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It's rare that I find a magical girl anime this side of Cardcaptor Sakura that has a clear appreciation and understanding of what made older shoujo media captivating. It delves into some fascinating intensities, raising a lot of serious ideas that i see many more adult oriented anime painfully fumble and so I appreciate it a lot in that way. Understandably for a kids anime, but also unfortunately, it does not go very far with most of them outside of its character explorations.

Sugar Sugar Rune's greatest strength is in its 2 lead characters. Chocolat and Vanilla are social aliens, brought into a world with norms ... and customs that they don't understand which they often have to figure out for themselves. They are far from being "normies" and so they have to learn how to interact with a world where they aren't "normal". What is monumentally important though is that the story never uses this to mock them to put them down, while their misfit behavior sometimes leads to silly outcomes it is always with an eye towards sympathy and understanding.

Chocolat is a boisterous girl whose emotionally blunt and direct personality irritates and distresses her peers, and critically the story shows how this frustrates her and how she responds to it. She wishes that everyone would be more emotionally honest in the way that comes naturally for her. Her growth is in learning how to accept that it's not something that comes easily to everyone but that it's also healthy for her to push others to come out of their shells when she can. It is a consistent compromise of her adapting to the world and making the world better with her disruptive atypical perspective.

Vanilla is in many ways her counterpart. Growing up as a princess she has been conditioned towards obedience and an expectation of success. She struggles to connect with others outside of her friendship with Chocolat, often falling back on reactive politeness and timidness to get through social situations and to coast through her given tasks. As the story progresses it explores how this sort of persistent isolation and avoidance can cultivate insecurity and smouldering resentment within someone who from the outside seems emotionally temperate. Vanilla's growth is in confronting her assumptions about herself and her place in the world that she's taken for granted her whole life.

While Sugar Sugar Rune has some strong foundations, its presentation is middling. The animation is often passable as to not be distracting but a lot of the dialogue and interactions feel stilted giving a sense that characters don't regard each others presence properly, it's a common problem with middling and lower budget animation. I feel ambivalent towards the visuals in general, it's clearly evoking a sense of older shoujo media in its character features but this clashes with the bright color pallet of the anime. It's not really a big deal and it didn't bother me much.

I don't have much to say about the more serious overarching themes or plot points because not much is done with them. It is interesting to see an anime for kids try to say something about, like, state violence and the maintenance of a permanent underclass, they sure never tried for that in Doremi. It just kind of falls apart by the end when the nature of the antagonizing force is effectively overwritten to not be much different from a Precure villian. And that's fine, whatever, my enjoyment of a magical girl anime wasn't riding on its how it lays out a comprehensive understanding of power dynamics and class consciousness. Would have been cool tho.

Ultimately, I like a lot of what Sugar Sugar Rune accomplishes with it's characters and I appreciate the breadth of its ideas and themes for a children's anime. It is a show that I think someone who has engaged with a decent amount of magical girl anime and is somewhat compelled by my recounts of its lead characters will find a worthwhile experience. I had a lot of fun and some intrigue throughout my watch and I'm glad I stuck with it to the end.