The fifth volume of Fancy Lala starts off where the previous left off, with a heavy focus on family. The message is somehow more potent this time around, though. Also, the progression of the story receives some subtle tweaks in this volume, preparing for the finale of the series in the next volume. In a nutshell, the feeling in this volume is that everything has been done right.

This volume starts off with a side story about Miho and (her sister) Chisa's relationship. Miho's teacher finds an essay that Chisa wrote when she was in his class, and asks Miho to return it to her. Pigu reads part of the essay, which proceeds to make fun of Miho; so, Miho gets irritated and yells out that she wants to be an older sister (forgetting that she's surrounded by magic). I'm sure you can guess what happens next - she ends up getting her wish and ends up inside a younger Chisa's head. I'll be the first to admit that Miho and Chisa's relationship is exceedingly cute. They're always bickering, but never outright get angry with each other. The next episode gives us a bit more insight on the two sisters, when Miho gets upset that their mom never shares details of her job with the kids. Chisa takes responsibility for that, and you can really feel the two get closer at that point. The rest of episode 20 is about Lala being terrified that she has to be on a show where her mom is the producer.

Miho and Chisa's relationship is delightfully ordinary.	Miho has a heck of a time keeping Lala's secret in episode 22.

The final half of the fifth volume is full of fun. Episode 21 is a mock up of a mystery show, where the Miho gang try to figure out whether their teacher has a girlfriend. Episode 22 closes out the volume with a pair of twins from Miho's school chasing Miho and Lala around, suspecting a connection between the two. Miho has to pull a few crazy stunts to fool the two person newspaper club.

Volume five features both Miho and Lala on the cover, which is very pink as usual. The insert accompanying the disc holds no surprises, containing the usual staff credits and episode summaries. The extra of this volume continues the fashion gallery that the previous volume started, this time containing eight images with notes of where they appear in the show.

At this point, the whole of Fancy Lala has felt much like a passing dream (which I just found out is the title Bandai chose for the sixth volume, and I will swear to my grave that this was a coincidence), despite being fairly well-grounded in reality. While several of the magical girl shows I've seen have a tendency to try to push some important moral message with each episode, Fancy Lala is different, in that it didn't have to. Miho is not a morally challenged individual. Instead, she learns to be more tolerant of others throughout the show, and her own problems have had a way of working themselves out naturally. Somewhere inside of the ordinary plot of the show is a sort of magic that's difficult to match.

Video Quality: A
Audio Quality: A
Presentation: B
Content: A-
Overall: B+