Ultra Maniac ep.11-14

April 27, 2004 | 5 Comments

I've been watching too many new anime lately that I start to neglect the old ones that I haven't finished. But I finally managed to marathon 4 episodes of Ultra Maniac last night. It looks like the plot starts to advance in these episodes and the show also seems to know which character they want to pair off with the other at this point in time. In addition to this, it's good to see that Nina and Tsujiai start to get some much needed character development and focus in this series, especially since I feel that they are far more interesting than Ayu and Kaji. Hmm, maybe I'll get my wish that somehow Nina and Tsujiai will take over as the two main leads of this series.

Episode eleven begins with Maya returning to her house from the school only to find Sebastian, her butler from the Magical Kingdom, waiting for her in front of the house. Sebastian is one scary guy and that is quite something considering Maya herself is quite scary. Sebastian seems to be obsessed with serving Maya and doesn't seem to like it when something gets in his way of doing his job. As a result, when Maya's little Iguana pet accidentally breaks a pot plant while Sebastian cleans up the house, the poor creature ends up being sucked into a magical vacuum cleaner that Sebastian owns. Sebastian also ends up following Maya to the school the next day and causing havoc once he got there mostly thanks to his need to serve and protect Maya 24/7.

Meanwhile, Nina and Ayu are invited by Kaji and Tsujiai to go to the library to study together. Once they got there, however, Tsujiai and Nina end up checking out picture books together instead of studying. And just as the four start enjoy their time in the library, a fire alarm breaks out and warns all student to evacuate the library because some kind of a smoke has been detected. It turns out the smoke comes out of one of the potion that Maya tries to create. Because of this, Nina and Ayu decide to confront Maya after Tsujiai and Kaji evacuate the library. However, they got intimidated by Sebastian and failed to tell Maya to stop making the potion. At the same time, Maya's black crow pet arrives at the school carrying the vacuum bag containing the Iguana pet. Maya immediately realised that this is the work of Sebastian and she's not happy with him.

Sebastian then panics and decides to take the potion that Maya's been brewing and refuses to return it to Maya until she forgives him. He, however, accidentally drops some of the potion into the picture books that Nina and Tsujiai read not too long ago. It turns out the potion has the ability to turn the picture in the book into a real object. These objects then disappear a couple of seconds later except for the picture of the Buffalo that comes alive thanks to the massive amount of potion that got spilled onto the picture. Nina and Ayu try their best to contain the situation while ensuring that Tsujiai and Kaji don't know what's going on. At the end of the day, however, it is Sebastian who is ordered by Maya to fix things up. And he does so by using his trusty magical vacuum cleaner again.

Episode twelve begins with Nina talking about her test result with Ayu, thinking that Ayu is depressed because of the mark the marks that she gets in the test. However, it turns out that Ayu is merely depressed because the holiday is coming and that means she won't be able to see Kaji for a while. Thankfully for her, not long after this, Kaji and Tsujiai catch up with them and ask Nina and Ayu if they want to watch the fireworks together with the boys. Nina happily agrees with the idea and Ayu pretends that she doesn't care either way even though the truth is she's over the moon about it. Later on that night, however, Ayu realised that she doesn't have a Kimono that is good enough for the event. Nina, however, assures her that she has something for her and tells Ayu to go back to sleep.

The next day, Nina reveals to Ayu that she wants to create a Kimono out of a fashion magazine for her. At first Ayu is reluctant to the idea, which is understandable given Nina's track record with magic thus far. But she also doesn't have the heart to wear Nina's kimono when Nina offers it because the kimono is a present given to Nina by her parents. Therefore Ayu has no choice but to let Nina produces a Kimono for her using magic. Strangely enough, Nina manages to create one for Ayu without too much difficulty. The two are then ready to see Kaji and Tsujiai but there's just one problem: Rio insists on coming with them to the festival and as a result, Nina ends up having to baby-sit him once they arrived at the festival. This makes things difficult for her because she also has the task of distracting Tsujiai away from Kaji and Ayu so that the two can have quiet time together.

As the firework starts, Kaji notices that Maya is also in the location on her own. Feeling sorry for her, Kaji decides to approach her and see if she wants to join the others. He, however, ends up being rebuked strongly by Maya. The entire incident, however, is seen by Ayu, who immediately assumes that Kaji likes Maya. Ayu becomes broken hearted and ends up wondering around the port and later on, rowing a small boat into the middle of the lake. Unfortunately for her, the boat is leaking after she hits another boat. To make things worse, she also finds out that if the water splashes her Kimono, it becomes tattered just like if a paper gets wet. She then remembers that Nina actually used paper as an ingredient in making her Kimono and immediately connects the two.

Elsewhere, Nina receives an email from her grandpa telling her that there is another magic ball located in the area where the firework festival is happening. Nina quickly realises that this is why Maya is seen around the area and therefore she proceeds to search for the supposed magic ball. After a while, however, Nina gives up and decides to look for Ayu. Thankfully for Ayu, Nina manages to find her in time because the boat is about to sink completely. And if that was to happen, Ayu'll end up wet and naked. While Nina wonders about the sort of magic that she should use to help Ayu, Tsujiai decides to look around for his missing friends and accidentally gets to see Nina's witch transformation. Transfixed, Tsujiai watches in awe as Nina uses her magic to envelope Ayu in some kind of floaty material so that she can return to the land without being seen naked by anyone.

Once Ayu gets over her embarrassment and her unfortunate fate, she and Nina decides to look for the guys and soon finds Tsujiai who pretends as if he didn't see what happened beforehand. They also soon encounter Kaji who tells his friends that he met Maya not too long ago but when he asked her to join them, she refused. Upon hearing this, Ayu realises that Kaji was simply being nice to Maya and doesn't seem to have any interest in her. They all then head back to their respective homes. However, as they walk together, Tsujiai whispers to Nina that he knows her identity as a witch. Nina is horrified to hear this and pretends that maybe Tsujiai confuses thing. Tsujiai, however, believes that he saw Nina transform into a witch costume and then used magic to help Ayu.

Episode thirteen continues from where episode twelve left off with Nina in shock and fear after realising that Tsujiai also knows her secret now. She tries to pretend that maybe Tsujiai imagines things. However, Tsujiai assures her that she should not worry about it because he will not reveal his knowledge of her identity to anyone else. For some reason, Nina ends up blushing upon hearing Tsujiai's promise but realises that she can't do anything but to trust Tsujiai for the time being. Fast forward a couple of days later, everyone are in the midst of helping Nina's mother opening a second hand stall that sell their unused items. At the same time, Maya, who's always interested in fortune telling decides to earn income by becoming a fortuneteller for a day.

Maya's first client turns out to be both Ayu and Nina who are curious about their fortune and love. Maya is horrified when she realises that Ayu and Nina has visited her booth. But she relaxes a bit when she realises that neither of them recognises her since she wears a veil. Ayu wants to know if she and Kaji are compatible and I think Maya read it wrong when she said that they are compatible. :P Maybe she meant that they are so boring that they are compatible. Anyway, Nina simply wants to know if she can trust a certain person (read: Tsujiai) to keep her secret. Maya thinks that Nina should trust this person. Happy with the readings, Nina and Ayu proceed to leave Maya's booth much to Maya's relief. Unfortunately for Maya, her next client turns out to be Tamura sensei who wants to know if he'll find his ladylove today.

After visiting Maya's booth, Tamura sensei ends up wandering around the second hand market and purchasing a vest from Nina's mother. Later on, however, we find out that the vest is actually not for sale because it contains some kind of a curse. Anyone who wears it will be forced to speak the truth while speaking to another person. Because of this, Nina, Ayu, and Rio decide to look for Tamura sensei before he says something that will offend someone else. But that would not be funny, would it? It's far more entertaining to see Tamura sensei trying to charm his way through his female colleague and failed miserably. For example, even though he wants to say that his colleague is beautiful, he ends up saying that she puts a lot of make up on her face. I'm not going to reveal the rest of the jokes because it's much funnier if you see the rest of the mishaps yourself. I found myself cringing in shame for poor Tamura sensei.

After completely ruining his chances of getting a date with his female colleague, Tamura sensei is finally saved by the kids from the cursed vest. Nina claims that the vest is not meant to be sold and Tamura sensei seems to be quite happy to return it. Later on as the search for Tamura sensei is over, Nina and Tsujiai has the chance to talk about the day. Tsujiai admits that he's been enjoying the day. Nina, however, seems to be itching on trying the vest on Tsujiai just to see if he's been blabbing her secret to someone else. At the last minute, however, she doesn't have the heart to do it and actually ends up being impressed by Tsujiai's kindness and considerate manner. I think Nina slowly falls for Tsujiai here. The episode ends with Nina wanting to thank the fortuneteller for her right prediction but she can't find that said fortuneteller and instead only finding Maya. Maya lies through her teeth and tell Nina that the fortuneteller has left. Nina believes her and as a result, Maya's secret as fortuneteller is safe for now.

The fourteenth episode is a return to the filler land. This is quite an entertaining filler though, as it introduced a rather funny character called Luna. Luna is supposedly an old friend of both Maya and Nina from the magic kingdom. Luna, however, seems to suffer from MPD as well as extreme paranoia. But you have to admire someone who can make Maya afraid. The fun, however, doesn't start until we see Ayu and Nina coming out of a movie theatre after watching a film. It turns out Kaji and Tsujiai have also seen the film so when they meet the girls, Nina and Tsujiai end up discussing the plot of the film like two film geeks. Ayu and Kaji are amazed at how well Nina and Tsujiai get along with one another every time the two are together.

They then bump into Maya and Luna who are also in the shopping centre. As Maya and Luna leave the mall, however, Luna ends up dropping her bag and Kaji decides to return it to her. Luna ends up falling heads over heel with Kaji and starts imagining getting married to him and all. But Luna's paranoia ends up taking control of her emotion. She starts imagining that her bad luck will bring misfortune to those that she loves. So She immediately fears that Kaji will fall ill if he gets involved with her. Therefore, she decides to give him a present so that he'll stay healthy: a dried lizard. And as she gets more and more paranoid, she ends up giving Kaji various weird artefacts, much to Kaji's chagrin. He ends up thinking that he gets the weird items because Luna hates him.

After a while, however, both Nina and Ayu realise that Luna is in love with Kaji and Nina tells Luna that Kaji already has Ayu. Upon hearing this, Maya decides to help Luna to win Kaji's heart by using magic. Ayu immediately panics thinking that she'll lose her chance to be with Kaji. Nina, however, assures her that she won't let it happen and decides to counter Maya's plan with her own magic. At the end of the day, however, Ayu doesn't have the heart to put Kaji under a spell. She tells Nina to stop her effort and Nina immediately remembers that Ayu once said that even if Kaji loves her, it'll be because of the magic and once that wears off, Ayu will be sad again, so it's not worth it. Thankfully for the two, Kaji ends up asking Luna why she keeps giving him this strange artefacts and that breaks Luna heart. But she survives and soon finds a new target to fall in love with.

I am glad to see that the series has finally lightened up on the filler episodes and start to concentrate on the smaller arcs and plots. It's also good to know that Tsujiai finally finds out about Nina's secret. I felt that it's a bit silly that only Ayu and Kawanakajima manage to find out about it given the fact that Nina is quite careless in using some of her magic. I also like that the show starts to build up Nina and Tsujiai's story. I was afraid that these two will be relegated as supporting character but right now I'm not sure if that will be the case. If anything, I think there is a chance that these two will be the main focus of the series or at least share the screen time together with Ayu and Kaji. And after seeing the two together often, I think I really like the chemistry between the two. They are entertaining, interesting, and look cute together.

© memento 2003