Mahou no Tenshi Sweet Mint

Sweet Mint is a magical girl show from the early 90’s’s. It’s from Ashi Productions, but the look and style of it seems obviously modeled after the Studio Pierrot magical girls of the 80’s. It follows the adventures of a girl named Mint, who is a princess in a magical country. She has a pretty crown, and flies around on a vacuum cleaner (instead of a broom of course!) Mint looks like she is about 12 or 13 years old. She has blue-teal colored hair that is pulled up into two ponytails and wears a necklace that has a star pendant on it. Sweet Mint has a talking pet called ‘Waffle’ which is this little flying penguin bird thing. It is extremely cute! It doesn’t really talk. Like Mokona from Rayearth, Waffle emits just a few repeated sounds.

In the first episode, Mint is sent to Earth by her parents, the King and Queen. Apparently the magic land Mint is from is powered by the dreams of humans. Unfortunately, humans have stopped believing in their hopes and dreams and this is causing Mint’s world to disappear. It’s a similar situation as ‘Fantasia’ in The Neverending Story or similar to a plot of Minky Momo. Anyway, on her 12th birthday, as is their tradition, Mint is sent to Earth to help revive people’s faith.  But first she needs to find a place called the ‘Shiawase Shop’ or ‘Happiness Shop’, where her aunt Herb lives. Unfortunately, just after her father transports Mint to Earth, he realizes that he forgot to give her the map that directs her to the shop! Uh oh. Mint discovers the problem also, and screams for help. Her shout stops traffic, and soon brings a policeman running, who asks her what the problem is. She tells him, and he feels sorry for her for a moment, but then asks Mint to just call the store on the phone. this presents a problem for Mint also, as she doesn’t have the phone number and is not familiar with phones in general. Quite a crowd has gathered by this time, including a cute boy with rather tall hair ^_^. When Sweet Mint blurts out that she is from a magical world, the police officer gets mad, and the boy takes sudden interest in Mint. In the confusion after Mint’s sudden outburst, the boy helps her get away.

The boy, Plum, soon becomes Mint’s good friend. He believes her story about being from a magical world, and agrees to help her find the ‘Shiawase’ shop. Together they search for it, but it isn’t until they run into another girl, named Natsu (is this supposed to be ‘Nuts’ or ‘summer’? Not sure), that they finally find the store, and Sweet Mint is reunited with her aunt. Natsu and the boy are judged by the aunt to be worthy friends for Mint, and they are let into the secret of Sweet Mint’s world.

I am not really sure if there is a specific mission Sweet Mint is supposed to be following while on Earth. She does have several magical items on her with which she can do rather useful magic. She has a cute little bracelet that can produce other magical items when buttons are pressed. Two of the items it can produce are a magic wand and a magic bow and arrow. Sweet Mint can use her magic to change her clothing, levitate objects, clean places, conjure items, etc.

Unlike other magical girls, who are born on Earth and are given their powers/items from outside sources, Mint comes fully equipped with all of her stuff as well as her pet. She is the Visiting Princess type of Magical Girl. Overall, the show is extremely cute, sometimes a bit ‘too cute’ even for a Magical Girls show =) However, if you can get through shows like Magical Emi and Minky Momo, Sweet Mint should be right up your alley.