i hate driving. here are the laws! if you break them there will be consequences! except youre also expected to break the law just a little bit. people will get mad at you if you dont. you dont have right of way but the person who does is waving you forward for some reason. here's the speed limit! it's not the speed limit, the actual speed limit is that plus ~5-10. the light is green but you're in the turning lane. can you go? should you have gone just then? the person behind you is honking at you. there's a weird noise coming from your engine; if you try to do the right thing and get it checked out, will you get scammed? you are driving a 1-2 ton metal machine rocketing at speeds unknown to humankind for most of history. around a million people die in car accidents every year; that's about one person every thirty seconds. if you take that seriously and try to drive safely then people get mad at you.
Meimi is an ordinary school girl who, under the cover of night, steals things as St. Tail. However, her thievery is actually in order to return items stolen from their owners and right wrongs that would otherwise go unnoticed.
Saint Tail is such an interesting magical girl show for me. It does things that I personally haven’t seen in other shows (not to say they aren’t there but if they are I haven’t watched them yet). Her partner-in-crime is neither another magical girl, a knight in shining armor, or some magical animal sidekick. Instead, it’s Seira, a nun-in-training at the church affiliated with their school. Her parents often make an appearance, have a decently established background, and are fully aware of Meimi’s activities as St. Tail. A lot of her abilities even seem to come from or are influenced by them (like her mother seems to have been a thief herself and her father does magic tricks which she uses in her escapades).
The ridiculousness of the show seems to come in the form of rival/love interest Asuka Jr., a boy from her class she often argues with. He’s the son of a detective and, after discovering the real culprits of a crime in the first episode, becomes an honorary detective instated by the mayor whose only goal is to catch St. Tail. The fact that he’s a middle school student and was chosen to lead the investigation of Saint Tail seems so ridiculous, and this is a show with a magical girl lead. I understand why they did it, it’s just a lot.
I really looked forward to the development of Meimi and Asuka’s relationship and the way Jr. would sometimes draw parallel’s between her and Saint Tail (although never fully getting there even though another character had told him). Seeing him struggle with his feelings for both of them and Meimi trying to be seen as more important to him than her alter ego was cute.
A minor plot point that made me happy was that Meimi’s parents didn’t fall into the trap of “hetero couple hates each other”. The whole “ball and chain” and constant arguing rather than a healthy relationship where they still deeply care for each other annoys me. It’s always been a, “if you felt so bound and restrained by marriage why did you do it?” sort of thing for me when guys say they’re been chained down by their wife. They still care each other which I think sets a good example for Meimi about how a relationship should be.
The art style was the typical big, sparkly-eyed 90s anime that, I will admit, be disproportionate. I felt, however, it was done as a cutesy stylistic choice rather than an accidental and awkward design/animation mistake. If you prefer styles that are especially clean cut, it might not be for you, but I personally enjoyed the classic, slightly rough character designs.
For me, it was a cute, refreshing anime that was a light-hearted a pleasant blast from the past.
so imagine like. you have this coworker. and hes an asshole in general, you dont like him, nobody else likes him. but the relevant thing is that he is just really, really into arthurian legend. very into medieval literature, very into the post-roman anglo saxons, doesnt really strike you as the nerdy type but he knows a lot about it. he spends a bunch of work hours researching allegedly arthurian artifacts, and even pulls rank and convinces one of your other coworkers to also research this stuff (by lying and saying one of the higher-ups wanted it). in fact, he claims his entire motivation for working at this job is that your boss has promised to give him an actual 5th century sword. but it's like. you dont know how much of this to take seriously. it wouldnt be out of character for him to be entirely bullshitting you. so whatever.
and then after you quit and the company falls apart and you think youre never gonna see him again, you find out that your asshole coworker is, actually, Sir Lancelot, and him working at that job was all part of his preparation for the return of the actual King Arthur.
that would be the experience of everybody who was in Organization XIII finding out that Xigbar is Luxu.
