The little omakes attached to the DVD released for “Letter Bee” finally trickled onto the sub lists this week. As omakes go, these are pretty good so far.

Animation-wise, they’ve decided to go with a sort of bright, Saturday-morning Mahou Shoujo look (and come to think of it, a Mahou Shounen starring Lag is kind of a great parody idea) that contrasts totally with the anime style. The premise features our four main bees being taught Tegami Bachi basics by an egomaniacal Dr. Thunderland, hoping to score a larger role in the main series. All the boys are pretty much themselves, only more – crybaby Lag, emo Gauche (no sign of Noir), tsundere (mostly tsun so far) Zazie and glutton Connor. So far, so good – you can only succeed in parodying yourself if you’re committed to it, and this humor in these 3-minute extras is fairly sharp. If you enjoy the series, you should certainly get a few chuckles out of them.