very cool!! i'm glad you were able to find it. out of curiosity, is there anything else you're looking for web-wise on parappa? i have a folder of websites i saved from when parappa was a big special interest of mine.
Chinese here, I came across this topic and was very interested, so I register this account to share what I have found. Please forgive my poor English.
1. Despite those videos you showed, I don't really think the anime series exist. There's no any trace of the show can be found, even in Chinese websites. Besides, there is a famous forum in China called "Baidu Tieba", which is quite similar to reddit and there's indeed a "subreddit" of Magical Girl Rion. Lots of people inside asked about the TV series, all of the answers were it simply doesn't exist.
2. According to the information I gathered in Baidu Tieba, the comic had 12 issues in total, lasting from June 2010 to March 2011 and only available on the magazine, Manga Bar. None of these are confirmed.
3. Most important thing is, I found the manga. There's a famous second-hand book trading website called 孔夫子旧书网. I tried to search the name, Manga Bar. To my surprise, a lot of the old magazines were on sale. So I started to investigate their covers, wishing to find the name, Magical Girl Rion. The first time this name showed up on cover is on June 2010 and the protagonist Rion herself was the cover figure of the issue, which means it's very likely to be the debut of the manga. The magazines sets on the websites are not very complete and many of them don't even have covers on thumbnail, the issue March 2011 happened to be not on sale. The strange thing is that the last time I found the manga's title on cover was on issue November 2010. The title was missing on the covers of early issues in 2011 like January and February ones. So the ending date of the manga is still unconfirmed.
no need to apologize! you're all good. this is really helpful! thank you so much!! though if it really doesn't exist, what are the clips and mentioned award from then?
More information...sorta (Any Chinese is machine translated FYI, so it might not be 100% correct but it's to get the point across)
Info on the award (see moegirl & chinanews links):
The "Golden Dragon Award" is referred to as "金龙奖" in Chinese.
It was won at the 6th annual Golden Dragon Award Original Animation & Comic Competition, held in 2009.
Rion-chan won a 'Special Jury Award' (评委会特别奖) for 'Best Overseas Animation' (最佳海外动漫奖) in animation (动画类).
It mentions the 'author' is Sanrio Weilang Co., Ltd. (三丽鸥威浪股份有限公司), which seems to be another name for Sanriowave.
The chinanews link talks about how the committee wasn't sure if it was eligible to enter for an award as they are primarily given to Chinese people. Despite this, Rion-chan still won.
A Twitter thread on this can be found here, but here's a short summary: Sometime in the mid 2000s, Japan and China collaborated to create a branch of Sanrio called "Sanriowave." Creating Sanrio merchandise and such, they also created a franchise called "魔法少女莉欧," also known as "マジカルりおんちゃん," "Magical Girl Rion-chan," or "Mahou Shoujo Rion-chan," about a group of girls who play in a band and get magical powers from a Hello Kitty plush. At some point, this had an anime- but very little footage has been found of it as of writing. There are Chinese websites that describe it, one writing on how it won an award from the "Golden Dragon Award Original Animation & Comic Competition", and small pieces of footage from Japanese video-sharing website NicoNico, but not much else has been found.
Adding some of my own findings, the descriptions of the videos mention the anime being animated by "オフィスプリオン" or "Office Prion." Their website is seemingly defunct, but archives of it do exist: web.archive.org/web/*/http://pri-on.jp/ Plan to dig through it more tomorrow...
Another mention of Office Prion and Rion-chan can be found here in an short interview titled "中国とのアニメ共同制作、松本零士氏原作のアニメ化など、複数のプロジェクトを展開 " (Google translate: Developing multiple projects such as co-production of animation with China and animation of the original by Leiji Matsumoto): tcpl.jp/about/interview.html Nothing outside of the first box of text seems relate to it in anyway, all other text seems to be interviews of unrelated people...
It's hard to tell what does or doesn't work, so heres all the URLs saved under the website .jsp are pages but some tend to redirect to a broken website archived in 2013. no idea why it does that! .swf are flashes web.archive.org/web/*/monsterfest.amctv.com/*
"The “Comedy Stunt” block will have two (2) back-to-back episodes of Azumanga Daioh and Hayate the Combat Butler starting Wednesday, February 04."
"Azumanga Daioh returns on Wednesday, February 04, at 07:00pm SGT/PHT (06:00pm JKT), and back-to-back episodes will air Every Monday to Friday nights at 06:30pm SGT/PHT (05:30pm JKT)."
First airdate of the Azumanga dub was October 12, 2012.
An English dub of the 2002 anime Azumanga Daioh that aired in Southeast Asia around 2012. It was dubbed by Animax Asia and aired on the Animax's channel "Ani-Chan" block. It had an entirely different voice-cast from the 2005 ADV English dub. As far as I am aware, there was no home video release of this. Voice actors are unknown as well.
Clips seen (based off the original subbed anime): - "School years, the best years; Friends who share; Cats who dare; Classmates who care": Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 12, Episode 1, Episode 8 - "Time to let your hair down / Experiment was never this fun": Episode 2 - "The delicate art of spacing out / Daydreaming was never this fun": Episode 2 - "You snooze you lose / Being mean was never this fun": Episode 14
www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19478529 (don't think i can embed niconico sorry) Clips seen (based off the original subbed anime): - "Too many books can be dangerous too / Helping others was never this fun": Episode 3 - [REPEAT] "The delicate art of spacing out / Daydreaming was never this fun": Episode 2 - "Hair today gone tomorrow / Accessorizing was never this fun": Episode 2 - [REPEAT] "Time to let your hair down / Experiment was never this fun": Episode 2 - "Twice bitten never shy / Being a cool cat was never this fun": Episode 1, Episode 5, Episode 11, Episode 1, Episode 11, Episode 11 - "Please pardon my french / Speaking french was never this fun": Episode 3 - "Book that nasty bug / Smack-down was never this fun": Episode 2 - "With friends like these who needs enemies? / Nagging was never this fun": Episode 8 - [REPEAT] "School years, the best years; Friends who share; Cats who dare; Classmates who care": Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 12, Episode 1, Episode 8
Current status of episodes: (All titles and synopsis are from the archived Animax website. Titles are usually close/the same as ADV episode titles)
Episode 1 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 2 - Found Title: OSAKA TODAY AS WELL / P.E., VOLLEYBALL / HICCUPS / THE BRAIN... / BRAND NEW Synopsis: "Osaka is oblivious to the chaos around her in the classroom caused by a cockroach. She shows her lack of physical fitness in physical education." Link: nyaa.si/view/1266665
Episode 3 - Found Title: NYAMO / FACTIONAL RIVALRY / YUKARI'S HERE / NOT MY FAULT / FOREVER AND EVER Synopsis: ? Link: nyaa.si/view/1266665
Episode 4 - Lost Title: A FUN PROFESSION / POOL, POOL, POOL / RIBBON / JUST THE TWO OF THEM / A GOOD PERSON? Synopsis: ?
Episode 6 - Found Title: EQUATION FOR VICTORY / SAKAKI OF CLASS 3, KAGURA OF CLASS 5 / RUNAWAY VICTORY / YAY / DANCING THE GR Synopsis: "On the day of the athletic carnival, Nyamo catches Yukari trying to sabotage her star student, Kagura. Sakaki defeats Kagura in the 400 meter dash." Link: drive.google.com/file/d/1J49ww6Wxq-qGJd41p6BtTtlNtlBdtAsC/view nyaa.si/view/1266665
Episode 7 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 8 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 9 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 10 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 11 - Lost Title: COSMOPOLITAN CITY / SHOWDOWN / EVEN IF YOU DON'T FIGHT / COVERED IN CATS / DON'T RUN Synopsis: "Kagura challenges Sakaki in competitive eating. Sakaki hits one of Kagura's pitches in softball and the ball lands on Chiyo's head in the outfield."
Episode 12 - Lost Title: CHIYO-CHAN'S DAY / HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS / LUNCH / AFTERNOON / SKIPPING ROPE Synopsis: "Chiyo and Sakaki see some children jumping rope when they walk Mr. Tadakichi through the park, and have jumping rope with the children’s jump rope."
Episode 13 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 14 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 15 - Lost Title: KIMURA'S FAMILY / YA SEE YA SEE? / AN UNEXPECTED MOTHER? / HARDNESS / RESULTS Synopsis: ?
Episode 16 - Lost Title: COMBINATION / ADVENT / CUTE / ORDER / ADVERTISING IMPACT Synopsis: "Chiyo and Osaka check out the themes of other classes for the cultural festival during their break. They visit a takoyaki and a taiyaki food booth."
Episode 17 - Lost Title: OSAKA'S SCARY STORY / FEELING DIFFERENT / DECEMBER / INCREDIBLE SANTA / CHRISTMAS MEETING Synopsis: "Yomi tells Tomo her wish to have a large sum of money as a gift. On Christmas Eve, the girls decide to go to a karaoke bar to watch each other sing." Note: Sometimes CHRISTMAS MEETING is spelled as CHRSAMAS MEETING in listings.
Episode 18 - Lost Title: ELATED YOMI / BETRAYAL / WAKUWAKU WAKUWAKU / COMPANIONSHIP'S END / GO Synopsis: "Yomi returns from her recent trip to Hokkaido after the winter break and boasts about her exciting experiences, much to Tomo’s displeasure."
Episode 19 - Lost Title: YAWNING EXPERT / SPRINGTIME OF LIFE / ADULT CHERRY-BLOSSOM VIEWING / CHILD CHERRY-BLOSSOM VIEWING / Synopsis: "Nyamo is invited by Eiko, a chief executive officer to join her company as a gym instructor, but she declines as she is happy with her current job."
Episode 20 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 21 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 22 - Lost Title: ? Synopsis: ?
Episode 23 - Lost Title: CHEWED / CHEERLEADERS / I DIDN'T THINK / WE'LL RUN TOGETHER / UNITED Synopsis: ?
Episode 24 - Lost Title: CAREER PATH / SHOWDOWN / LET'S HURRY / POPULARITY / TOGETHER WITH MAYA Synopsis: "On the way home, Sakaki and Chiyo are ambushed by a pack of cats led by Kamineko. Maya appears and scares the cats away with a ferocious growl."
Episode 25 - Lost Title: COURSE DISCUSSION / PRAY FOR SUCCESS / FIGHT! / STUDY SESSION / TOMO AND OSAKA'S DAY OF FATE Synopsis: "All the girls gather at Chiyo's house to study. On New Year's Day, the girls assemble at the shrine to pray for their success in the entrance exams."
Christine Chubbuck comes to mind. (Well, at least I think it does? The article seems to have been updated since I last read it and its confuses me a bit..)