(Yes yes, I know it's official title is Jewelpet Tinkle, but I REFUSE to call it that for obvious reasons, and other dubs are doing it too, so why not?!) For years, there's a stereotype that boys don't like to watch cartoons aimed at girls and that all girls' cartoons are crap. Neither of those are true, even though they continue to endure to this day. Shows like Sailor Moon, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, The Legend of Korra, Littlest Pet Shop, Pretty Cure, and Jewelpet all have male fans who genuinely enjoy them, and the shows themselves are genuinely good. But companies don't believethat girl shows can make a buck here in the US. I say screw that! In fact, we need more girls' anime to come to the US and get dubbed (if unedited and uncut, of course). In fact, Viz Media just licensed Sailor Moon, and it's the number one most watched show on Hulu, and pre-orders for the DVDs are the highest Viz has ever received in history. Someone really needs to take a stand and bring many of these girls anime to the US so preteen girls can watch them and feel for the characters and find out what happens. Jewelpet Twinkle is definitely a gem of a girls' anime that really needs to be brought here. I'd love to see how the mainstream public reacts to it. Girls aren't much different from boys in that they love stories with solid conflict, characters they can identify with and root for, and good aesops they can learn from them.
Now before I begin, this is actually the second Jewelpet series that Sanrio made. There is an anime before this, but the problem is, fansubs for it are pretty much nonexistent, and the ones that are there aren't complete yet. So, our story is about a shy girl named Akari who wishes she could be more outspoken, and is sick of everyone comparing her to her super model big sister. But one day, she meets a cute white rabbit named Ruby, a Jewelpet from a magical place called Jewel Land. Ruby needs a human partner so she can study in the Jewel Academy. Although reluctant at first, Akari decides to befriend Ruby and study magic. Magical adventures await them and their friends.
I remember watching two episodes of this when it came out, but I never got around to finishing it until now. I have to admit, the super moe style and the animation aren't really much to write home about. They do their job just fine, but there's very few moments of facial expression. But I do like the colorful backgrounds, the (actually NOT clunky) CGI, and the visuals used for the magic spells. Those are really well done. The Jewelpets do look like they've had a bit too much plastic surgery but I'm sure the little kid watching it wouldn't notice that. The music isn't anything really special either. The opening theme is cute (but I think the French version sounds just beautiful), the ending theme...not so much. It's a bit too upbeat and moe for my tastes. The background music pieces are nice, albeit a teensy bit bland. At least they fit the atmosphere of the scenes they're supposed to be in instead of killing it (Nurse Angel Ririka SOS, anyone?).
The characters...to be honest, I think Akari is the best main character in a girls' show ever. She does start off as dull and bland, but she really becomes a strong, solid, well developed character. Gasp! She actually finds something she's good at! She actually manages to get better at everything she used to suck at before with lots of practice! She actually approaches things in a realistic, non cheesy way! I was blown away by the way the creators developed her and made her grow as a person. Honestly, I think she'd be a great role model for young girls. She's super girly, but she tries hard, has times of weakness, doesn't give up, and with hard work, she succeeds despite a few bumps on the way. But it's the other characters that come off as generic. They're mostly a bunch of stereotypes (the peppy girl, the bishounen, the ice queen, and the bratty kid who flaunts his genius), and while they go have days in the limelight, some of their development is admittedly a little predictable. Leon suffers the worst of this, as he's just a bit too perfect, and even in the episodes where he does discover a flaw, he still comes off as too perfect to me. The Jewelpets are pretty cute, though. But I absolutely ADORE the main villain. I won't say who she is, and to be honest, she isn't even a villain, but her development is awesome, and she's a far cry from typical anime villains. I even like the guy Akari has a crush on! True, he is a tiny bit bland and looks like he could turn into a brooding angsty kid, but he's actually quite nice and sensible, and he and Akari actually have genuinely good chemistry together, and work towards their relationship in a realistic, healthy way.
However, what makes this girls' anime awesome is the way it handles its fillers and aesops. Many anime fans decree that all filler episodes are garbage, but that's not true. If done right, fillers can actually be awesome, examples being Popolocrois and this anime. I find that I like filler episodes that focus on developing the characters and know exactly what message they want to send out, and that's exactly what Popolocrois and Jewelpet Twinkle do (although even Jewelpet isn't immune from a bad episode. I will forever hate episode 40 for having a massive idiot plot featuring an annoying panda). My favorite episodes are 13, 30, and 39, the first being about Akari trying to enter a manga competition but backs out due to writer's block, but she manages to find an alternative and she finds success. The third one is about Akari thinking her parents favor her sister over her, which turns out to be not true, and episode 39 is just full of heartwarming and scenery porn. Jewelpet Twinkle teaches a lot of great lessons to kids through its storytelling and characters in a sensible way, and many of those aesops are: It's okay to be insecure, work hard to get what you want, there's always another opportunity for everything, you can achieve your dreams if you never give up, having friends makes life more enlightening, and you can be as girly as you like and still be able to do what you like. Yeah, this anime is VERY high on cuteness and girliness, but it doesn't treat any of that as a bad thing.
There are some problems I'd like to address, though. One thing I never understood was something in episode 8. In that episode, Akari meets a girl from 12 years ago and it turns out she traveled through time. But they never explain how this is possible. The magical girl transformations also seemed a bit pointless. Some episodes have them transform just for flying, or just because. Honestly, the show would have done better without them. The subtitles are also REALLY big, so big that sometimes they cover the entire screen, which can be very jarring. Also...the ending. Now don't get me wrong, I like it for what it is. But without giving anything away, there's this REALLY random, out of the blue Deus Ex Machina that's just thrown in there for absolutely no purpose than to separate the two main characters. It just felt tacked on, and I felt like the episode would be better without said twist. I would have been fine with it if it had been explained in an earlier episode or something like that, but they just yank it out of absolutely nowhere for cheap angst. But those are my only main issues with it.
If you're looking for a genuinely good anime to show to your little sister, niece, or daughter, make it this one. It's got plenty of cute, good stories, and good morals...if you can tolerate diabetically cute and cuddly animals.
