魔法少女隊アルス the Adventure 01
Magic Girl Squad Arusu: The Adventure 01
Tweeny Witches the Adventure 01

SPOILER Summary: Shelia is teaching her magic class when Eva and Alice notice a strange door has appeared at the end of the walk to open-air. Shelia says it is the magical traveling library that appears at different places at different times, sometimes not returning for years. Sheila tells the class to study and the three go to the library to try to find some rare magical books. They have to be shushed a few times, but end up checking out books, Eva checking out a book of recipes. On the way home, Sheila is absorbed in her reading and Eva discovers a hidden fish soup recipe. Since Alice has a headache and the recipe will make your head as clear as a fish, it is decided this is what they will have to eat.

The list of ingredients is incredibly long and amazingly, Eva has them all. It takes a great deal of time to combine and cook everything properly, but in the end, a great-smelling soup is ready for consumption. Alice manages to get Sheila out of her book long enough for them to eat. As they do so, they discover their heads have turned into fish. Horrified, Sheila examines the recipe book and discovers that Eva did not read the ancient text properly, thus they now all have fish heads. However, the spell is continued in volume 2, which Eva didn’t check out. That means going out in public with fish heads to the library and risk being laughed at. However, the only way to get volume 2 is to do just that.

Eventually, the trio put on make-shift cloaks to cover their heads. Instead of looking funny, they look suspicious and mother’s bring their daughters in. The group of Sheila’s class march by, forcing the trio to “freeze” and hope they pass by. The class take a look-see at the three of them, but move on until the young girl at the rear drops one of her books. After she finally gets the book and rejoins the class, the trio take off again only to be found by a gang who immediately identify the trio despite their disguise. However, since the library door has two others loitering in front of it that Sheila doesn’t want to see, the gang agrees to chase those two off.

The trio make it into the library just as the librarian is about to lock the door and transport the library elsewhere. When their disguises fall off, the librarian understands their predicament and points to where volume 2 is. Another patron has been in the library for years doing research for her own book. When she sees them, she pulls out the book and gives it to them. They immediately look up how to resolve their issue. Unfortunately, they have to make 100 people deeply laugh, something they’d been avoiding. Once this happens, they’ll have the scales needed to reverse their condition and a feeling of being refreshed. So they set up a viewing tent for people to come by and laugh, with the last two girls being the same ones that they had chased from the library door.

Thoughts: While I think I only gave the original series a “Rent,” watching this OVA “sequel” made me realize that there’s just something special about this franchise, starting with the music, the characters, and even the wacky art. Alice-chan, Sheila-chan, and Eva-chan, y’all. ^_^

I really enjoyed this episode. Since this OVA series is not a sequel but rather some one-off stories set within the original series, there’s not going to be any kind of plot or anything, just adventures of the three main girls (apparently). While it was pretty obvious that the soup would do something fishy to the girls, just watching them deal with this was something that I found very amusing and fun.

BTW, I know that Media Blasters is using the Romaji name “Arusu” for “Alice,” but frankly, I’m using “Alice” for my reviews.