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Copyright © Sakurano Minene / Enix / TV Asahi /
Dentsu / Toei Animation








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by John "Pomru" Yung
One night, an unsuspecting schoolboy releases a female spirit from a
ring-shaped artifact, and his life is turned upside-down as she takes
up residence in his home. While hardly an original premise, MAMOTTE SHUGOGETTEN! manages to deliver a few genuine
laughs.
Based upon the manga series by Sakurano Minene, SHUGOGETTEN is about Chichiri Tasuke, a high school
student who lives alone in an expensive two-story house. One day, he
receives a package containing a ring-shaped artifact from his
globe-trotting father. Dismissing the artifact as another souvenir,
Tasuke leaves the ring on the coffee table to prepare curry for
dinner. He reads about his father's discovery of the ring in the
letter included in the package. When taking a break from cooking,
Tasuke is surprised to find an open portal inside the artifact. Even
more surprising is the girl who emerges from the glowing portal
after Tasuke pokes it. She introduces herself as Shugogetten Shaolin
and informs Tasuke that since he released her from imprisonment
within the ring, she will be his protector from now on.
Unfortunately, after spending a few thousand years in
confines of the ring, Shao is out of touch with the modern world.
She mistakes the stove for a monster and ruins Tasuke's curry
dinner. She confuses a television cowboy for a real person and
destroys the television (and puts a hole in the wall in the
process). The rest of the first episode foreshadows the havoc in
Tasuke's life as Shao and her magical servants try to perform
their duty in protecting Tasuke.
What's a series without conflict? Shao's rival,
Keikounitten Ruuan, makes her first appearance in the second episode
when Tasuke frees her from a wand artifact sent by his father. While
Shao's power is summoning her servants, Ruuan's power is giving life
to inanimate objects.
Judging from the opening titles, there are more rivals for
Tasuke's attention on the way. Shao and Ruuan also have their admirers.
While the crowd of admirers provides plenty of external conflict,
there's no angst. Each character are rather sure of what they want, so
once the initial setup is over, there's very little character
development. There's potential for falling into the RANMA
1/2 and TENCHI MUYO cliche of adding
too many admirers to the cast, but that remains to be seen.
Anime fans may accuse SHUGOGETTEN as
being derivative of romantic comedies such as URUSEI
YATSURA, AA! MEGAMI-SAMA, and VIDEO GIRL AI. The best comparison, however, would
be I DREAM OF JEANNIE. Fairly episodic in
nature, the stories are standard sitcom fare. One could watch a
random episode and not feel too lost in the plot.
If the simple plots and the 6 pm time slot weren't enough
hints, one would only have to look at the character designs and color
palette to tell that SHUGOGETTEN was intended
for pre-teen audience. The character designs are very cute, especially
for Shao's servants, such as Ryshuu the tiny, pink-haired, telepathic
girl. The Eastern styled costumes worn by Shao and her servants provide
an interesting contrast to the modern garb on the rest of the cast.
One of the telltale signs of anime intended for children is the use
of vibrant colors, and this show has quite a chromatic range in its
palette. The characters sport bright colors without deep, dark
shadowing. The background artists also seem too eager to display the
color range unfortunately. Viewers will understand when they see the
rooms in Tasuke's house or his school.
Some viewers may recognize some of the voice actors from
their work on other shows. One of the notable cast members is Takada
Yumi. As Ruuan, it's as if she's trying to reprise Orikasa Ai's role
as Ryouko from TENCHI MUYO just to see what
she was missing.
The BGM isn't outstanding, but the
opening song, "Saa," and the closing song are pretty catchy. This
may be due to the fact that both songs are accompanied by
eye-catching animation done with lip synch.
MAMOTTE SHUGOGETTEN doesn't aspire
to being posh entertainment like Masterpiece Theater. It lacks a
level of sophistication in the story, but it probably doesn't need
to be complicated. As light entertainment, it succeeds in catching
your eye and getting a few laughs. 
Broadcast on: TV Asahi (Saturdays from 6-6:30pm)
Started in: October, 1998
TV series not available yet; merchandising such as soundtracks are available now in Japan.
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