Ultra Maniac Highly recommended

Director
Shinichi Masaki
Production
ANIMAX, Ashi Production, Starchild Record
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
26 episodes
Year
2003

Ultra Maniac DVD Volume 3

By David Rasmussen
15th Feb 07

Magic isn’t for everyone. There is a good reason why only certain people get enrolled into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (and why it takes SEVEN years to graduate)! Magic, in the wrong hands, can be a very very bad thing indeed. As if the last two DVD reviews of Ultra Maniac didn’t already prove to us the ills of poorly cast magic let‘s go through it one more time with the review of DVD Volume 3. So then buckle up because we’re taking another session of “When Good Magic Goes Bad” with more Practical Magic lessons in Ultra Maniac DVD Volume 3.
Don’t forget to check out my review of Ultra Maniac DVD Volume 1 and 2 if you want to know what came before this, by the way!

Episode 9
Looks like that guy who tried to hit on Ayu first DVD (Nina’s childhood friend who is in love with her but doesn’t have the wands to spit it out and tell her) is back, and while Nina’s voyeuristic granddad is out sick with a cold he’s been pouring over all his data on the Holy Stones and… yes… he now knows the awful truth. How awful? Awful enough that he heads over to the mortal world to lend a helping hand to Nina’s “rival” Maya in the search for the 5 holy stones which leads them to an amusement park (where he tells Maya point blank the horrible truth why Nina was sent to find the Holy Stones instead of someone like her).

Seems each stone has an equivelant “thing” (Compassion, Health and so forth) which Nina seems to have oodles of and Maya seemingly has zero of… until he who is helping Maya draws out that special thing which by chance points her to the first Holy Stone (yes, it took 3 DVDs to finally get to the first Holy Stone). Nina gets the stone, but is it really a good thing for her to get the stones after all this hinting around that maybe it’s not such a good thing? Oh, and she seems to tell Ayu abit more about the stones… but ONLY abit more, once again she keeps the most important details underwraps… for a later episode.

I see nothing good of Nina capturing all five Holy Stones, do you?

Oh, as for today’s Practical Magic?
Please keep to your seats while riding high flying amusement park rides, so you don’t fall to your deaths… not much to do with magic but it’s practical advice nevertheless (sit down, Maya, before you split your skull open at the bottom of the ride!)

Episode 10
From this point forward you’re going to see Maya take a more direct targeted approach against Nina now that she has recovered the first of the five Holy Stones. This time out she creates a Voodoo Doll to throw Nina off her game… if only she wasn’t already off her game that day from staying up all night reading manga she borrowed from a certain boy (hint - He’s the one she accidentially fed Love Potion #9 3/4th to back in Episode 1) who she is beginning to bond with (Ayu has her guy and now Nina has a guy).

Problem. It seems that the voodoo doll Maya sent is not the best at her job, seeing how she seems to not get her job right… alternating between botching her job and allowing her suddenly active conscience to tell her not to do bad things… too bad her conscience goes out the window when threatened with non-existence.
However, at the end, all it takes is a vial of “poison” labeled substance and a major case of the guilty conscience when it’s applied wrongly to make our little voodoo doll girl here have a major crisis of conscience which leads to a majorly emoting confession… before she is accidentially “poisioned” by the very substance she just saved Nina from. Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending here… really.

Today’s Practical Magic?
Maya, don’t let your voodoo dolls grow up to grow consciences… then don’t expect them to do bad things when you know they’ll just mess it up.

Episode 11
It’s bad enough Maya is still spurned over the whole losing one Holy Stone to Nina thing, now she suddenly returns home and finds a most annoying presence has made himself at home with her. He seems to be a weird combination of Yaoi fandom meets Final Fantasy fanboy in what can only be called Queer Eye for the Straight Black Arts Witch… what the hell!

His name is Sebastian, and he’s… disturbing. I don’t know, maybe it’s the Cloud like spikey hair or the weird dress clothes and platform shoes… or maybe it’s the fact it’s a guy who wears lipstick. One thing or another about this guy is five potions short a full rucksack. It doesn’t help any that he also happens to be Maya’s butler and has a major obsession problem with her… doesn’t help when Maya brews a potion during school (litterly during school while they’re at the library which causes a ruckus) which manages to bring a buffalo to life… and by that I don’t mean buffalo wings.

OK. Today’s Practical Magic?
Hiding behind a bush to brew a potion doesn’t make you inconspicious… especially if the potion requires fire which generates smoke which in turn generates fear and panic. Next time find a bathroom with a great ventalation system… oh, wait, that’ll be worst… go home.

Episode 12
A festival requiring the use of kimonos is coming and Ayu doesn’t have anything good to wear, so Nina (bad idea) decides to use her power to make Ayu a kimono… nothing good can come of it.
Otherwise there’s a bit of a panic over the search for Ayu after she catches the guy she loves helping Maya and jumps to the wrong conclusion, then a Holy Stone “appears” and Nina has to save Maya from a boat as it’s sinking (and her kimono is… well… guess) only for the episode to end badly.

How badly? Let’s just say one of the main cast who didn’t previously know Nina’s a witch now has seen her use magic, which means for this one person (who may or may not be a very important person to Nina now) the “Cat” is out of the bag… as if there wasn’t a billion and one hints before this point.
But it’s only an accusation now, next DVD review we’ll see the fallout of this “revelation”.

Today’s Practical Magic?
Eventually somebody was going to catch on about Nina… I was mostly surprised it took this long before the “cat” came spilling out of the bag.
Breakdown time.

Ultra Maniac Breakdown the 3rd
Short explanation? While I am abit wary about the hints towards a not so fine ending of the series I, at least, didn’t mark off any cliché moments. For the most part this DVD pulls itself up by it’s boots from last DVDs slippage into cliché here and there to deliver a more solid performance.

The cliffhanger ending (which probably will have to involve a cliché in order to bring the series back to status quo) was abit worrisome, but it was nice to see more of Nina’s mom (and for the first time see her dad who seems like a kindly Mr. Arthur Weasley everyman type which was especially nice), and for the most part the DVD held together with some fine memorable moments (like the voodoo doll with an on slash off conscience or the whole mishap with the scary butler dude).

Despite the fact there is dark clouds looming, signaling a possible sign of a harsh ending once all the Holy Stones are gathered, I’m giving this outing (Ultra Maniac DVD Volume 3) the standard rhythm and roll of 5 travel seeking voodoo dolls out of 5 (aka another gold star of recommendation).

-- David Rasmussen 15th Feb 07

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