Magical Girl Pretty Sammy
When first discovering the anime threads on NeoGaf, one of the things I liked about it was finding out about some earlier or more obscure anime I didn't know of.
Hitokage was maybe this threads biggest contributor to talking about magical girl shows and trying to make people aware of some perhaps more unknown shows he thought people should take a look at.
One of those was
Magical Girl Pretty Sammy. It's a magical girl spin-off of the show
Tenchi Muyo! which I had heard of but still haven't seen as of yet. That's okay though as Pretty Sammy stands perfectly fine on its own and the references are more of a bonus to those already familiar with the other work.
There exists a 3 episode OVA version which seems to almost act as a pilot or test for the 26 episode TV version. I had seen the OVA version earlier and just recently finished the TV version. It's interesting seeing how the characters change, such as Mihoshi and Kiyone working at Sasami's families CD shop in the OVAs and then Mihoshi being Sasami's teacher at school with Kiyone teaching the next door classroom. In the OVA Sasami's father isn't present but he's there in the TV series and has a fairly big enough role. He's also a really energetic character set up as sort of a "Gary Stu" type where he supposedly worked as an actor, was part of a SWAT team as well as working at NASA for example.
The show was released in the mid-nineties and seems reminiscent of similar shows of the times such as
Sailor Moon,
Cardcaptor Sakura and what I've seen or heard of
Doremi. This show has very funny reaction/silly faces in spades. It's also done in a way that's very self-aware of the tropes and cliches of the genre and plays with them. Sometimes almost to the point of parody. The show does have some serious moments but with the lead-up or general execution of them they feel earned and not overly contrived or melodramatic as other series.
Now having watched the show I can agree with
Hitokage that it's a very well made and entertaining show that has shot up the ranks as a favorite of the magical girl genre for me. If you're a fan of the genre, or a fan of
Tenchi Muyo! and are curious about a magical girl spin-off, or even just want an all around self-aware fun show to watch, then I really recommend giving the show a look.
Even with the effort I've put into this post though, I know most will probably ignore it or ultimately probably not end up watching the show, so I'll just post this little image to maybe entice some like
Narag and
Zach. ;p
It has mofu!
Also probably one of the few mascots across the magical girl genre that I don't think
Hitokage hated for whatever that's worth.
I weep.
