Balala Xiao Mo Xian: Caihong Xin Shi

This series is a solid, all-round 7 of a show if there ever was one. It's important to note that this is China's take on the magical girl genre and is often (mistakenly) given the label as a Precure rip-off. Now, I'll link a post explaining why that's not the case at the end, but for now, just take my word for it. STORY: 7 This series carries on the wummer after the live-action debut season ends. The waht now? You're thinking. But don't worry, you absolutely DO NOT need to watch that one (in fact, in canon, it's series 0, with this one being series 1,making it more of a prequel.) The series premise is that the potential future fairy queen has run away to Earth to find her "real" family, and the team of girls from the previous series must help her - all while battling evil forces that wish to overthrow the fairy kingdom. It's simply stuff, mostly featuring monsters of the week or, more often, magic mistakes of the week, and is pretty lightweight stuff even for mahou shoujo series. But it makes up for that with tons of slapstick-styled comedy, a surprising amount of character growth, and just being plain fun. CHARACTER: 7 Again, there's a surprising amount of character growth throughout the series, as the fairies adjust to the human world and vice versa. Each quite literally grows up througout the series. What I most appreciated was how they tackled tropes. In this series, Shirley is the yellow, 18-year-old group leader. She's clumsy as a human, but still mature, smart, and brave - quite different from the usual awkward pink lead we're used to seeing. The human twins are wonderfully awkward and independent despite being so young, while the very young princess manages to be extremely intellegent but also lacking in social skills and still very childish. All three improve on their flaws across the series. SOUND: 7 Look, it's an old series made by a ,low-budget Chinese studio. It's at times tinny and the VAs are obviously very young, but they do their darned best! The songs are cute and very appropriate, and surprisingly catchy, especially the OP. ART: 7 Okay, the mix of 3d animated backgrounds and 2d foregrounds is a bit janky and can be difficult to get used to, but it' very much a product of its era (it's very much like a Chinese version of early Winx Club!) But the character designs are absolutely gorgeous and the transformations are just as fun and funky as you'd expect from any Precure season. Overall, this series does more than enough to earn it's place in the magical girl genre. If you'd like to read how it compares to precure, here's an article explaining the differences: https://mahoushoujofiles.tumblr.com/post/619573668924784640/balala-vs-pretty-cure