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Akazukin Chacha, or Red Riding Hood Chacha, is the incredibly cute and funny story of a young girl going to a school to learn magic. The anime is nonstop comic laughs as the adorable little blonde Chacha tries to master her magical spells with hilarious results. Chacha lives with and was raised by Seravy, the most powerful wizard in the land, and also one of the most eccentric. Seravy’s constant companion is his doll, Elizabeth, whom he often makes talk though powerful ventriloquism skills. Chacha’s best friend is Leiya, a blue-green haired werewolf boy. Her other closest friend is Shiine, a young wizard, and student of the land’s other leading magic user, Dorothy. The close bond of friendship between Shiine, Leiya, and Chacha allows Chacha to transform into the magical princess Holy Up in times of crisis. Chacha carries with her always a pendant given to her by Seravy. Two companion pieces of the pendant- a ring and a bracelet- were given to Leiya and Shiine by Chacha. It is with these magical items that the transformation is possible.
Chacha attends a school for developing her magical powers. Chacha needs to practice her magic all the time because she is often inept at it, mixing up the syllables in the incantation words so that the results are not what she expected. Leiya and Shiine also attend this school. Their teacher is a great character named Rascal-sensei who literally rules his class with a whip. However, despite his intimidating presence at first, Rascal-sensei is a nice guy and a great teacher.
There are no actual talking pets in this anime exactly, however there is the constant presence of Seravy watching over Chacha wherever she goes. Chacha is not aware that it is Seravy who is guiding her and giving advice, for he always disguses himself in painfully obvious disguises that Chacha cannot see through. Seravy with his doll Elizabeth act in the place of the talking pets. The lack of some traditional Magical Girl genre elements may be because the original Akazukin Chacha manga (which finally ended recently, in summer of 2000) is not a Magical Girl story. Chacha does not transform into princess Holy Up in the manga. All of that was created specifically for the anime.
Akazukin ChaCha is © Ayahana Min, Shuueisha, TV Tokyo, NAS.