Mahou no Star Magical Emi

Ok, so, I've finished it. I mean...that was quite a ride. Not my favorite genre, but this anime is very different from what I've expected from it.

First of all, yes, it is magical girl anime. And it has some things in it purely to sell toys. And it has a repetitive transformation scene, tho for some reason best version of the scene is in the opening. But the opening is good, so I am not complaining about it, it is just weird how the transformation scene that is inferior to one you've already seen watching the opening is repeated in every single episode as if ... it was a requirement of sorts...and it likely was tho.

Speaking of magic, Emi can do a wide variety of things with it: Telekinesis, Dreamwalking (as entering and altering dreams), Teleportation (self, objects and people), Illusions (visual and audial), Creating (or teleporting from somewhere) objects and small animals, Creating energy (guess mainly some kind of magical fairy energy). And it is mainly used during performances. And those are actually rather small part of the anime. I respect it, she is not just using magic to solve everything, guess it is a lesson this anime has.

Speaking of Mai. Is she really clumsy? No, I don't think so, she is a kid who is still learning. There are episodes when she is actually very capable. So...I do not support "oh, she is just clumsy" joke. Luckily they did not do it too much.

Speaking about other things they did not do too much. Tropes. There were moments where they went this way, yet there were many more moments when they did not make me think "oh no, they are doing this bit", au contraire, they went in unexpected direction and made me feel puzzled and amazed.

There were things that just came out of nowhere and felt inappropriate, but those felt more like an inside jokes among creators. And they just put them in and just left them as is. I can respect that too. Also I can respect how the creators clearly added stuff they experienced themselves, both from normal life and anime/idol industry.

For the longest time I felt kinda weird that they had only one song in the anime. I mean they basically reused Opening during performance scenes every time. Which is I guess realistic for Idols, you repeat one song a lot. Luckily creators understood that one song will not carry the show for much longer. So they made another one, far into the anime. And it is also good, even if not as good.

Oh, and another thing, the setting of the anime feels much larger than what surrounds the main cast. That is huge. You can literally see and feel how some unknown forces and entities just come and go, making you think what else is there, what happens beyond. Works great to support the mystery.

The ending of the anime, even if it feels a bit abrupt, was actually very...good, sad, but it was a decision made by both characters and creators. It ended on a high note. And I appreciate that they made couple of OVAs and a music video that gives you a hint into what happened after. Which is very interpretive, but I have a feeling that characters have a happy life beyond the scope of the series. And likely some more adventures and maybe even more interactions with mysterious forces that were seen and unseen.

And to finish it all, I just want to copy here description from some other site (filmaffinity):

Mai is a little girl who idolizes Emily Howell, a famous magician. She is given a magic bracelet to transform into Magical Emi when she says "Puritto! Pararin Ririkaru Parapora Magicaru". She soon becomes a very successful part of her grand parents' show "The Magicalettes" while keeping her eye on a handsome boxer.

Why? Cause current synopsis is a bit inaccurate. First of all - Emi is 16, it is confirmed in the anime itself. And second - both keeping secret identity unknown and romantical feelings explored are not the focus of the anime. Former is barely given much attention, latter is much more subtle. Yet I think replacing current synopsis is not necessary.

Sweet magical girl show from the 80s. No evil to fight but nice stories from the magical daily life of Mai.

Clumsy elementary school girl aspiring to become a magician obtains a magical item which allows her to transform into a beautiful young woman and performing incredible magic. From there on she manages to live a double life. Not having the necessary skills to perform with her magic group as her true self she uses her magic powers to perform “magic” tricks on stage getting the whole group famous overnight. Together with an ambitious manager and his pushover assistant her alternate identity becomes pretty ... fast an idol.

The show is very episodic most of the time. Most of the episodes consist of Mai trying to manage to get on time to the magic shows or some minor problems she solves with magic. This can become very repetitive and reduced my enjoyment of the show.

Good thing that the characters are very lovely and funny. There is the shared crush between both personalities, her family, friends from school and the magic group which is like another family. Just a little strange that professional magicians don’t realize that she is using real magic on stage or even ask for a way to join her other than letting Mai get her when needed… And no one seems to have the need to let the idol sign a contract…
Mai probably has the most useless magical pet a show of this genre could have. Aside from explaining a few things at the beginning it was pretty much useless…

Knowing this show is from the 80s it looks pretty good even today. Nice backgrounds and sweet looking characters. Proper and not too much reused animation.

At this moment there are only about 15 episodes available with English subtitles. I watched it with a French dub. The voice acting is all right. The only thing really bothersome is that the whole show they reused the same song at every occasion… If you want to watch it in French you can easily find the disks for less than 20€ on the French Amazon.

It’s a nice calm episodic show where nothing bad happens. All right show to relax.