Lack of information
Sugar Sugar Rune's magic system would have been so much more interesting if we had more information about it. The Magical World has all these cool things and the characters with magic can do all sorts of things, but we viewers hardly know how any of this works.We barely know anything. Pretty much nothing is expounded or elaborated on. And it's such a shame. Because this information would have added to the world building of Sugar Sugar Rune.
Wands in Sugar Sugar Rune
Some of the magical characters in Sugar Sugar Rune have wands. This includes Chocolat Meilleure / Kato, the main character, Vanilla Mieux / Ice, her best friend, and Queen Candy, the current queen of the Magical World and the mother of Vanilla. The question now is do all the people from the Magical World have wands or is it only the witches or women?Rockin' Robin, Chocolat and Vanilla's guardian in the Human World, is also from the Magical World. He has magic, but, so far, we've never seen him with a wand. Is it because he's male? There's also the fact that the wands we've seen so far all look different from each other. For instance, Kato's wand is topped with a heart while Ice's has a diamond. But why is that? We don't know. There's no explanation at all.
Which is really too bad because this could have been really interesting. This could have been an opportunity for us to find out more about the Magical World of Sugar Sugar Rune as well as how the magic in this world works. I mean, let's take a look at the Harry Potter series of fantasy books by J.K. Rowling for comparison.
All the magical characters in the HP series have wands, not just the females. Their wands are similar too in that they are made of wood and a core. The type of wood and core as well as the length of the stick may differ, but that's because 'the wand chooses the wizard'. As we can see, in the HP series, there are rules for these things. In contrast to that, Sugar Sugar Rune seemingly has no rules at all, so the Magical World in this series doesn't feel as fleshed-out.
Spells in Sugar Sugar Rune
It seems that the magical characters in Sugar Sugar Rune can use magic by saying an incantation. For instance, in Chocolat's case, she says the words, "Sugar Sugar Rune Choco Rune" and then stuff happens.In Vanilla's case, she says the words, "Sugar Sugar Rune Vani Rune". The problem with this is that this incantation seems to be capable of doing pretty much anything. Whenever the characters need to use their magic, they say these words.
What are the rules? What are the limits? Does this mean they can do anything? Again, we don't know because the show doesn't seem to care about all these details unlike in the Harry Potter series where there are different kinds of spells that allow witches and wizards to do different things.
So, for example, if you want to make something float, you'll say "Wingardium Leviosa" and not "Alohomora" or something. In the HP series, there's a method to these things. Too bad it's not like that in Sugar Sugar Rune.
Magical outfits in Sugar Sugar Rune
Chocolat and Vanilla have magical outfits. It seems that they can't use their magic without transforming. To transform, they use the exact same incantation they use whenever they try to use magic.The question is how come they need to be in a magical outfit before they can use their magic? We've seen Robin use his magic without having to transform and change his clothes. So is it that only women need to transform before being able to use their magic? Who knows?
Your thoughts and opinions?
What do you think about all this? What do you think about the magic system of Sugar Sugar Rune? Do you find it lacking? Do you think it could have been so much better and more interesting had we been given more information about it and had it been fleshed-out some more?I talk more about this in this post here on my Tumblr blog. I'd have moved this one here on Anime Archives (Anime Meta) too, but it's already got some comments and notes there, so I decided to keep it there indefinitely. I'm mentioning it here for reference as the rest of the anime posts on there will eventually be moved here.
*Notes:
- Pic is from Amazon.com; link shown above
