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Magical Girl Pretty Sammy

English Dubbed

AKA: Mahô shôjo Pretty Samy

Version: DVD (Pioneer)

Approx. Rating: PG to PG-13 (due to a little profanity and nudity)

Length: Approx. 140 minutes

English Cast: Sherry Lynn (as Sasami / Kiyone), Susan Brecht (as Rumiya), Petrea Burchard (as Ryoko), Lara Cody (as Tsunami), Jennifer Darling (as Ayeka),  Ellen Gerstell (as Mihoshi),

Japanese Cast: Chisa Yokoyama (as Sasami Kawai, Pretty Sammy, Tsunami), Rumi Kasahara (as Amano Misao / Pixy Misa),  Yuri Amano (as Kiyone),  Rica Matsumoto (as Chihiro Kawai), Yuko Mitzutani (as Mihoshi)

Magical Girl Pretty Sammy first made her appearance in the Mihoshi Special, a "special" episode of the original Tenchi Muyo OAV series. From that brief appearance, Sasami got her own set of OAVs and then a TV series. This review will cover the three OAVs. (I got the OAVs on the Mihoshi Special / Pretty Sammy DVD. I'm not sure if there's a VHS version too or not.)

In this spin-off of the Tenchi Muyo universe, Sasami is the main character. All the main characters from Tenchi appear in this show too, but they are slightly different. For one thing, Tenchi is Sasami's brother, Ryoko isn't a demon, but is just a strong-girl, and Ayeka isn't related to Sasami, but seems to be a rich girl with a lot of minions (ala B-ko from Project A-ko). Mihoshi and Kiyone work for Sasami's mom, Chihiro Kawaii at her record shop. Chihiro is some kind of washed-up singer and she's very into karaoke. 

Anyway, each episode is approx. 45 minutes in length (which is a first in my book). The first one details how Sasami becomes Magical Girl Pretty Sammy. Tsunami goes to earth and gives Sasami a run-down of what to do. Tsunami also gives her Ryo-Ohki, a talking rabbit-cat creature (known as a Cabbit) to help her and answer her questions. Tsunami's rival, Ramia (who wants to be queen of Jurai) goes to earth too and (coincidentally) chooses Misao, Sasami's best friend, to be Pretty Sammy's enemy, Magical Girl Pixy Misa. Why? Because it seems that the planet of Jurai needs a new queen, and Tsunami was chosen, but she must prove herself by choosing a girl from earth. Thus, Ramiya wants to mess up Tsunami's queen-ship.

Well, Sasami hates turning into Pretty Sammy because she thinks she looks stupid and is very afraid that someone will find out and make fun of her. However, she feels bound to protect her friends and the earth, so she does do it, albeit grudgingly.

Here's a brief run-down of what this show is like: Ramiya sends her brother (who turns into a bird) and he turns Misao into Pixy Misa. Misa causes some kind of a problem and Sasami has to turn into Pretty Sammy to rectify the situation. Throw in some comedy here and there as well as a good deal of parody of other magical girl shows and a little bit of oddball stuff and you have a very good idea of what the show is like.

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

While there were plenty of goofy things that happened that many might find stupid, I thoroughly enjoyed the three OAVs. The 2nd one had a lame Bill Gates rip-off and the enemy in the last one was kind of lame too, but overall, the series was well worth watching. Highly recommended to fans of Tenchi and magical girl-type shows.