Zettai Boei Leviatan

Genre: Adventure/Action
Age Appropriate: Preteens
Emotional Response: Excitement, Feel Good
Notable Features: girl power, magic, dragons, evil insects
Language: Japanese
Length: 1 Seasons, 13 episodes 
Overall Recommendation: Great

"My name is not Syrorin!" - Syrop


Leviatan is a young lady with water magic, who lives in a small town of others just like her. She lives alone because he brother has gone off somewhere, and her existence in fairly lonely. Her only reminder is the staff she carries. It was her brother's and it helps her focus her magical abilities. Like Leviatan, the other women in her world had magic and wings. They are descended from dragons. While the men usually don't have much in the way of magic, they're all born with immense strength. Leviatan's journey begins when she meets up with two other young ladies - Bahamut and Jorgumund. Each of these young ladies also has magical powers. They comes together under the slight, humorous manipulations of Syrop - a mischievous fairy with grand ideas about creating the Aquafall Defense Force!

There are evil creatures that have landed on the planet Aquafall. These evil creatures come in the form of large monsters, called Lucasites, and their smaller minions, Toripos. They are the direct result of terrible meteorites and want nothing more than to destroy Aquafall. The series follows the girls on little journeys to save/retrieve their weapons that are continually lost and regained in battles with the Lucasites. They also become friends with guardians in the world who will come to their aid if they're able to contact them. Together with these new friends, the goal of the Aquafall Defense Force becomes defeating the terrible evil beasts and helping others as a result. If only their battles in town would stop destroying the inn...

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I thoroughly enjoyed this series. I'd like to think that if it were to take off, it would be similar to Sailor Moon. There are fun magical transformations included. My biggest hope is that this is only season one. There haven't been any announcements that I've seen, but the last episode was just aired at the end of June. It's probably to early to tell. It wasn't as exciting as Magi, but it was nice enough. It was also completely family friendly. It's probably a great series for girl power-minded individuals. I really appreciated that the story has friendship, coming-of-age and fun without being blatantly obvious about the message. The review portion is a little short, granted, but I'll simply recommend it as something fun to do on a rainy day, or to watch with the young women growing up in your life. Go Girl Power!

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Transform!: Chihayafuru

Demon King Daimao

Genre: Comedy
Age Appropriate: Older Teen
Emotional Response: Hilarious
Notable Features: magic, demon king, a dragon, youthful misunderstandings
Language: English/Japanese
Length: 1 season, 12 episodes
Overall Recommendation: YAY!

"It's just a big misunderstanding!" - Akuto Sai

Oh, Akuto Sai. The poor kid starts as a transfer student at Constant Magic Academy. He meets his first friend, Hattori, on the train there, and she goes through a solemn ceremony to pledge their friendship. Constant Academy is very Hogwarts-like. There is a mix of magic and technology, magic classes, and the most important - a career sorting crow. This crow predicts the career the student will have in the future, and because this is an anime: Akuto Sai is determined to be the future Demon King (much different from the priest he wanted to be). After hearing this Hatori takes back her pledge and begins attaching him (after said youthful misunderstandings), and Hiroshi (friend #2) declares that Akuto is now his big brother.

Then there is a young redhead (Kena) who may, or may not, be an old friend from the past, a evil witchgirl (Eto) who wants to be by Akuto's side as he theoretically takes over the world and has a spirit ghost brother inhabiting a severed head, and a student council with strange connections. To top it all off, Horone is an android secret surveillance agent who follows her orders very seriously (including an episode of attempted seduction) and moves into Akuto's life, stalker style. When Akuto's powers begin to surface and the gang goes on an interesting treasure hunt, Peter Hausen arrives - a dragon who is the servant of the Demon King.

All of these characters, and more, lead to the supposed destruction of the world and domination of the Demon King. While Akuto's ideas are occasionally misconstrued as Demon King-like, it is often either a misunderstanding or something societally rebellious which is also misunderstood. He seems to have no desire to be the Demon King or act in a way that people feel he should as a Demon King. While demon beasts start cropping up after his powers start to awaken, he's often not the catalyst to an attack - AND Brave, a mysterious hero, makes the news with his demon beast battles. All of this leads to the endgame of Demon King destruction.

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If you haven't figured it out, I love this anime. It's short and sweet and hilarious. There are a lot of inappropriate goings on - mostly accidental but wow - and a lot of awkward moments. I feel bad for Akuto pretty much the whole time, and the female shenanigans are quite amusing. I don't really have a lot to share about the anime because it is relatively short, and it seems like the whole plot is really just a vehicle for the hilarity (rather than the other way around). I cared a lot less about what would happen with world destruction than what Korone was going to do next - and how Akuto would survive it.
Korone's creepy obsession with Akuto, and her living in his closet paired with her robotic speech and lack of understanding regarding bluntness, are some of the best parts.

There was a whole lot of head smacking going on, and some actual lol'ing. Don't expect anything important or deep out of this anime, but watch it. The end does get exciting! It's all a little weird and somewhat hard to follow, but I did find myself cheering the Demon King on! There is even a surprise twist (that's actually a surprise)! Seriously. It's awesome - not enough for a Top 5 but highly recommended.

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Now back to our regular programming: Kaze No Stigma

Tears to Tiara

Genre: Action/Comedy
Age Appropriate: Pre-teens+

Emotional Response: laughter, fun, excitement

Notable Features: Magic, epic battles, King Arthur, dragons!

Language: English
Length: 2 parts, 26 episodes total
Overall Recommendation: Top 5

"Whack, whack! They defeat the enemy!"

Tears to Tiara is an epic-type anime including Arthur, elves, magic and one Demon King to boot. It's actually quite an extensive cast. It's a story of the Gael clan (Irish) versus the "Diving Empire"(Roman), and the Gael clan's opposition to the Empire's occupancy.

The story begins when Arthur's sister, Riannon, is kidnapped by an Empire toady as a sacrifice to awaken the Demon King - with the expectation that the Demon King will help the little peon take over the world (of course). To force her cooperation, he uses small children to force Riannon to give up her "true name," thus granting power over her. True names are important later too. So, Arthur returns to their village, meets up with his clansmen and harries off to save Riannon from her terrible fate. As fate would have it, the Demon King awakens! A true turn of events appears when we discover that he's a pretty cool guy, with no interest in taking over the world with the jerk who stole Riannon. So, Arawn - The Demon King! - saves Riannon by waking her up in her magical dream state, kills the evil doer and then must face her brother Arthur. To save Arawn from having to fight Arthur - or save Arthur from hurting Lord Arawn - Riannon gives Arawn her red scarf. It is a symbol of clan leadership, essentially marrying Riannon to Lord Arawn and making him clan cheiftain. There is much bickering between the two until Arawn points out the problem of evil dead creatures coming after them. In their fleeing they hook up with Saint Ogham (mage) and fight their way out....it just gets more complicated from there.

The cast builds then to the elves, the emperials, another clan, some spare dragons, a necromancer, white spirits and a terrible foe. Also included: epic LOTR battles. Well, mini LOTR battles on the island of Albion (England), at the castle of Avalon.

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This is totally in my Top 5! It was a great follow up to the messed up-edness of Rin. It's funny, and exciting, and a little sad. I even loved the soundtrack - which is rare as I don't usually notice one. It's that kind of music that's heartening during a fancy speech or the end of the battle and haunting during sad parts and the beginning of battle.

I love the relationships between the characters. The whole brotherhood, warrior comraderie (not strictly for boys!) and family strength is awesome. If you look deep enough, and feel like seeing it, there's a little romance between Morgan and Octavia, maybe. Otherwise, not much blantant romance going on. It really does hit on a number of traditional characters needed for a good epic story. Serious when it needed to be, but fun when it didn't. It was one of those anime series that was really easy to get sucked into. I'm not sure if was the was terrible accents (haha) or the fact that it was in English, but my husband couldn't keep away from watching/listening. So, yeah. Highly recommended for the whole family. I only added a Pre-Teen rating because it can get a little bloody, but I think that the violence is softened with it being animated. So, if you need something light hearted (especially if you've been following along and just watched Rin ::shudder::), watch this. Srsly.

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Next Up: La storia della Arcana Famiglia