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(4/5)Since I grew up watching Sailor Moon, I've always had a fascination with shoujo manga from the 90s. So when this was available as a time-limited free book on Bookwalker, I had to check it out. Akazukin Chacha is a fantasy-adventure-comedy with a lot of emphasis on the comedy. Our heroine Chacha is an apprentice witch who often makes mistakes with her magic. She's accompanied on her adventures by Riiya (a stupid-but-strong boy who can turn into a wolf) and Shiine (the apprentice of a rival witch). Rounding out the cast, we have Seravii (Chacha's teacher and the greatest magician in the world) and Dorothy (Seravii's rival).
After the first chapter, most of the plot revolves around a witch certification test via a game of tag where Chacha and Shiine must catch their respective mentors. This set up allows the kids to visit new locations, meet new quirky characters and overcome low stakes obstacles. I had a good time with it, but it is definitely targeted toward kids.
When I started this book a few months ago (during the free period), I found the amount of new vocab overwhelming so I set it aside (until the free period expired and I ended up purchasing it 😂). A few months later, and a lot more Satori Reader later, I was able to finish it without much problem. I think a lot of the difficulty will be one's comfort with fantasy/adventure vocab.
赤ずきんチャチャ is a shoujo manga from the 1990s about the comedic misadventures of a little girl named Chacha training to become a witch. To my knowledge, neither the manga nor the anime have ever been released in English, and the anime is significantly different from the manga.
In terms of learning value, like all Ribon comics this series has full furigana. The vocabulary used is all common vocabulary typical to anime. There's some slang, slurring, and contractions, but not enough to make it difficult — if you can get through an anime episode, you'll have no trouble with this. Some of the stranger characters have verbal idiosyncrasies — for example, one character says ざんす at the end of all their lines, which is evidently an archaic word from the Edo period that means the same thing as ある — but these idiosyncrasies are minor and don't impede understanding. The only difficult thing is trying to read any of the parts that are hand-written, but this is limited to asides and the "author's notes" side-panels, so these can be skipped without missing anything essential to the plot.
In terms of entertainment value, it's cute and silly, and entertains through a mixture of slapstick comedy, ridiculous situations, and bizarre characters — but it's very much intended for children and the art is mediocre, so it has little to offer an adult aside from the humor. I'd only really recommend it if it's free on Bookwalker and you're looking for something goofy.