I love "Magic User's Club!" - or "Maho Tsukai Tai!" as I knew it before its American release. I love how it throws shôjo and shônen elements together to create a show that is simultaneously both and neither. The producers of the anime make this clear during the opening sequence, which begins with an attack on the Earth by alien forces. How's this for hard sci-fi: the soundtrack is perfectly silent until the alien ship enters the atmosphere! After a pitched battle fought with fighter jets and missiles - a battle worthy of "Macross" - the picture fades. What follows is one of the cutest opening sequences ever animated. Magician girls fly around on brooms, cast spells, and act silly, all to the beat of a cute, catchy shôjo-style theme song. It's a complete yin-yang experience in under five minutes.

"Magic User's Club!" is the story of a high-school magic club. Their classmates and teachers think the club is devoted to magic tricks and illusions. However, the club secretly practices honest-to-goodness sorcery and plans to save the Earth from the aliens. It's a very funny show, the humor coming from its cast of quirky characters and how they relate to each other. Comedy is one of the toughest things to get right, especially when the laughs are character-driven rather than simply slapstick. So as I sat down to listen to the dub I wasn't expecting much. Boy, was I ever pleasantly surprised.

The dub of "Magic User's Club!" features some of the best casting and directing I've heard in some time. The dub is by a new studio, NYAV (at least this is the first I've heard of them). That the dub is this good just goes to show how much untapped talent may still be out there.

The star of the anime is Sae Sawanoguchi, a cute, klutzy, shôjo-style heroine who loves her teddy bear "Jeffy" and wants to become a great magician. Sae is voiced by Misty Daniels. My initial impression was that Daniels' voice was just the tiniest bit too mature for Sae, but she quickly won me over. Daniels plays Sae with this adorable little quiver in her voice, conveying perfectly the character's trouble with self-confidence.

Sae's best friend is Nanaka Nakatomi, a temperamental girl who is always frustrated by Sae's behavior, and who joined the Magic Club to be near her best friend and a boy she has a crush on. Nanaka is played by Lisa Ortiz, an actress better known for playing another temperamental sorceress, Lina Inverse in "Slayers." As such, Ortiz has experience shouting at clueless characters and making it funny, so the scenes with her and Daniels work perfectly.

The leader of the Magic Club, and Sae's inspiration, is Takeo Takakura. (Yes, all characters in this anime have first and last names that begin with the same syllable.) He's an idealistic young man with grand plans for the magic club, and a weakness for girl's undergarments, and girls themselves both in and out of said undergarments. He has a crush on Sae, and Sae has a crush on him, but both are too shy to do anything about it, leading to a series of cute moments. Jamie McGonnigal has the role of Takeo, and nails it. McGonnigal's voice, always on the verge of cracking when things go haywire, fits the character perfectly. He's just as believable (and just as funny) when he puts on a show of idealism to impress the ladies. His is one of the best comical voices I've heard in an anime dub for some time.

The other male in the magic club, the one on whom Nanaka has her crush, is Ayanojyo Aburatsubo, a thin, longhaired, bishônen-type. He's also quite gay and constantly hits on Takeo, a steady source of gags. Kevin Collins handles the role well, sounding comically seductive without going over the top. Far from being a one-dimensional character, Aburatsubo is also one of the most intelligent members of the club, a leader when things get serious. Collins does a good job with that side of the character as well, putting aside the seductive tone and becoming sure and competent.