Always My Santa   Starring (voice): Aya Hirano and Jun Kamei Manga RRP: £14.99 MANG3005 Certificate: 12 Available 02 November 2009

An unlucky boy named Santa, because he was born on Christmas Eve, thinks he has it tough. He feels like he falls between the cracks of everyone's holiday happiness, and even his parents don't seem to care. There might not be any mistletoe, but good cheer comes down the chimney with a kiss from the crazy young Santa-in-Training named Mai. She has been sent to show sad-sack Santa the true joy of the season... And if he can quit acting like a bummed-out bump on the Yule log long enough to surrender to her considerable charms, the festive fireworks between the two might be hot enough to light up the tree...

Always My Santa (Itsudatte My Santa) is based on the manga by Ken Akamatsu. The anime series is only two episodes long and is really a Christmas one-off.

The story revolves around a young man called Santa and a young woman called Mai who is a Santa-in-training. While on Earth she appears as a young girl, but really she is a fine figure of a woman. She falls for Santa, but can't show him how she really looks because the less people believe in her, the younger she appears. All it will take is for Santa to believe in her and she will be able to appear to him as her full self.

This is a festive love story, of sorts. But while the first episode is interesting, the second episode adds more characters and shifts the focus of the storytelling. The end result is a little bit of a mess.

The original manga ends where the first anime does - the second anime episode is an original story separate from Akamatsu's original. To be honest, the second tale merely repeats a lot of what the first tale had to say, only swapping situations around so that the role of Santa and Mai are slightly reversed.

While not a major disaster, there are certainly better animes out there that deserve your attention.

4

Darren Rea