Majokko Shimai no Yoyo to Nene

This anime was indeed a beautiful magical story! I would probably never watch it if not my random desire to watch a movie featuring Kakuma Ai - a voice actress of my new-found favourite character. And so, here I am.

Story: 6/10

Honestly, the story bit is quite weak. After reading the synopsis, I expected to see a story about, as it states, "a pair of sisters". According to it, both "cursed sisters" are going to investigate an anomaly that suddenly appeared next to their house and being ported to our modern world. Yet, in reality, only one of the siblings is appearing in our ... world, while the second one stays behind and can only help the first one using a magical crystal ball.
Regardless, it is a good story, if you let yourself forget about the not-so-small discrepancies between the synopsis and the actual plot. It is a kind adventure story about a magic user trying to fix the problems that happened to our world. It explores the human's greed and selflessness and teaches to abandon the selfish wishes caring about others instead.
Being an overall kind and bright story, it has major plot holes that are hard to ignore. Such as, it is never explained why some building exist in both magic world and real world, while other ones just disappear from their original place. Moreover, the story is never expanded on what is happening to the people that were originally in those "disappeared" buildings and if they are even alive at the end of the story.

Art: 9/10

The art is without a doubt the strongest bit. Bright colours of the magical world stand out on the background of the real world creating a nice contrast. The animation is mostly flawless, and although there is nothing outstandingly great about it, it is quite unique and remarkable.

Sound: 8/10

The ending theme is great. Apart from that, there is nothing much to talk about sound wise. There are several moments when background music could help create a brighter picture but it just wasn't there. For the rest of the times, OSTs were picked well and matched the atmosphere of the movie.

Characters: 5/10
This is honestly the weakest bit of the movie. The only character who got a proper development is the main heorine, Yoyo. The second one would be probably the little girl named Aki. Yoyo's sister, Nene, although she is tagged as the "main" character, got less screening time than several of the supporting ones. I am probably biased, as Nene's seiyuu was one of the main reasons I originally decided to watch this movie, but I still think she could get more development being one of the two main characters.
Takahiro, who you could probably call a second main character according to the amount of screen time he got, still lacks a proper development. He acts harsh and rude sometimes, lacking any empathy for his parent (who turned into slime monsters, dammit!), being kind and supportive in other times, then suddenly he's switching on tsundere elements and goes blushing.
Most of the background characters, on the other note, are well implemented, and the guy from the ambulance team honestly made me smile.

Enjoyment: 9/10
Yes, regardless of those small flaws (and the fact that my video was buffering most of the times), this was still a good movie and I enjoyed it a lot. It was supposed to be a kind family-friendly magic story, and it definitely reached this goal.

Overall: 7/10
Majokko Shimai no Yoyo to Nene is not an outstandingly good movie, but it is definitely worth watching. It is a simple, yet an enlightening story that most people could probably enjoy. Ecpecially if you like magical girl stories, "Little Witch Academia" atmosphere and warm adventures, this movie won't leave you disappointed.

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW***

After taking a decent break from anime, I am slowly but steadily inching my way back into the scene. I thought that it was time to watch another anime film (mostly been sticking to currently airing anime) and I am so glad that this was recommended to me from a fellow anime lover. After watching Little Witch Academia and wanting so much more content, I find myself in the hands of Majokko Shimi no Yoyo to Nene.

Story: 7/10
It is your somewhat typical person placed in a strange new world story overview; Yoyo a mage from a world full ... of magic is accidentally transported to a modern day Earth. While here she notices many anomalies and has to correct what is wrong. While there are some key moments of extreme tension, the mood for the movie is pretty much carefree.

Animation: 9/10
Every frame of animation in this film is simply beautiful. Beautiful colors everywhere, fluid movements in action scenes, and in certain key moments extremely crisp and detailed shots. Character models look great and the lighting is very spot on. Might deserve a better score but it's hard to give it more when you have other super heavy hitters (Redline, ext).

Sound: 9.5/10
Great, superb, excellent, vivid, everything good. The musical score was very spot on (great horns cutting through the orchestral strings) and all the voice actors did a very good job showing their character's emotions.

Characters: 8/10
The characters are not all unique but they do a great job providing fun and interesting scenes. Yoyo's personality is really easy to latch onto while Takahiro's kind of distant/not wanting to show emotional attachment attitude got kind of annoying after awhile but they meshed pretty well with each other which was the main goal.

Overall: 8.4/10
This film was such fun from start to finish. The musical score and animation were the overall stars of the film with the character interactions in a close second. The plot did a good enough job providing some substance but I wish there were some more conflict situations.

Enjoyment: 9.3/10

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Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer

Not quite what I expected. While the artwork is fine by itself, the characters and story were sub-par.

Story:

If you read the summary, it follows two magical sisters' as they interact with children from our world. Danger ensues. I appreciated the slice of life moments and the use of magical technology (very small, but sweet). What was disappointing was the distractions that fell their way and the deus ex machina's revealed at the end. There were far too many, so it felt very unsatisfactory.

In addition, they touch on death in an interesting way. However, one of the main character's most dramatic moments rang very hollow with ... me and came off as cheap at best. Why? There was very little investment in the character involved. It was difficult to empathize.

Finally, the relationships between the characters were very shallow, established in brief moments that felt forced.

Art:

The artwork had an interesting sketch-like quality that was a little distracting at first, but nice. The colors tended to blend in to each other from what I could remember, more towards the beginning.

Sound:

I'm not an expert, but I thought there were noticeable moments of silence that felt strange. The music that existed was fun at times, and overall it did its job.

Character:

The characters were shallow. This could be attributed to the fact that it's a children's movie.

Since there are two magical sisters, I expected the movie to explore their relationship more. Instead, it focuses on the antics of one sister in our world and only touches on their relationship when support is required. Honestly, I felt like one sister could be summed up as: the one who supports the other sister and is otherwise quiet. Now, this would be fine if there was something else and if the main character had more to her (besides being in-your-face energetic and reckless). Unfortunately, it's not the case.

The side characters are all right, but their reactions at times seem inappropriately exaggerated to force tension or compromise. It comes off as hard to believe, but for a children's movie, it does its job.

OVERALL RATING: Meh

If you absolutely love magical girls, it's fine. If you just want something fun and cute to watch, there's better options, but this could work. It's not terrible, but it's not fantastic either.