Genres comedy, slice of life, supernatural Themes: fairies, music Objectionable content: None Number of episodes: 24 + 2 Vintage: 2001-10-02 to 2002-03-26
Plot Summary: (TAN)
The Season Fairies make the weather, each kind having its own specialty. Only full-fledged fairies have this ability. Sugar is an apprentice Snow Fairy. She and her friends, Salt and Pepper, have had all of the training and now need to find magical “Twinkles”. Unfortunately, none of these fairies know what a Twinkle is. However, they do find a human girl, Saga, who can see them when others can’t. Saga prefers a quiet and orderly life, becomes the rather unwilling helper to these noisy, lively, little fairies.
Review
Sugar as a series played out much like expected from the title alone. Lots of over the top cute moments that will drive some people insane in a good way while for others it would be a bad way. For myself, Sugar was a series that worked out very well since it fell so completely under the harmless category that it proved to be a great English language show for me to watch with my older daughter, allowing her to take in the show more completely. Being able to watch it with her and see parts of it through her eyes and how she found things funny or sad added a whole new level to it.
Sugar was in the end a very cute show that was rich with detail, imagery and imagination. It didn’t strive to be more than what it was, but at the same time it shone for what it was as they did that expertly. While Sugar isn’t for everyone, those who do fall in love with it will have fond thoughts about it for a long time to come and will only reflect on it with a smile.
The extras were rather interesting.
An interview with Shinichiro Kimura (director) and Masumi Asano (who voices Saga in Japanese). The town Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy takes place in, is based off of the pictures they took of Rothenburg, Germany while doing research for the anime. It was interesting to see how the pictures and the anime matched up. They really did an awesome job putting that little tiny town of Rothenburg to anime.
Just finished up the series tonight, plus the Summer Special.
I really enjoyed this series a lot.
It had a very creative solid story with a solid ending. Not only is it super cute, it has strong emotional parts giving it a well rounded “feel good” emotional base that will surely stick with you for awhile to come.
I like the show, but it can be overly cute at times. I can easily see how some people would find it annoying. The dub isn’t anything spectacular, but it’s adequate and does the job quite nicely.
Will they also be showing the special online as well at some point? I still have yet to see it.
Am I the only one who thinks that Saga sounds… I dunno, a little too old for what she looks like? I mean I think I see why, both to differentiate her voice from the fairies, and to make her organization and scheduling of things seem more in character I think… but it kind of bugs me, she looks … 11-13ish and sounds… well, college age, adult.
You bring up a good point.
This is actually one of those series where neither the English dub nor the Japanese dub actually fit the age of the main character. Both Saga versions sound much older than the age of 11.
Yeah, she definitely sounded older, but I think that may have been intentional in the Japanese version, and perhaps the American version was done to mimic it. But I can’t really think of any LA or NY actors that can pull of a girl that age well. Most of them just end up failing tragically at it, and often take the whole dub down with them. You really need some of the Texas VA’s to pull off that age adequately.
It’s a general audience show, but it works for kids. Most of the people who tend to like these types of shows tend to be more of the hardcore/otaku and moe crowd.
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as female audience anime these days (Yaoi sure…) , but these days guys like shoujo as much as girls nowadays and even girls are starting to really get into shounen.
Anyway now that Sugar is on the Online Player, can’t wait to watch episode 1 for a bunch of the new shows this weekend. I will have to save the rest until I get the Sentai DVDs or an LCDTV though, as I just too old school to enjoy watching anime on my computer desk.
It’s a cute little show so far. I really like the art style, it reminds me of Square’s SaGa series, and the music also is really appropriate. You know, based on what I’ve heard and all the sugar-statements, I expected something that might bother me or something I might find too sweet. But I really didn’t get that kind of vibe based on the first episode. I mean yeah, it’s sweet and sugary, but I found it in my acceptable range. We’ll see how it goes in the coming episodes.
Hard to see where this show is going so far, as it was a basic introductory episode. I felt it was a nice start so far though.
I got a lot of Petite Princess Yucie vibes on this one.
Also this is one of the few shows that actually made me hungry while watching the episode, not sure what that means… Anyone got some fresh waffles?
With regards to the voices, I liked them on a whole. Rebecca Forstadt always does these types of voices well, and Stephanie Sheh has a great range for a variety of roles. I do agree Michelle Ruff sounds too old for this role. She’s excellent, but younger voices are not her strong suit, and I’m sorry, but neither are fight-oriented characters (Gurren Lagann, Bleach). Not a deal breaker though, I got used to it by the midway point.
Also I know why Coffee likes this show so much, from ep.1:
I was afraid that watching this show that i would lose my man hood because watching the trailers for this show it would be a yucky hello kitty overkill sweet vibe.
