Anime: Kaitou Saint Tail 58635b

Here's an anime that was very successful in Japan but whose success could not be repeated upon its release in North America. Is it because of the quality of the anime itself? It's not the case here at all as what we have is a solid anime with some charming attributes.
I think its lack of success in America resides in the fact that when it was brought over, a certain show named Sailor Moon was still immensely popular and regarded as THE only magical girl people were taking notice to. As such this and some other shows (including Wedding Peach) were not nearly as popular as they might have been.

Let's start with the animation of this little series. This is one of the best aspects of the show. Aesthetic wise, it looks something like a refined predecessor of Cardcaptor Sakura. This means the art is crisp and detailed. The series overall is very well animated and the character design is beautiful.
This is also one of the most consistent titles I have seen as the show very rarely drops in animation quality. The repeated footage is thankfully never that frequent as it would take away from the show, and the transformation/attack scenes are never long enough to get on your nerves.

The sound is something of a mix bag at first. For the first few episodes I felt like the only piece I liked in the show was the excellent outtro. As I kept watching though, I realised that the intro was also growing on me and that the background music was used very well for the corresponding scenes.
Emotions are conveyed very successfully when need be and the sound overall is very good at switching gears (emotion wise) when required. The "It's ShowTime" music is also excellent and really feels like a magician's symphony.

The story is interesting overall. In a broad way it is basically a magical girl Robin Hood. This is because Saint Tail only steals from bad guys and returns said stuff to the good guys who have been manipulated/blackmailed/stolen from. The ones in trouble go and confess what happened to a nun (Seira) and she in turn tell Saint Tail what has happened and then "It's Show Time!"
Following this concept for most of the series dragged the overall effect of the series a little bit. However the secondary cast was interesting, and so were the backstories... That made this one quirk bearable but also necessary as it structures the anime successfully. The story really picks up towards the end when it loses its episodic nature and moves into a storyline that involves about 6 episodes to its conclusion.

The characters in this are the show's strength as they are interesting enough to keep you entertained one episode after the next. Their respective storylines are never overplayed for emphasis and overall are successful.
The most successful characters were Meimi and Asuka Jr as their storyline was the most interesting and dealt with very appropriately for their age. Secondary characters were used wisely in this as they very rarely are overused but rather are there to move the story along.

This series has very good value for me as it is something I would not mind watching again but would rather enjoy it. If just for the detailed artwork or the fun story, it works very successfully to be in one's anime collection. It is also the only Magical Girl show I have seen where the lead does not use magical powers. Rather what Saint Tail uses are magic tricks. Her dad being a magician, she learns his tricks and uses them on her missions. And her transformation is actually just getting changed when you think about it since she does not get extra power from it.

As a recommendation, I think this series has a very broad appeal that does not just lie with the Magical Girl genre. Aspects of it reminded me a lot of Cat's Eye (the thiefing theme, calling cards) and City Hunter (the episodic nature, dealing with one "customer" each episode). If you are a fan of either of these two titles and don't mind a bit of a magical girl spin on them, then give this a try.

A good anime that becomes quite tiring due to it's size

This anime tells the story of Meimi Haneoka, a 14-years old girl who falls in love with classmate Asuka Jr. and has the power to transform herself into Kaitou Saint Tail, an agile thief whose objective is to steal objects from many people to return them to their truthful owner. Needless to say that this is a shoujo anime that could have been much better if it wasn't for a few details:

ANIMATION:
Not bad, quite a good effort indeed. The transformation animation is good, but after a few episodes, it gets quite irritating. They repeated a few animations over and over again throughout the series (like the animations before she gets into the place she is going to rob). Besides that, good animations.

SOUND:
Bad? Quite bad. The OST of this anime is so small that they had to repeat songs in a single episode. The only good song of this anime is the intro song, which fits perfectly to the series. Better luck next time.

STORY:
The core story of this anime is lovely, but they extended the anime for too long, resulting in a scattered story. The first 13 episodes were very good, but then the most critical moments of the story are near the ending, or an episode in the middle of the series. Oh, and the last episode was... not exactly what I had in mind after the prior episode's ending.

CHARACTERS:
One of the most important things in animes. These characters were well planned, their voices well picked. Basically, REALLY GOOD characters. But they are also affected by the exagerated size of the series, making them look stupid since they don't get any development for a long time.

VALUE:
If you ever feel like rewatching the series, do it, but please cut out all that trash. Watch it from 1-13, then skip to 17, then skip to 27-29, then jump to 39-43. I found the rest of the anime completely unecessary.

ENJOYMENT:
Ah, you can't hate this series. I loved it, and I'll probably rewatch it in a few months. The characters and the story, although they have their problems, they are pure gold.

I Definitely recommend this series to anyone with enough patience and enough dedication to shoujo. On a side note, I feel bad to know that this anime didn't escape to the clutches of censorship in the USA.

Nice, cheerful series aimed at young girls, but becomes repetitive because it's too long.

A 'mahou-shoujo'-series, where a junior high schoolgirl becomes the magic-using thief Saint Tail. As expected, Mahou Shoujo comes with a dozen of transformation sequences, and Saint Tail isn't an exception. Our dear protagonist, Haneoka Meiko changes every episode into Saint Tail and although it's bearable for 10 episodes, 43 episodes is obviously too much to handle. Even though the series has 2 different transformationscenes besides the normal transformation, they change after a sheer amount of episodes and I have to say that neither of them became better.
The animation itself was pretty decent. The series still shows that good old '90s look, which is neither bad nor good, just budget-lacking. But the fact that they hardly use any reused frames beside the transformation sequences are a good thing. Although there are a few 'comical' degenerations, there are only a few throughout the entire series.

The Opening-song is girlish-genki, with a nice pace, but the ending-song is very sad and slow, which doesn't fit the series at all in music.
The BGM often plays childish tunes, when there are comical scenes, which shows that this series is aimed at young girls and not to adults.
The voices are done well, but unfortunately they sometimes feel too childish.

The bad guys look and sound like bad guys and the good guys look exactly like good guys, which shows that this series is really made for children, but that doesn't mean this show is not suitable for adults.
The story starts out okay, but it becomes repetitive after watching around 8-10 episodes (I started to notice it after 10, because I liked the series I could bear it longer than usual), where Meiko always goes to her friend, the nun-in-training, and receives her mission. Now it's not that thing which makes the series repetitive, but it's the 'We only steal from the evil people' which may get on your nerves at times. Especially since all episodes (with 1 or 2 exceptions) are episode-based, which means that a story starts and ends in the same episode. This results in pretty easy and predictable cases, but after watching 20 episodes, the cases aren't only easy and predictable anymore, but also semi-annoying. Not because it's predictable, but rather because the cases look so much alike that it's just repeating the same thing over and over again, stretching the series without any content.

While the characters were fun to see in the beginning, they also developed pretty much in those episodes. Meiko, Asuka Jr. and also Rika are characters who make a great entrance and manage to keep you focused and make you enjoy the show, but after 13-15 episodes, they stall almost completely in development/relationships. Rika completely disappears from the series, only to be used as backgroundfiller, until they manage to come up with a use for her again, near the end of the series. Meiko starts out strong, but after around the same number of episodes, the main character also stalls. It's only the same thing over and over again, getting a job, notifying Asuka Jr., stealing the object, case closed, without any real value, while the first episodes managed to evolve the feelings and relationship of the characters. Of course there are episodes where the characters do get a bit more development, like the romance-part in the series, but that progresses so slowly compared to the first episodes that it tends to get boring and you'll end up waiting when it will finally happen.
But - overall, the characters are likeable, fun to see and they don't bore much, unlike the storyline itself.

Since the series is pretty long and most of them are episodes without much real value and also pretty much all the same, this series isn't really worth rewatching. That is, unless you actually adore the characters and the romance-story in the background, or if you're a little girl who likes to watch this kind of series.

The series itself was fun to watch and although the middle parts in the series are pretty boring, it's not worth shoving aside completely. They managed to come up with a nice, lighthearted story with a bunch of comedy and a very easy story so you won't have trouble to keep track of it all. It's not too realistic, especially the magic-part isn't (Meiko seems to use all the tricks from her father, the one who has a job to play tricks, but not all of them are realistic - especially not the ones Meiko pulls), but they do make the show lively and funny.

I do believe that, if they managed to make this a 13-26 episodes series, they could've made it much more valuable since it wouldn't get boring that easily. The first 10-13 episodes had a fast pace, introduced the characters really quick and it looked like they could wrap it up in a few more, but they wanted to stretch it, meaning that the episodes 20-35 are mostly useless episodes. You might consider skipping a few if you want, since you won't miss much by skipping them.