Tweeny Witches

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Created by Keita Amemiya and written by Shinji Obara at Studio 4°C, Mahō Shōjo Tai Arusu ran for 40 nine-minute episodes on NHK in 2004-2005 and was followed by a six-episode OAV series in 2007. Both the TV series and the OAV have been dubbed into English by Media Blasters, using the title Tweeny Witches.

The protagonist of the story is Arusu (official name in English and Japanese, fansubbed — incorrectly — as Alice), who mysteriously enters the world of the witches. Herself an enthusiast of witchcraft she is delighted, however she is not satisfied with the way of the witches, insisting that magic only be used to make people happy. She is marked as a troublemaker when she releases all the sprites the witches have captured for use as the source of magic spells. Later in the series, the witches interact with the world of the wizards as both try to save their worlds from destruction.

Not to be confused with the 1989 film Teen Witch.


Tropes used in Tweeny Witches include:

Id: Arusu
Ego: Eva
Super-Ego: Sheila

  • Genki Girl: Arusu. At one point she's taken on the task of saving the animals normally used for potion ingredients, learning magic, rescuing her friends, and reuniting witches and wizards. Her friends note that she may have bitten off more then she can chew.
    • Sheila's mom is so similar to Arusu it's scary.
    • When cursed with dangerous levels of bad luck, Arusu tries to use the humor of her own misfortunes to get Sheila to smile. Crowning Moment of Heartwarming Woobie Awesome.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Eva
  • Hands-Off Parenting: Arusu's mom is so depressed and/or drunk that Arusu has to do everything. Then again, she still has a sense of humor so there could be hope for her yet. Sheila and her mom have been estranged for years.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Jidan. Or maybe not...
  • Idiot Hero: Arusu.
  • Instrumental Theme Tune: The opening song.
  • Jumped At the Call: Being a fan of magic, Arusu is delighted to find herself in a genuine world of magic full of real witches.
  • Lady Land: Witch-Haven.
  • MacGuffin: The True-Magic book Arusu's dad left with her.
  • Magitek: That which powers the Warlocks.
  • Miniseries: Very mini—the episodes are only 12½ minutes long, counting the (very long) opening in odd-numbered episodes and the ending and preview in the even-numbered episodes.
  • Missing Mom: Sheila's decided to stay with her wizard husband, despite giving birth to Sheila which would have allowed her to return to Witch-Haven.
  • Mother Nature, Father Science / Science vs. Magic: The witches live in a lush valley surrounded by nature while the wizards (who have lost the ability to use magic, save for a few very old outcasts) live in an underground, high-tech fortress. Appropriately they used to all live together, but then the men were taken over by what amounted to warlike scientists.
  • Older Than They Look: Ever so slightly. Two of the Power Trio were punished by being unable to grow older.
  • Panty Shot: Actually they're Bloomer Shots.
  • Scenery Porn: Many of the backgrounds are a real visual treat.
  • Shout-Out: The masks of the witches' mooks look a bit like that first angel with a busted "nose".
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Arusu. The fansubs wrongly rendered her name as "Alice".
  • Trailers Always Lie: The promo trailer looked awesome and got a lot of people excited about the series. Precisely 0 of the scenes actually appear in it.
  • Utopia Justifies the Means: Both Witch-Haven and Wizard-Fortress are amazing places of magic and technology, respectively, but both have some dark sides: The war-like Wizards are very authoritarian and the witches have a habit of banishing witches to the desert to live with the wizards or, if they've been really bad, making them risk going through a very unstable portal into our world, where neither magic nor technology exists at that level.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Arusu
  • Wild Child: Lennon, Arusu's half-brother who was lost in the vortex between the magical world and the real world.
  • Witch Species: The Witches and the Warlocks are the same human-like species which once upon a time had wings.