All Rise...

Judge Steve Power had three sisters who were witches, then came the Spanish inquisition...

The Charge

So, you think your life is crazy?

The Case

Haruo is your average Junior High student: dense as a plank of wood, perverted as all get out, and annoying as hell. His three sisters chatter endlessly about rubbish, have violent mood swings, and would do anything to prevent their brother from doing the horizontal mambo with the new chick in school. They are also witches. The new girl is "smoking hot" (as they say), wears a lot of short skirts, and causes typhoons whenever she walks into a room. She is also a witch. Her goal is to make Haruo a man and (for some reason) she's working as the house maid. Meanwhile, Haruo's wishy-washy sisters try to keep him blissfully ignorant of this whole "magic" thing, while simultaneously ruining his chances of ever getting his groove on. They usually do so by hitting him over the head with several large hammers.

Magiknao is yet another entry in that beloved anime sub-genre we call Fan Service. You get all manner of sexual hijinks, upskirt shots, and clothed jiggling, without ever overtly throwing naughty bits on the screen. If this sounds appealing, you may be Japanese. Either that or you're hopelessly addicted to anime and will watch anything. For me, the show was over 300 hours of pain and suffering—pointless, insane, gibbering, annoying, and cloying characters and writing (perhaps I just described 90 percent of all Junior High based drama), with barely passable animation from a studio who's usually more hit than miss.

Funimation collects the old ADV releases with a solid fullscreen transfer and a textbook 5.1 sound mix. The dub is slightly less grating on the ears than the Japanese stereo track, in which the cadence of voices is guaranteed to cause ear-bleed, even at low volume levels. Extras are non-existent, save for the usual textless opening/closing.

The Verdict

Magikano is a threat to logical thought and a danger to all mankind. So, so guilty!

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