_Always My Santa!_
What if Santa... was a girl?
There is no legitimate source to stream this. You have to know a guy.
When do people stop believing in Santa, wonders our narrator.
At four? Five? When they find the gifts hidden in the closet?
He was never fooled. Maybe because his gifts can by mail.
For unknown reasons, his parents were never around at Christmas.
This is when a cute girl asks if he wants to spend the night with her.
When he blushes, she smacks him: not like that, you pervert!
She's Santa Claus; bringer of joy and gifts to children everywhere.
Such protests do not help when the police drag her away.
Our boy exclaims he wants nothing to do with her, but it's no good. Her capture doesn't take, and she detects his misery with her Santa senses.
He flees. She chases.
He declares that he hates Christmas and Santa.
But why?
Because he was born on December 24th, and his parents named him Santa.
Rough break.
She collapses with laughter.
But no, she says, okay, it was kind of funny, but she wants to make him happy.
He says to leave him alone, he's perfectly happy the way he is.
This is a lie.
Now, she has Santa magic, which allows her to create anything starting with "San-". A montage of untranslatable jokes follows, where she misunderstands what he's doing and attempts to improve it by materializing some ridiculous object.
Shenanigans ensue.
Things go from bad to worse when He knocks a Christmas cake out of the hands of a gangster, ruining it.
She leaps to his defense with outrageous conjurations, and the help(?) of her (plush) reindeer, Pedro.
They flee in the confusion.
Upon retreating to his home, she makes a proper introduction: her name is Mai, and she is a Santa in training.
Alas, her powers are weakened because people just don't believe in Santa these days.
He tells her his history of loneliness. Absent parents. No one to wish him Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday in one.
Mai decides that clearly, what he needs is a party. She'll whip one right up!
While they're fooling around, Mai finds a picture Santa has of a girl.
She's his senpai from the club. Someone he admires. (Yeah right.)
Mai works some magic and Santa gets a sudden call and an invitation.
But Mai is a bit jealous anyhow, and hangs up the phone.
Why would she do that, he asks. Playing around about Santa is fun and all, but this was real.
Mai is crushed. Why would he say something so cruel?
And since we're speedrunning the anime tropes, as she runs off she admits that she fell in love with him.
Santa goes to the party at his senpai's house, but she denies ever calling.
But hey, there's a party with friends, come on in.
But Santa puts two and two together: Mai used her magic to help him, and he dropped her like a hot rock once he had a better opportunity.
Santa feel guilty and goes searching for Mai instead. He finds her, moping, at the same place they met at the start.
He apologizes and returns her magic with a kiss, right at the stroke of midnight.
And since he now really believes in her, she gets the full power upgrade, magical girl (Santa) transformation.
Her small heart grows three sizes. Or, her breasts do anyway.
Pedro becomes a full reindeer, with a sleigh full of presents, and Mai whisks Santa off to deliver them.
They deliver presents to sleeping children, granting them their wishes. Well mostly.
This girl wants to become a doctor to save lives, but her orphanage is too far away from schools. Luckily, volunteers have come to educate these orphans. Look, there they are.
The volunteers are making a phone call, and no one is less surprised than Santa when his cell phone rings.
They are, of course, his parents, making their annual call to apologize for not being there on Christmas.
But he knows what they're doing now, and says it's okay.
So we end as we began: when do kids stop believing in Santa? Four? Five?
How about never?
A wild post-credits scene appears.
Mai has used too much magic and can't go home. She'll have to stick around for a second episode.
The Anime Police: ahem.
I understand that you tried to speedrun an entire Instant Girlfriend romcom in a single OVA, but I'm afraid it's not up to code.
You forgot the beach episode.
This episode opens with a monologue by Mai, saying that every meeting implies an eventual parting, but if you part, you may never rejoin. Still the heart remembers.
Then we move on the the beach where we repeat the same getting arrested gag that the first episode had.
The fun ends when Shirley arrives. She's the top tier Santa and she's taking over this territory. Mai will just have to leave.
Unless she can win a magical duel.
Mai summons things, and Shirley's magic makes them humongous, for some reason.
Mai wins round one when she traps Shirley in a sunroom, which is way too hot and she has to surrender.
But Mai gets told she has to be out of the region by Christmas.
That is, she has to break up with Santa.
Shirley overhears this, and decides to help Mai in secret.
For various reasons, Shirley is unable to help. The best she can do is give them a little time alone for Mai to say goodbye, and even that only at the end of the line on Christmas Eve.
But Mai can't bring herself to say it.
Shirley stops time as a gift to them, so they can have a full date before Mai has to become Santa and deliver gifts.
Now Iook like an idiot, because I haven't mentioned Mai Mai, Mai's younger sister who has been a comic relief nuisance underfoot this whole episode.
And the post credits scene reveals that it was all a mistake. Shirley had been sent to bring Mai Mai home, not Mai.
Lol?
There's a preview for a third episode, but given that it features a mecha-reindeer, I'm assuming it's a joke that was never intended to be real.
So, that's the show.
What's my takeaway?
People have been seeking a Christmas Anime forever.
Now they have one, but at what cost?
This is mediocre in every way. The animation isn't great. The writing is super basic.
Like most Christmas movies, it's churning out cheap work to make a buck on a guaranteed sale.
But Japan isn't a heavily Christian country, so I'm not sure how guaranteed the sale is.
But for Christmas shows, we end up grading on a curve anyway. So how does it hold up there?
Well, it does manage to squeak a tiny bit of heartwarming out at the end of episode one.
It's a lot more standalone than watching the Christmas episode of any full series.
If you're super jonesing for another Christmas special to watch, I guess you could throw it on the pile.
I can't really recommend it on its merits, but if you're watching weak shows because of a Christmas theme, it's at least different than the classics.
Shirley tells her to have a steadfast heart. Just as they agreed to stay friends even when they were split into separate classes, Mai should speak frankly with Santa.
Mai tells Santa, not goodbye, but thank you for everything. Santa says he'll wait for her to graduate.