When Sailor Moon first came out every magical girl anime since then wanted to ride on its success and be just as popular as it. It got so bad that some companies wanted to take a jab at Sailor Moons success. Thus with intent to parody and call the heck out of those magical girl tropes that bordered on overused at the time Magical Girl Pretty Sammy was born. Actually this show is an AU spinoff of a popular harem/scifi OVA series called Tenchi Muyo which I havent seen nor do I ever intend to as it doesnt seem to appeal to me. But some people I knew said they liked Pretty Sammy and that I dont need to know anything about Tenchi Muyo to enjoy it. Since I was bored and didnt have much to watch I decided to track it down and give it a watch. Surprisingly its one of the best comedies and parodies Ive seen Sure it has a LOT of flaws that prevent it from being great but its a fun watch all the way through Seriously this show parodies every magical girl trope you can imagine. Sasami Kawai is a normal tenyearold girl whos perfectly happy with her life. She has loving parents a great best friend in shy girl Misao Amano enjoys school and is pretty average...however one day a strange woman named Tsunami appears in her house giving her a strange baton and asking her to become a magical girl named Pretty Sammy. Tsunami is a woman from a magical world called Juraihelm and she is a candidate to become queen but she is up against two other candidates Romio and Ramia. As part of the succession rites Tsunami has to find someone a kindred spirit on Earth to give magical powers to so she can restore Juraihelms balance. Sasami is in no way happy about this sudden change in her life and questions why she even has to do this when shes not even the queentobe. Things get complicated when another magical girl Pixy Misa keeps getting in her way and sending LoveLove Monsters after her. Seeing as theres no way out Sasami has to deal with being a magical girl and all the baggage that comes with it. For its time the animations looks quite good. It looks smooth the characters are well designed most of the time and it does its job well. The fact that it goes out of its way to make its characters look zany and stupid especially during the comedic moments in the show also works for the shows benefit since this is a parody and we cant have a parody without some humor right? However I do have some issues with the magical girl outfits that Sammy and Misa are forced to wear. Do their skirts REALLY have to be so ridiclously short and skimpy? And theyre ten years old Then again I think the show is trying to make fun of how silly most magical girl outfits were at the time and the good thing is the show doesnt make any attempts to use them for fanservice panty shots anyone? so I can give it some plus points for that. The soundtrack isnt really particularly memorable. The opening theme...is admittedly very badly sung like the singer is trying waaaaay too hard to sound cutesy and high pitched and all it does is grate on my ears. But there are some fun BGMs that really get you in the moment when somethings about to happen and it uses a wide range of music genres like jazz pop orchestra etc. The characters are arguably a mixed bag. The two main characters Sasami and Misao are easily the best characters as they receive the most development throughout the entire series and the two are just a joy to watch. I wish I could tell you more about them but to do so would make way for spoilers. Sasamis parents are very good parents who love their daughter deeply and even when she gets bad grades they dont make her feel bad about herself about it and actually spend time with her Hear that Sailor Moon? even if Sasamis dad Ginji is ridiculously overpowered and knows way more about stuff he shouldnt than he should. Washu and some of the other adult characters...I dont really care for. Washu was just overpowered and Mihoshi is a pretty poor excuse of a teacher with a really annoying voice who doesnt do much of anything and DEAR GOD I hated those two girls Konoha and Eimi the former because shes an annoying little brat who pesters the heck out of one of the boys the show even points this out bullies Misao for stupid reasons and generally causes trouble for everyone and Eimi is a stuckup little prick who freaks out over the littlest things claiming theyre against school rules even when they have nothing to do with school. Every time they opened their mouths I wanted to deckem But the worst of them is Tsunami herself: she pretty much does NOTHING throughout the entire series. The whole thing is about her becoming queen of Juraihelm but she doesnt even do anything to warrant becoming a queen makes Sasami do everything for her where she could easily do those things herself had she not been put under the restriction not to leave Juraihelm and is so dense and ditzy that you wonder if shes even aware of anything going on around her. You could replace her with another much better character and nothing would be lost. Shes pretty much woefully useless and it really says a lot when the villains are WAY more proactive than she is. But bad supporting characters isnt the only major flaw Pretty Sammy has. When I first began watching it one aspect almost turned me off to the show entirely: The ridiculously overthetop voice acting Some of the actresses try way too hard to make their voices go as high pitched as possible amping them up to completely unlistenable levels not only coming off as shrill but earrum blastingly annoying. Sasami Sasamis mother Konoha Eimi and Mihoshi are the biggest offenders. Sasamis voice actress Chisa Yokoyama is trying WAY TOO HARD to sound cute and when she shouts her transformation phrase I always turned the volume lower because it was that annoying. Its a shame because the voice she uses for Tsunami is just fine and she can do better more natural sounding voices without needing to go so overthetop. Sasamis mother also has a thankfully not annoying high pitched voice but she still sounds like a little girl even when shes a mom Konoha and Eimis voices are just shrill and annoying especially when they yell and Mihoshi...she has the worst voice of all She sounds like she inhaled way too much helium and when she cries and yells she comes off as even more shrill almost to the point where my eardrums almost exploded Its especially jarring because her voice actress Yuko Mizutani is capable of doing much more mature natural sounding voices even more so since this was three years before she got to voice Sora from Digimon and it really says something when her voice for Sora is MUCH more mature and listenable than Mihoshis could ever be There were also some concepts and even individual episodes that didnt make any sense such as one episode where Sasami and her dad end up in a ninja village and they get into a fight with a Western cowboy faction. There was also one where some kid raises the monsters that Pixy Misa creates even though Pretty Sammy managed to defeat them. Also...Washu is confirmed to be 12 years old yet shes teaching at an elementary school. How does that many any sense whatsoever? And she can create a gigantic rocket controlled by robotic puppets of herself. I wont explain the context as that would give away spoilers. So yeah not even a parody series is safe from gigantic plot holes and inconsistencies. Even so I still really enjoyed this series. It has its flaws yes but I found myself invested in almost every episode even the bad ones. I found most of the jokes and take thats to the genre genuinely funny especially when the show asks when Sasamis parents will figure out that their daughter is the magical girl they see saving the world all the time Sasami and Misao are a joy to watch the battles were funny yet compelling and...the final villain who I wont name because of spoilers is one of the best villains ever. Red from Happiness Charge you could learn a thing or two from this villain Seriously Not only that it does both comedy and drama really well and because we get time to get to know the characters we actually care about their plights when bad things happen and when things get serious boy do they ever Plus...this is the ONLY anime that has a school cultural festival that I actually liked AND cared about and usually those episodes either bore me to death or annoy me with their flaws As much as I hate to admit it Go Princess Pretty Cure is a pretty bad offender with this one. Not an easy feat to accomplish. So yeah even if it does have major flaws that keep it from being perfect I still enjoyed it and given the choice Id watch it again Seriously as much as I like Sailor Moon why couldnt THIS show be the most well known magical girl show of all time? It doesnt even have an English dub and it could really benefit from one if done right Not a perfect magical girl show but a reasonably fun parody and a genuinely fun show to watch if youre ever bored or want to kill some time. Just jam some ear plugs in if you cant stand many of the annoying high pitched voices.