My Santa

Original Title: いつだってMyサンタ!
Romanized: Itsudatte My Santa
Literal: Always My Santa!

Plot Synopsis

Meet a rather ill-fated youth: Born on Christmas eve, his parents spend so much time abroad that every year he spends what should be two happy occasions alone and friendless. As if that weren't enough, his parents also named him Santa. His luck might just change this year, though, when Mai, a santa-in-training, shows up out of nowhere determined to do absolutely anything within her somewhat limited magical powers to make this Christmas his first happy one.

Things get further complicated when her little sister and outspoken childhood friend show up, too.

Quick Review

Rating: 1.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2009-02-17

My Santa, based on a comic short by Ken Akamatsu of Love Hina fame, crams a season's worth of generic comedy--lots of wacky hijinks, some cheesy drama, a few awkward misunderstandings, and a moral of some sort--into two episodes. This might sound like Excel Saga/Elf Princess Rane territory, but while there are a few particularly funny bits surrounding the santa-in-training's ability to magically produce anything beginning with "sa," for the most part it just goes by so fast you don't have time to care much about anything. The art, music, and acting are all acceptable but forgettable--really the only memorable thing about it is the dizzying pace and barely even that.

In the end it's got just enough mean spirit mixed in with the sap to keep it from being too annoying, and it did get a few laughs out of me, so I won't call it a complete waste of time. It isn't, however, anywhere near clever or funny enough to be worth going out of your way to see unless you're a big fan of Ken Akamatsu and/or Ah My Goddess rip-offs.

US DVD Review

The DVD features both episodes in decent-looking anamorphic widescreen (direct to video, so it's interlaced, though) with English or Japanese stereo audio and a soft subtitle track... and that's it. There's a chapter index and some previews for other FUNimation titles, but not a single bonus to be found. Note that there is an original and "re-release" version, both of which are apparently identical save the rating printed on the box.

Content Guide

There's some blatant fanservice and requisite awkward situations but nothing wildly objectionable; I'd call it about 13-up unless you're touchy about the relatively brief nudity. FUNimation labeled it TV-MA (the original release mistakenly says TV-PG).

Violence: 1 - There are some wacky, very cartoony brawls played for laughs.

Nudity: 2 - The requisite transformation sequence is more in-your-face than average, but otherwise limited to moderate amounts of fanservice.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Not without implications, but nothing explicit at all.

Language: 1 - Nothing significant that I remember in the subtitles.

Notes and Trivia

Santa is an actual Japanese given name, although you probably wouldn't expect someone to name their kid that if he were born on Christmas Eve.

The subtitles didn't do anything with this, but after transforming into their full "santa" form, the various santas start using the very masculine version of I, "ore." One assumes this is a nod to the original bearded prototype, regardless of the gender and facial hair status of the speaker.

The manga short story on which this is based only covers the pair's meeting on Christmas; Mai's friends and relatives and the shenanigans of the second episode were added for the anime. The comic version isn't officially available in English as of this writing.

The anime was, unsurprisingly, released around Christmas time in both Japan and the US (in Japan it was actually available on two DVDs, ridiculously enough, though both were released at the same time and were also sold as a box set). According to Wikipedia, FUNimation bungled the original Christmas 2007 release by putting a TV-PG instead of TV-MA on the box, resulting in a re-release in late 2008; true or not, there are two functionally-identical versions floating around.

There are also no less than five soundtrack(-ish) CDs available in Japan; a 15 or so minute CD single for each of the four female characters (yes, even the teacher gets one) featuring character songs, plus a full soundtrack with the background music and some extras, such as it is.

If you're unfamiliar with how Christmas is celebrated in Japan: It is a largely secular holiday, with very little in the way of religious overtones. Though there are certainly decorations (public; very few people put up a Christmas tree at home), it's a relatively low-key holiday. The main tradition is for couples to go out on Christmas Eve and do something romantic. Families will often eat a Christmas cake (a very fancy decorated sponge cake usually pre-ordered from bakeries for a small fortune) in the evening and maybe give a present to children. Christmas Day doesn't have much in the way of tradition.

Note, also, that New Year's in Japan is much closer to Christmas from a family/religious perspective (at least as it's celebrated in the US): there is a long national holiday, families gather together for a traditional feast on the eve, and people usually go to visit a temple on New Year's Day or shortly afterward. Gifts are also traditionally given to kids, though usually just an appropriately presented wad of cash (that applies to a lot of Japanese gifts). There are also all manner of TV specials, which often appear near the end of the season in anime. People usually do not have big drunken parties, and the "big countdown" isn't a central event. Buddhist temples do ring their bells 100 times at midnight, though.

Availability

Available on a single bilingual DVD from FUNimation.

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