival in the magical world

Ellis (ア ル スArusu , also Aluce , spoken by Sachiko Kojima ) is in the fifth grade of a Japanese elementary school. She lives alone with her mother; she has not seen her father for years. Before his disappearance, her father, who works as an archaeologist, entrusted her with a book of spells and aroused her great interest in magic. The lively girl wishes to break out of her boring life and would rather live in a world full of magic. When the eleven-year-old annoys her classmates again, they take away her magic book. She wants to get it back and falls down several floors with the book from the roof of the school building. During the fall, Ellis disappears and finds himself in a magical world.

In the magical world, which she initially takes to be a dream, she is in the "Forbidden Forest" and immediately meets a goblin. Ellis is in the realm of witches and they have set themselves the goal of catching all hundred different goblins. The witches capture Ellis and the goblin, the last one they need. Ten-year-old Eva (エ バeba , spoken by Ryō Hirohashi ) is fascinated that Ellis is human and frees her from captivity. Eva lets Ellis ride her broom, something only witches can normally do. So in the wizarding world, Ellis has magical abilities. On the broom, Ellis wreaks havoc by freeing the goblins and thus inciting the wrath of the witch leaders. The serious, twelve-year-old Sheila (シ ー ラshiira , spoken by Hōko Kuwashima ), who wants to become one of the best witches and who is responsible for the magical education of the young witches, and Eva are made responsible for the liberation of the goblins and are given a curse, who won't let them grow up unless the hundred goblins are caught again.

Mahō Shōjo Tai

Elli's magical abilities improve quickly. She speaks of the fact that magic is there to make you happy and that everyone, whether human or witch, can use spells. Magic can work miracles. Sheila and Eva make friends with Ellis and look for a way to send Ellis back into their world. There is a way into the human world, but it is extremely dangerous and many have not made it to their destination via it. Usually only witches are sent through this path who cannot perform magic at a lavishly celebrated ceremony at a certain age. Ellis loses her magic book, which turns out to be the "real" magic book. Sheila focuses on capturing the goblins to get rid of the curse of not growing up, but Ellis stands in her way because she believes it is wrong to lock up goblins.

The witches do everything in their power to recapture the vanished goblins. The Mazoku, the male inhabitants of the wizarding world, who generally have a bad relationship with the female witches, compete with them by also capturing goblins. While the witches focus on the traditional values ​​of magic and their pride, the Mazoku are fixated on technological progress and science. They no longer use magic. Few of the male inhabitants of the wizarding world are still familiar with wizardry, but they are a minority who live underground. Ellis, Eva and Sheila found the Mahō Shōjo Tai team to protect the goblins from the Mazoku.

Fight against the end of the world

In the realm of the Mazoku, Sheila finds out that the magical world is on the verge of its downfall and that destruction is imminent. At the same time she learns about another way into the human world. The Mazoku, under Grandes' leadership, need Elli's “true” spellbook, the hundred goblins and a witch with skills in black magic to wipe out the human world and create a substitute wizarding world in their place, to which they could escape from the fall of the wizarding world. Black magic is frowned upon among witches, as evil, only the legendary magic of light could compete against them.

Sheila brings Ellis on a ship that goes to the human world and plans to send Eva later as well, so that the two are not doomed together with the magical world. On her way into the human world, Ellis meets her half-brother Renon (レ ノ ン, spoken by Yūki Tai ), who called her into the magical world when she fell from the roof of the school. Renon is the son of Elli's father and Ateria (ア テ リ ア, spoken by Atsuko Tanaka ), one of the most powerful witches. Renon and Ellis return to the wizarding world. Elli's father is captured by the Mazoku, and Ateria are also captured. The Mazoku demand the magic book for the release of Elli's father. However, he has already fled and Ellis delivers the book for the release of Ateria. However, the Mazoku do not keep their promise. Elli's father frees Ateria and finally sacrifices himself for Ateria so that she can escape.

The end of the magical world is getting closer. The sky has already turned the color of destruction and the Mazoku empire is slowly dissolving. The Mazoku start practicing black magic because they have the hundred goblins, the spell book and a witch. Eva acts as a witch, who has let herself be persuaded by a trick. Eva is unrecognizable, she even attacks Sheila and Ellis with black magic. Ellis flies back to the human world on a broomstick and fetches the sweet nuts that Eva likes to eat from there. Ellis, enveloped in the magic of light, puts a nut in Eva's mouth and thus drives the darkness out of her heart. The darkness gives way and the sky takes on its usual color again. Ellis saved the wizarding world.

Eva and Sheila are freed from their curse of not being able to grow up and Ellis returns to the human world, where everything is still as it left it. Ellis goes home to her mother and finds her father, who she believed died in the wizarding world.

Surname

The main character's name ア ル ス ( Arusu ) is similar to the name ア リ ス ( Arisu ), which is the Japanese form of the given name Alice . Accordingly, her name can be written in Latin letters as "Aluce".

The broadcaster Animax has renamed the main character Ellis in its English language version. This name reflects the association with Alice in a similar way through the pronunciation.

Origin and publications

Character designer and animator Keita Amemiya , who among other things also invented the original story for Iria: Zeiram - The Animation , had the idea for Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu . Although this was initially to be implemented as a real film, the animation company Studio 4 ° C took over the implementation of the story. While Shinji Obara processed the idea into a script and Daisuke Nakayama was responsible for the design of the characters and the setting, Yoshiharu Ashino took over the direction. For the synchronization, the rarely used actors recording process was used, in which the voice actors breathe life into their roles even before the associated animations were completed. The setting is deliberately designed to be unusual, because it wanted to distance oneself from the traditional setting design of most television animes such as Fullmetal Alchemist .

The public television broadcaster NHK , which had a significant share of the funding, was in favor of all episodes having a running time of around nine minutes each so that they would fit so perfectly into the NHK broadcasting schedule. Forty episodes were created. The entire realization of the television series took around two years.

In March 2003 the project was announced at the Tōkyō Kokusai Anime Fair . From April 9, 2004 to March 4, 2005, NHK first broadcast the forty episodes on Japanese television. The series then ran in large parts of Asia on the anime channel Animax . From October 2004 to April 2005, the series was released on seven DVDs in Japan.

reception

In 2005 AnimaniA received consistent praise for the series. The shortness of the episodes is good for the series because it is so full of content and more suspense. The setting provides true visual highlights and the soundtrack is atmospheric. Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu belongs "undeniably to the crème de la crème of Japanese anime TV entertainment."

Adaptations

From May 2004 to January 2005, two pages of a manga based on the anime series were published monthly in the manga magazine Ciao , which at that time sold over a million copies per issue. The manga was drawn by Mai Shinna and is a more humorous version of the story.

Also more of a comedy was the sequel to the anime, entitled Arusu - The Adventure ( ア ル ス THE ADVENTURE), which was released in November 2007 in six episodes as original video animation on three DVDs. This should have been broadcast on television in 2005, but this plan was later discarded.

literature

• Petra Kilburg: Ellis in the magic land . In: AnimaniA . 06/2005, pp. 46-50

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu on Anime News Network (English)
• Information at Studio 4 ° C (English / Japanese)

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1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Anime Production Update , Anime News Network, March 23, 2003
3. ↑ Kilburg, p. 50