DVD Review - Class tensions and gender bending drama

The third season of "Maria Watches Over Us" strengthens the girls' romantic ties with warm dialogue and imagery.

The newest release for the Maria series is set in Lillian Girls Academy during the summer break after season two. As viewers may remember from the previous seasons, the student council is organized under a nobility system, in which each grande seour (big sister) appoints a first-year student as her petite seour, or little sister. It resembles an intern system in some ways, in which the upperclassmen assign certain tasks to their apprentices.

In this year, petite seour Yumi Fukuzawa spends her summer break with her grande seour, Sachiko Ogasawara. Although the vacation starts off as a boring moment of solitude, Sachiko has her own reasons for hiding out in a summer cottage. Rival families are looking forward to laying shame on the Ogasawara family name.

There's plenty of other interesting events, including a joint festival with the all boys high school next-door to the Lillian Girls Academy. The boys high school council features a completely improbable cast of characters, including two twins, a buff guy who works out, a geek, Yumi's little brother and a guy who wanted to grow up as a girl.

Yet, as fantastic as the third season turns out, the story still retains a warm, pleasant tone. Better yet, most of the story is now centered on the two main characters, Yumi and Sachiko. This new narrative focuses our attention on the two women whom anime fans fell in love with first. The ultimate affirmation of their love for each other takes place during an entertaining school festival story, complete with cosplaying guys and panda costumes.

The new OVA format, or original video animation, makes each episode more poignant than those in the previous two seasons. The one-hour episodes also make for richer stories, strung together in a continuous narrative without interruptions. The story tends to ramble during the long sports festival and the school trip. These last two episodes feature more still images than actual animation, but the show still maintains its steady momentum of conversational comedy.

Overall, "Maria Watches Over Us" will immerse you into a warm world of girls' romance, with beautiful character designs and charming stories. The episodes shows these touching relationships without any plot holes or cheaply drawn animation. Although the story tends to drift off in the last episodes of season three, yuri fans will definitely enjoy "Maria Watches Over Us."

Extras: The OVA continues the excellent "Maria Watches Over Us" comedy segments, "Don't Tell Maria," a series of out-takes for every episode. These short blurbs include some epic parodies of the opening narrative, including an epic one involving the all boys school. However, the best jokes involve the exaggerated height of Yumi's newest friend.

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DVD Review - Time for Tweeny Extras

It's been awhile since I've seen the awesome shojo series, Tweeny Witches (Mahou Shoujo Arusu in Japanese). Anime Works released the new Tweeny Witches OVA, which covers side stories in the Witch Brigade's journey.

"Tweeny Witches: The Adventure" is a fun set of funny, dramatic and epic stories for fans of the original series.

It's not completely clear whether the six-episode OVA is set during the Witch Brigade's journey to save the fairies or after the first series ends. The Witch Brigade members are Arusu, Eva and Shiela. "The Adventure" is probably a continuation of the original series.

And what a fun continuation it is. The first episode, "The Magical Girl Squad - Transformed Into Fish!", is a hilarious story in which the Eva cooks up a magical stew which turns people's heads into fish heads. The second episode, "The Fairy Chronicles," is a simple tale in which Shiela helps two young witches take care of a gameli baby fairy until its mother arrives.

Other episodes look at the origin of certain side characters in the series. The third episode, "The Ice Witch and the Dragon of Fire and Ice," is a unique episode which the Grandmaster of witches tells tells Arusu, Eva and Shiela about her own adventures as teenage witch named Gana. The fourth episode, "The Secret of Dragon House," takes anime fans to the past, to learn how a humongous dragon ended up in Eva and Shiela's house. This was a surprising tale, in which Shiela saves all the witches from the machines sent to destroy them.

There are a few times in which the action moves way too quickly for characters to develop. For example, the fifth episode, "A Heart Sealed Away," begins with a evil witch named Tohma, who saves Arusu from falling off a cliff. However, the same witch also ends up capturing children and taking away Arusu's magic as well. And the witch has a goody-two-shoes twin. And somehow, Arusu uses her magic to meld the two together. Like I said, it doesn't completely make sense. Perhaps the episode was meant to show how a person's aggressive side and compassionate side combines together to make a complete person.

Some of the character designs were a little off as well. By episodes three and four, the characters have deviated so far from their previous form that anime viewers will wish the animaors were more consistent.

Overall, though, "Tweeny Witches: The Adventure" has plenty of awesome moments. The final episode is an epic tale, in which Arusu and the gang save a Googoo from an exploding seed tree, which it swallowed. The witches literally have to save the tree by detonating the seeds in the trees gigantic stomach.

Some episodes have especially funny moments. The first episode features humorous scenes in which the Witch Brigade sneak around town with mummy wrappings to cover up their humongous fish faces.

The best episode which sums up the OVA, however, is "The Secret of Dragon House." Eva saves the entire witch population from robots who were programmed to destroy them. This is a remarkable tale, in which Eva's pet dragon cheers her on, to use her magic to save the people she loves.

While this isn't a groundbreaking OVA, it still features some fun special features. After each episode, Eva gives a cute lesson on how to cast some of the spells in the series. And we also get to watch interviews with the sound director and the cast of "Tweeny Witches: The Adventure."

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