We return at last to Ojamajo Doremi! It’s been a little while since I spent time with these ojamajos in the real world, and I am beyond happy to return. This is my first Doremi post of 2018, a year that I’m hoping will somehow turn around the global inferno that was 2017, but considering this year started by the heat dying in my apartment followed by a blizzard sealing me in my apartment, I’m not entirely optimistic.

Enter Doremi as a ray of sunshine, a show that’s still charming and well-crafted and full of heart no matter how bad things are out there. Doremi’s last episode saw the show seemingly jumping subgenres entirely, as the introduction of “bad items” and “bad cards” offered Doremi a dash of Card Captor Sakura. I’m not yet sure what to make of Doremi and her friends being dubbed Pureleine card-hunters – I generally prefer when the show’s drama focuses more on grounded human problems than fanciful issues specific to the witch world, and this whole bad item business seems as fancifully arbitrary as they come. But I highly doubt Doremi could have given up its moral ambitions partway through its first season and still be considered such a classic, so I’m less worried and more intrigued as to how these new elements will interact with the existing formula. And either way, Pop is still a magical girl, so I don’t really get any more narrative requests for at least another season. Let’s dive right in to one more episode of Ojamajo Doremi!

Episode 27

Some new yellow mascot creature appears! Presumably this creature will be their guide to being Pureleine, since I can’t imagine Majo Rika actually possesses any useful knowledge of any kind

Welp, they seem to follow the same “grumpy, goofy, animal-form old person” mentor model as Majo Rika, at least

It’s interesting to consider the specific roles elderly adult characters are often granted in children’s shows, roles that are often categorically different from the narrative positions offered to young or middle-aged adults. Younger adults are most often framed as authority figures, which makes sense – in children’s actual lives, their closest adult relationships are generally with their parents and their teachers, both of whom represent clear authority. This natural state of affairs means it can be tricky to give children guides and mentors who can engage with them on an equal level, and share in their personal worlds and adventures. But elderly characters are often framed very differently – taking the roles of indulgent grandparents, they can engage with kids on their own level without fundamentally changing the tone of a production in the way having a parent present might. Grandparents can indulge kids, validating their fantasies and sympathizing with their feelings, and thus even when that role is assigned to inhuman mascot characters like in Ojamajo Doremi, those characters still evoke the sense of bumbling, cozy old age, as opposed to confident adult authority

And we open the episode proper with a flashback to the queen explaining the Pureleine. More narrative continuity than we normally get; I guess the show really is going all-in on this card collecting thing

“The Arrival of Oyajiide.” More emphasis on the old-person framing of this new character

And we check in back at the shop, where Pop is hanging out with the rest of them. It’s an inherent joy to have Pop now be an active part of the team, casually hanging out with the main girls and their teachers

The Pureleine Computer seems to be about on the level of those “computers” that have six buttons which all make farm animal noises

Personal computers were still kinda niche for Japanese kids when this came out, huh. I know personal computers and general computer savvy took a bit longer to become ubiquitous in Japan than over here, but I’m not really sure of the precise timeframe

The old man mascot dude is in the computer. Oh god, he opens by hitting on Majo Rika’s fairy. Is he actually going to be a dirty old man character, this show does not need a dirty old man character

Alexander Oyajiide, a wizard. Wizard? There are wizards in this world? Do they just occupy a parallel world to the witch world or something? This is probably not a productive line of questioning

Suddenly I realize that the entirety of Cinema Sins’ oeuvre is the result of lacking the voice that tells a media critic “this is probably not a productive line of questioning.” It’s an important voice!

Silly faces are doing their best to elevate material that is one hundred percent worldbuilding-based exposition, something that Ojamajo Doremi rarely has to care about

I’m glad someone recognizes the absurdity of assigning three young witch apprentices this Magical World Cop job, even if it’s just this shitty old man

Okay, so wizards also live in the witch world. Long live the matriarchy

He was a phantom thief? Just what kind of world is this?

Dang, human-form Oyajiide was hot

“No, I can understand how he feels.” Of course Rika sympathizes

“It’s like a match made in heaven.” Yesss, snarky Pop. So nice to have Pop around to simply offer commentary like one of the other main characters, as opposed to having most of her dialogue wrapped up in whatever episodic conflict she’s appearing for. Giving side characters episodic conflicts can definitely help flesh them out, but such narratives and episodes often feel significantly different than a show’s neutral mode. Just having characters be around for other stories and offering their own thoughts can really humanize them in a very distinct way

“But just how do you plan to find them?” So now Pop is the character who brings the others down to earth. It makes sense; Hadzuki’s theoretically the “bookish” one, who generally takes the “I’m not sure this is such a good idea guys” role, but in practice she’s possibly the most impulsive and emotionally driven of the three. Neither Ai nor Doremi (well, especially Doremi) are particularly suited to being the voice of reason, either

It feels like this episode has unusually subtle expression work. Or maybe I just feel that because it’s been so long since I watched this wonderfully expressive show

The girls head out to… advertise their item-checking service. Good luck

Welp, that sort of worked. Now the Maho Dou is filled with everyone’s garbage

A nice subdued version of the OP song accompanying their Bad Item search

This episode’s definitely leaning a bit too heavily on canned jokes. The Bad Item scavenger hunt just isn’t that compelling, so the show’s relying on gags that can’t really carry the weight

Hadzuki’s dad apparently works in film in some capacity

Oh hey, they actually changed the eyecatches! I guess last episode really was a season turning point, which matches both the narrative and the fact that we’ve gone through half a year’s worth of weekly episodes. Very nice to see Pop graduate to eyecatch participation

Hadzuki’s dad seems nice. He’s the director and clearly distracted, but he rolls with Hadzuki’s appearance gracefully

It seems her dad has stopped filming due to the scene missing something. Her friends reassure her that it’s not her dad’s fault, it’s a Bad Item. That makes me hope it isn’t a Bad Item, because learning our parents can make selfish mistakes like this seems like a much better lesson than “a wizard did it”

Nice comic progression of the girls trying a million items

I’m still not really impressed with this whole “Bad Item” turn, though. Inherently arbitrary nature of witch world conflicts aside, “put items in front of a screen until one of them is bad” is a style of conflict with no dramatic interplay, no stakes, no path of investment. The girls will just fail to find the right item until the narrative decides they need to find it, and then that’ll be that. It’s about as groundless as conflicts and conflict resolutions can get

It feels like they updated the bank footage? Hadzuki’s transformation looked a little different than usual

“Since Hadzuki says so, I’ll listen to you and use yours.” GOOD DAD

“It’s a bit flowery for papa.” I’m gonna have to dock you half a point for always referring to yourself in the third person, but you’re still a good dad

Wow, great reaction shot for their failure here

Oyajiide wants them to check the cute actress’s outfit. How can we make this guy leave

Oh my god they make such cute fireflies

There’s no Bad Item, but their appearance as fireflies actually makes Hadzuki’s dad’s shot work. That’s a pretty clever resolution

And Done

Well, that wasn’t really the best episode. It was very fun hanging out with Doremi and her friends again, and I’m happy to see Pop gets to maintain her elevated position in the narrative, but the show still hasn’t sold the usefulness of Bad Items in improving the show’s drama. On top of that, Oyajiide just kinda sucks; the last thing this show needed was a pervy old man character, and having that pervy old man actually dictate the narrative progression is doubly frustrating. Still, Doremi is still a fundamentally charming show, and it’s looking like next episode will return us to the girls’ school. I’m excited to get back into episodic classmate conflicts, and ready for whatever else the Doremi future will bring!

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