Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo
aka Bewitched Agnes
(Reviewed on 06/21/2006)
The Magically Delicious ROSSMAN
Have you ever thought to yourself, "What if Sailor Moon grew up, but refused to relinquish her magical-girl persona, and then she became a giant slut, fooling around with all the boys, but basically being a giant cock-tease about it?" Lord knows I have (sometimes several times a night), and so have the people who originally brought us the (10Xs better than it had any right to be) anime Tenshi ni Narumon. Unfortunately, this time they didn't really bake the shit out of the cake they were making (sorry, I was gonna use a sports metaphor, but this show is all about magical girls and housewives [DESPARATE housewives], and that would have seemed so out of place). A half-baked Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo (aka Magical Girl Wife, aka Bewitched Agnes [seriously]) is the result. The souffle fell, and it fell hard.
Honestly (and almost ashamedly), I kind of got into this "what if" story of love lost, love triangles, stupid love, and magic wands for the first 2/3rds of its 13 episode storyline... But then things just fell apart on me. Let me tell you about the plot first. It's all about 26 year-old Agnes (aka Ureshiko Asaba), who is the manager of the quaint little sea-side town in which she lives in, which her mother created with magic many years before. Apparently the old farts in the magic realm think that Agnes has held on to her managerial role for far too long, but being magical gir-- er, woman, Agnes has been using her skills to repel any attempts to replace her, and thus allow her substitute to erase the whole town (people and all), and create a new one from scratch. Thrown into this mess is the rule that once a magical girl kisses a guy (I don't think that they even have to use tongue) she loses her powers forever. They never do let the viewer know if there can still be any lower-body slapping action to be had without any repercussions... Seriously, kissing's overrated if you can still play groin-hockey.
ANYWAY, so Agnes is holding off the changing of the guard in her mother's made Wonderland, and in the first episode magical girl Cruje and wimpy Yusaku-- I mean Tatsumi enter the picture. Cruje is there to become Wonderland's newest manager, and Tatsumi is there to be Agnes' man-muffin... Unfortunately, being from the minds of Tenshi, things aren't as clear cut as they may initially seem. See Agnes is already married *COUGH* slut *COUGH*, Cruje has other magical girl friends who have their own agendas for Wonderland, and Cruje falls for Tatsumi too, and gets him to fall for her when she uses her magic to turn herself older in his presence. And don't let me forget to mention that Tatsumi kinda-sorta works for Agnes' husband, and Agnes still has a boner for the guy with whom she exchanged vows with a few years before... Long story short, things get fucked up pretty fast, and lots of feelings are explored. And for the most part, like I said before, the story and characters are fun and fairly not annoying (except for that ONE little piece of shit in Cruje's class... That little prick just pissed me off something fierce with all his "I'm a boy and I like you, so I'll trip you and kick dirt on you... Now, don't you like me back?" attitude. I was a little boy once... I had a crush on Alyssa in my kindergarten through 2nd grade classes... I never once insulted her or pissed in her snow boots or pushed her down the stairs. Never. I instead lent her my crayons, blushed whenever she talked to me, and even kissed her on the last day of school before I moved. WHAT THE HELL is up with portraying "boys in love" like shit-for-brains brats? This happens all the goddamn time in stories like this.. URGH!!!!), and I actually cared about what would happen to the town and all its inhabitants when the shit began to get pureed in the fan... but then something just rubbed me the wrong way...
Well, some THINGS began to rub me the wrong way, the first of which being Agnes' predicament. She's already married and yet it's painfully obvious from the first episode that Tatsumi is supposed to be her knight in shining armor (despite the fact that he's still the typical dorky lead mandated for the part in the Japanese Constitution [which declares, "Any such book, story, play, theatrical performance, televised show, manga or filmatic presentation must have a wimpy male lead in order to make the rest of the pussified males in this country appear to have some sort of backbone and/or penis."]). Now, I realize that I could be talking to you right now, and you're thinking to yourself, "Yeah, so what if she's married? Let her suck on that tasty little teen treat and proceed with the bang-bang." My my, what morals you have. Wonderful. For me, however, this was kind of like getting kicked in the banana hammock just as two foxy lady gymnasts sauntered by. A total boner-killer. What made it worse for me is that Agnes' husband is the one who obviously got the raw deal here. She married him without telling him that they could never get intimate. Whattaho! Though I guess it IS his fault for buying the car without test-driving it first, but she is the definition of cock-tease-whore. Oh yeah, that's now my word of the day: cock-tease-whore. Bitch.
So the husband got screwed without getting screwed, Tatsumi is a wimp who won't make any moves on anybody, Agnes likes to needle men without getting a flesh-needle in return, Cruje is just trying to do the best she can in the situation she's thrown into, and the behind-the-scenes players (including ex-magical girls and the old guys who seem to run things) are all crazy or irrational, like monkeys on ice-skates... At the end it just goes in a direction that did not please me. See, I began to think that they might actually take a chance with the ending and go in a direction that the viewer wasn't really expecting (like how Ichigo the manga pulled a cool curveball), but I hate to say that the ending that they stuck with was indeed the one that you thought they'd go with from the first episode. Seriously, I was truly hoping for Cruje and Tatsumi to hook up in the end -- they were the much better couple (and she was over 18 when magically oldified). But that was not to be. The cheating (without really cheating) wife won. How's that fair? Yeah, life's not fair, but that's why I like escapism crap like anime -- to help me forget how shitty life really is. Instead I felt that Cruje and the original husband just got royally assfucked. I cannot state this enough: Agnes is a two-timing magical whore.
Anyway, just like Tenshi was all about "what is a family?" Oku-sama is all about "change is the devil." Truthfully, I couldn't agree more, and that's why I felt so torn watching this thing. I wanted Agnes to fail because she's a tramp, but I wanted her to succeed because I didn't want the town to be erased (The people there were all kinds of cool... except for that asshole twerp in Cruje's class). It messed with my head in that respect. But this led me to my biggest question for the series: WHY the FUCK did Wonderland need to be erased and then remade in the first place? THIS IS NEVER EXPLAINED. I think there was one line in the whole series in which somebody throws out the comment that Wonderland is the gateway to the magical realm.... but they never explain why all the poor schmucks who moved to this one town (in the entire world) could and would eventually be erased at the whim of a spoiled magical girl if she so chose (or why those ex-witches currently living in Wonderland couldn't just move their families OUT OF TOWN before the erasure occured). When that's the McGuffin device you choose for your storyline, you'd better at least give the audience that much of a justification or resolution, hombre.
The Magically Deficient DR. DAVE
I'm dreadfully sorry, but I've had just about as much as I can handle when it comes to these "magic" shows --where little girls can transform into planet-saving princesses, and the loser prince always comes around to save the day in the last ten minutes of the final episode.... Give me hard SCIENCE, people, not fairy tales! The only reason I allow the Rossman to experiment on me with these imported cartoons is because I hope to be inspired to turn my research in genetics or chemistry onto something new... I don't watch these shows to see bosomy, young, pink-haired girls magically transform from their regular clothes into their scantily covering ones with a quick stop in Nudieville... Sure, that's a bonus, but it doesn't bring me any closer to scientific revelation, like that time I saw that show about tiny tykes turned into weapons of mass destruction (editor: I think he's talking about Saikano)... Sure, the show itself was hideously appalling (editor: yup, Saikano), but it brought forth my will to extermi--... uh, experiment with extreme prejudice back into focus. And focus is something that this older lady magical girl show was dreadfully missing.
The MEGAPLAYBOY
Oooookay, G. This shit kinda fucked with me a little. See, the Rossman tricked me into watching this thing with the promise that there be some major butt-bongoing action going on, but after all the cheezy cleavage, ass and transformations that took place in the first episode the fan service dropped to nill, homie. So's like I was watchin' and watchin' and watchin' this shit for like six and a half hours just waiting for one more upskirt shot of that bouncy, red-headed bitch, when I easily could have spent that time looking up and hacking into dozens upon dozens of specialty sites that cater to leather and latex that I love so very much. Goddamn shitty Japanesey not-really-slutty shows! Go all the way, or don't even bother painting the cells.
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