Pack it in folks, you know it’s time for more Ojamajo Doremi. Though every episode of Doremi seems to be special in its own way (excepting those witch frogs, fuck those witch frogs), our last episode was special for a very specific reason – it was lucky enough to have Ojamajo Doremi’s character design Yoshihiko Umakoshi on board as animation director. In Umakoshi’s hands, the vivid expressiveness of these characters felt even more apparent than usual, as all number of incidental moments were elevated through flavorful details of movement and character acting. It was a beautiful episode that demonstrated the unique power of simplified designs, and how the details that make characters come across as human aren’t contained in the specificity or detail of their design, but the fluidity, sense of weight, and underlying personality that brings them to life.
That episode also served as Doremi’s first Christmas special, meaning we’ve likely now moved on into the new year. With that shift comes also a pretty significant turn in Onpu’s attitude – from a position of complete self-obsessed antagonism, she’s now demonstrated a sense of loneliness in her home life, as well as a willingness to help others. Whether Onpu’s shift or something else entirely is the focus this week, I’m excited to get to it. Let’s find out what Doremi and the gang fumble their way through next!
Episode 46
Our cold open introduces us to “master magician, Harukaze Doremi!” Doremi, you can actually cast magic spells and ride a broom, you don’t need to pull rabbits out of hats
The cold opens focused on Doremi’s classmates tend to actually detail some genuine aspect of their story, whereas Doremi-focused cold opens tend to focus on how she wished her stories went. They’re a summation of the fantasy she ends up building over the course of that episode
Oh god, they’re really building up the reveal of these witch frogs in their awful dancing outfits
The show knows “witch frogs in bikinis with balloons for breasts” is an extremely strong payoff, and so it just lets them dance through an entire verse of their song
Aw shit, witch world talent show! This is one of those premises that depends entirely on how much creativity the staff bring to the witch world shenanigans – there’s a very high ceiling for this one
The prize is a wish granted by the Queen, but considering how those magical orb trees turned out, I’m pretty suspicious
The reveal of this episode premise kinda makes the cold open a joke in reverse, since who the hell would do a stage magician routine for an audience of actual witches
I appreciate that Rika and Ruka have apparently bonded off screen over both being witch frogs
Aw shit, the Level 2 witch exam is also the talent show. We are burning through these exams!
Dela says she needs to practice her singing, a very cute use of her fairly limited characterization
She also says Doremi’s level three exam will happen “at the same time,” which seems like a waste to me. The fantasy dreamscapes of the level three exams were one of the best sequences in Doremi yet, and I’d be happy to watch a “level three exams, take two” episode if it offered more of those
The talent show conceit offers a nice excuse to check in with our girls’ parents, as they all offer their dubious advice on talents
A blue-haired boy with glasses is doing sleight of hand in the classroom. Have we seen this boy before? It feels like they’ve been sneaking in a lot of new classmates lately
His name is Watabe
The animation of the character mouths seems a little weird in this episode. Like they’re focusing too much on creating exaggerated lip flaps
“Anyway, I have a lot to do.” And he leaves. So was he actually visiting from another class? I know at least some of the students we’ve met come from another class
Good intro shot to this local store. Separating the three girls across the three aisles of the shop and panning across them does an excellent job of creating a sense of depth, which combines with the eerie soundtrack to evoke a general sense of vulnerability (since we feel like we’re in the story with them), which in turn sets up the jump scare of the attendant appearing
It turns out this is Watabe’s father’s store, and he also does magic tricks. The very distinctive haircuts and character profiles of this show allow for a strong sense of family resemblance between characters, like in the sports festival episode about siblings who all had the same head shape
“Magic is creating miracles in the blink of an eye” seems to be the family catchphrase
Because Watabe’s father has a bad back, Watabe is both watching the store and putting on their annual magic show. A very responsible kid!
Watabe’s strategy for teaching these girls magic is to simply perform tricks and have them attempt to repeat those tricks with no instruction as to what the trick actually is. Very funny for us in the audience, but not a great teaching method
Time for a mooontage. It looks like this episode is playing double duty as both a witch world adventure and a Watabe-focused classmate episode. It feels smart of the show to use this split focus episode to emphasize a classmate who isn’t burdened by some profound personal drama, thus bolstering the class roster without drawing a full episode of focus
Watabe unsurprisingly chooses Aiko to be his MC and Hadzuki to be his actual assistant. Hadzuki is the most competent member of the team, while Aiko has already demonstrated her great salesmanship abilities
Doremi offers some excellent faces after learning she’s the made-up “stage manager.” Of course, knowing her, she’ll still manage to screw up this fake job
Aiko nails her role, as expected
The doves escape Watabe’s hat, which actually gives Doremi something to do. Doremi is still a dork on the whole, and not naturally good at much of anything, but she really has become a lot more confident and competent over the course of these episodes. We’re a long way from Doremi using magic to “save the day” and almost killing herself as a result
This is a great conceit – Watabe’s tricks keep screwing up, so Doremi “fixes” them, but in a way that always flies straight past “believable sleight of hand” and well into “that’s just actual fucking magic”
Aiko attempting to cover as MC is also great. There’s an inherent satisfaction to watching these girls perform roles outside of their usual comfort zones
With basically every trick screwing up, I have to at this point assume Watabe’s hat is a Bad Item. That could also explain his father’s bad back
Watabe panics and heads backstage. It doesn’t matter that the audience is eating it up, he knows he’s a failure, and that his tricks aren’t actually succeeding on his own merits. Watabe’s turning out to be a very sympathetic guy – he’s cocky, but his cockiness is always based in his genuine confidence in his skills, and he’s not happy to have someone else make him look good
“If you believe in your own powers, I’m sure you too can create miracles!” God, Doremi really has come into her own as a heroine. We’ve now had several episodes where Doremi saves the day not through magic or the help of her friends, but because she herself is a compassionate person who has at last learned how to act on her feelings of concern for others in bold, effective ways. These speeches wouldn’t feel nearly as impactful if Doremi hadn’t taken such a long and winding road here, but now she is a convincingly heroic leader who really is a pillar of her community
Wonderful buildup for his final trick. We see this one at the same pace as the audience, with a focus on the building anticipation, smoke, and sounds of the theater space
And our girls head off to the talent show with… four and a half minutes left in the episode. Plenty of time!
“What is this? The witches are all drunkards.” Aiko, if I could just cast magic and laze around all the time, I’d probably embrace the lifestyle too
Majo Rika is dubbed “the shame of all witches” for her performance, which is harsh but fair
Oh man, this is great. So of course all the literally magical tricks garner boos from the audience, because this audience of witches can perform all those tricks – but actual sleight of hand and stage magicianship are a genuine mystery to them. A neat way to sell our girls’ new talents
Haha nooope, they end up just actually using their parents’ dorky tricks. Well, I feel like stage magicianship would have tied the episode’s threads in a knot more succinctly, but this is fine too
Okay, Hadzuki’s trick is at least stage magic, if of a particularly rudimentary variety – pretending to “spin her head” using a black cylinder. I love the detail of the Queen herself trying to copy Hadzuki’s trick
And now we get the tying together, as Doremi repeats Watabe’s “magic is creating miracles in the blink of an eye” speech. I’m sorry I doubted your commitment to tightly composed narrative craft, Doremi
I’ve said this before and I’m frankly not sure how useful it is as instruction, but stories are like songs in many ways, and major dramatic refrains that are only used once tend to stick out. That can be either a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s something you need to be aware of. If you want your story to feel fully formed and natural, as if it’s being told the way it was always meant to be told, you need to create a sense of synchronicity throughout the narrative, and also make sure all those major threads are tied together in a final bow
Doremi’s trick is the classic “my finger stretched,” except sold with unwavering stage confidence. Get ‘em, girl
And Done
Aw jeez, what a charming, fun episode. Once again, we found ourselves with an episode that wasn’t composed around any single overarching moral lesson, but which nonetheless was rife with compassionate little reflections on what we owe to each other, the joy of helping others, and the importance of trying even when you don’t feel confident. Watabe turned out to be a very endearing addition to the class roster, and Doremi’s big motivational speech felt like a fantastic payoff for how much she’s grown over this series. Our girls feel like true heroes now, and it’s wonderful watching them make their world a better place.
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