Let’s check back in with Ojamajo Doremi! Doremi’s show is one of the few good things in this sunblasted hellscape of a modern world, and I’m always happy to have a chance to stop in with her and the girls. The show’s new arc hasn’t really proven itself yet, and has in fact made some pretty awkward choices so far, with the most glaring being “adding a second annoying mascot character who’s also a horny old man.” “Horny old man characters” and “inspiring and emotionally educational shows for children” don’t really seem like a natural mix to me, but everyone who’s watched Doremi says the show actually improves over its running time, so I’m not worried this will really derail anything. I’m more just curious as to when this new “Bad Item” arc will actually start paying off, and what form that payoff will take.
The main issue I have with Doremi at the moment is that all of its witch world conflicts are far less interesting than its mundane classroom conflicts, because they’re invented magic-centric conflicts with no relevance to anything outside of themselves. Issues like “Majo Ruka has stolen the shop” and “we need to seal these Bad Items” possess no inherent thematic or emotional weight – the show can give them that weight, but it’s starting from a more arbitrary position than a conflict like “Hadzuki needs to learn boundaries regarding making her friends’ choices for them.” But Doremi has found resonant emotional material in unlikely places before, so I’m eager to see how it handles this new challenge. Let’s get right to the next Ojamajo Doremi!
Episode 28
Starting by panning down a night sky… what’s this, Doremi and a BOY?!?
Yep, Doremi’s in love again. Time for some more romantic misadventures
Opening with some dynamic new close shots around Doremi’s house, building up energy and placing us in Doremi’s head as she prepares for a trip to Hadzuki’s villa
Pop foregoes an invite to Hadzuki’s villa, preferring to instead savagely dunk her sister for her lack of an army of boyfriends. Pop, not all of us can utterly conquer the world by the time we reach preschool
This episode’s layouts feel a little more dynamic than usual for Doremi – at least in this scene, the way they’re using Doremi and Pop’s locations relative to the house’s set of stairs offers some distinctive tiered compositions
“Love is a Windy Ride Over a Plateau.” It’s time to achieve your dream, Doremi! No, not the steak dream, the other dream
They arrive at Hadzuki’s villa and Majo Rika almost immediately blows their cover. I still think these guys should have just jumped ship for Majo Ruka
Majo Rika says they’re on the plateau now. Is some specific plateau-filled area a big vacation destination in Japan?
They run into Tamaki at the tennis court, because I guess this is where all the rich kids go
Tamaki starts throwing around class trash asking what hovel they’re staying at, but fortunately Hadzuki is absolutely ready for a rich-off. Gotta work on that ojou laugh, Hadzuki
Hadzuki totally screws up by acting humble, but luckily her friends are there to brag about how big her house is for her
Some very good faces for Tamaki here. The smugness is clear, but also the low cunning
Ai actually trounces Tamaki at tennis, and so Tamaki shifts her line of attack to “it’s not feminine to be so athletic.” Man, Tamaki sucks
The cute boy is Yutaka Kashiwagi
Tamaki is a jerk, but watching her try to outmaneuver Doremi for this boy’s affection is pretty great. This episode’s focus on extreme closeups continues, and is perfectly matched by Tamaki’s extreme expressiveness
It looks like Yutaka may actually like Ai, for a pretty obvious reason: he’s here to play tennis, and she seems to be the only one of them who doesn’t suck at tennis. Chew on that one, “athleticism isn’t attractive” Tamaki
I wonder, does this actually count as a “Tamaki episode”? Normally a character’s focus episode is when we explore their internal world and find a reason to sympathize with them, but so far, Tamaki’s just been a strict antagonist here. I wonder if they’re saving her emotionally resonant material for later, or if they’re fine with the dramatic usefulness of having one character just be the class jerk
Ahaha, they give Tamaki a mouth-person for exactly one frame. They’re certainly having a lot of fun with her as a goofy antagonistic, which is actually its own way of making her an endearing and sympathetic character
The eyecatch reminds me we’re not actually seeing pervy old man at all this episode, which I certainly appreciate. I guess he’ll only be showing up for Bad Card-specific episodes, and the show will be weaving those in among its other stories
Yutaka takes the girls to his family’s blueberry fields. This boy is too accidentally smooth
“Lala Smash!” Oh my god, Lala’s pulling off Prince of Tennis moves. This show is too good to us
Yutaka and the girls admiring the stars. He pulls out his special charm, and tells a story about how it helped his upperclassman confess to the girl he liked. Jeez dude, no brakes on this train, huh
OH MY GOD THESE GIRLS ARE SUCH GOOD WINGMEN. “You sound like you fall in love easily, but can never confess. I guess you and Doremi have a lot in common”
Aw man. Ai and Hadzuki set the two of them up perfectly and then make themselves scarce, but of course Yutaka and Doremi are both too shy to say anything. THESE GIRLS ARE TRYING, YOU IDIOTS
Yeah, it’s clear that Yutaka actually likes Aiko. And they’re also setting up Yutaka himself as a sympathetic character, with the theoretically untrustworthy “all my confessions get interrupted” now being given believable solidity through its real-life reiteration here
The girls wonder whether Yutaka’s lucky charm is actually a Bad Item, and thus decide to summon the Pureleine Computer. Welp, speak of the devil and he appears
Aaand Oyajiide immediately breaks into a rant about how he wants to leer at the beautiful girls playing tennis. Who the heck thought this character would be any kind of positive addition to this show? No other element of this show possesses this style of otaku-focused comedy – everything else seems intended to directly speak to its principal audience of young kids. So what is this guy doing here?
After a couple unfortunate minutes of arguing with Oyajiide about finding cute girls and invading the women’s locker room, the gang discover that Yutaka’s charm is indeed a Bad Item. Time for some bank footage!
Welp, the team gain their first win. I’m still not really convinced this whole Bad Item deal is a good turn for the show, but here at least it did add some dramatic structure to a template that was otherwise mostly just having fun with the various relational dynamics of the three main girls and Tamaki. If the Pureleine narrative allows more loose storytelling like this, I’ll be pretty happy
Doremi awkwardly trying to maneuver Yutaka’s declarations into a conversation that somehow ends in him confessing to her is a little heartbreaking
This is very nice, actually. The show plays up the drama here for a moment, but Yutaka’s a decent guy, and he steers the conversation towards his feelings for Ai very naturally
And then Ai rejects him because he doesn’t like her bad jokes. Ai is so good
And Done
That episode was pretty interesting! In terms of its actual dramatic content, it definitely wasn’t a stunner like Ai’s harmonica or Hadzuki’s puppy, but it also clearly wasn’t trying to be. This episode felt more like the first straightforward execution of Doremi’s “new normal,” its default mode now that we’re including the Pureleine material. And as far as that goes, I really liked how this episode was able to use the Pureleine conceit simply to offer a slight turn in a narrative that was otherwise mostly about celebrating the friendship between the three leads. Ironically, adding such a plot-focused device as the Pureleine may actually let the rest of the show get a little less plot-focused, which sounds like an interesting shift. Regardless, it looks like next episode is some kind of festival, so I’m very ready for whatever’s coming!
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