Happy Seven: The TV Manga

Happy Seven is your average magical-girl anime, with an above-average amount of magical girls. Note: I don't know anything about the seven lucky gods, so I can't say anything about how well the legend is implemented. Okay, quick run-through the basic points: Mysterious power under the school, a club made of seven magical girls, one magical guy and a couple of support girls, that goes around fighting monsters that possess people, and also help people be a bit happier in general, a couple of evil characters scheming in the background, and one girl the club helps that might just be special. The show focuses on the special girl, Amano, as she stumblesalong after the club (More specifically, the guy), or into trouble on her own. And she just happens to look 90% like Usagi aka: Sailor Moon. She's also dim, a bit of a clutz, and quickly falls for the magical guy, also like Usagi. The only real difference from Usagi is that she can't transform. I guess that's something. Meanwhile, the club goes around doing it's thing, but somehow, they feel like secondary characters. This is more noticable when everyone is together, and a conversation involves everyone saying a single line. They just try so hard to give all the magic girls equal screen time, that none of them really get enough to feel like major characters. The magic guy doesn't fare much better, wandering in and out as needed to smile or save the day. One thing I did like about the club, is that they actually go out and help people with things that don't require magic. They also have talents beside magic, though it does make me wonder if they all grew up in the circus. The story is kind of nice, but it's pretty much just background up until the last couple of episodes. Unfortunately, how the club got it's powers is never explained. I guess you'd have to read the manga. The combat is fine, and the special attacks look nice. Also, the transformation sequences don't take too long. That leaves the humour, which is really the driving force behind whether you'll want to watch this series. The humour is mostly character-based, each of the girls having some odd trait or two to derive humour from, though they do repeat a bit. There's also the fact that almost a dozen girls love the same guy. It's difficult without giving samples, but I'd say the humour is decent, with a few particularly nice bits. Overall, the series is decent, and there are some nice bits, but most of the time, I couldn't shake this feeling of flatness/blandness, which may come from having too many characters trying to share the spotlight. If you like the transforming-magical-girl genre, or characters cloned from Sailor Moon, then it wouldn't hurt to check this series out, but I can't say you'll be missing out if you skip it.