Bindzume Yousei

Talk about uber-kawaii, this series is that. Fortunately, each episode is about twelve and a half minutes in length, thus ensuring the viewers don't go into kawaii overload.

The first twelve episodes cover the months from April to March. The fairies have very vivid imaginations, so when Tama-chan "enlightens" them to some cultural item related to said month, they sometimes misinterpret it (and Tama-chan doesn't always provide accurate information). Even if they get it right, it usually leads to them imagining some adventure be it a trip to school, or parodying some Japanese TV show. If you've seen a lot of anime, you'll know at least some of the cultural references. However, unless you are native Japanese, you may not understand them all. I was fortunate in that the fansub group who did this series put out a lot of translator notes in the episodes which explained many things. The series itself seems to be a semi-educational one for kids about Japanese life (though I'm informed that this was actually shown on late-night Japanese TV for the anime otaku).

The thirteenth episode picks up where twelve left off since the fairies cast a magic spell that has some interesting consequences. Without spoiling anything, it would have been more interesting to me to have had the fairies spell stay intact since it would have been interesting to see how Sensei-san dealt with this over time. But since this is a kids show (though shown late at night), that was never going to happen and I accept that. :-)

The four fairies cover some standard personalities. Kururu tends to be the leader of the group and the most upbeat. Chiriri is the more subdued, shy fairy who's also smart. Sarara is the tougher fairy and her fantasies often have a military or samurai connotation. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that she is voiced by the most-excellent seiyuu Horei-Yui-san. Hororo is the "vacuous" fairy. That's not a slam on her. If you've seen Azumanga Daioh and know the character of Osaka, you basically have Hororo.

Bottom line: pure fun fluff that is so sugary-sweet, you might get an overdose.

R1 DVD Note: I'd like to thank Geneon for having the subtitles make full use of the Japanese honorifics. This is a show that desperately demanded their use and I'm glad Geneon went all out. They do on rare occassions. It would have been nice if the DVD had included some translator notes as an extra. Some things are noted during the course of the anime, which is nice, but the fansubs provided so much more detail which would have been a great thing to have in the DVD. Just a minor complaint. ^_^

Last updated Sunday, December 04 2005. Created Friday, January 16 2004.