Let’s settle in for another episode of Ojamajo Doremi! The show’s last episode was pretty much textbook Doremi, balancing goofy adventures within the main cast around a sturdy character study featuring Yamauchi, one more of Doremi’s consistently well-realized and multifaceted classmates. That in turn resolved into a simple but solidly articulated lesson regarding the nature of grief and guilt, offering comfort for anyone who’s said something cruel or regrettable to a loved one in a difficult moment.

Yamauchi’s story was a little more abridged than many of Doremi’s character stories, but there was a very good reason for that: a great deal of the episode was mostly just about reveling in the fun relationships between Doremi’s various classmates. One vignette at a time, Doremi has steadily built up a roster of well over a dozen unique and engaging classmates, and at this point, simply putting a group of them together in a new setting like “graveyard test of courage” offers inherent dramatic rewards all by itself. We know and like all these kids, and throwing one person we know and like next to another one just to see what happens has been a time-tested formula for character drama since characters experienced drama in the first place. Episode twenty-nine (the Doremi horse episode) offered a terrific example of what happens when Doremi just leans into its ensemble nature for madcap thrills – in contrast, episode thirty demonstrated that Doremi’s increasingly ensemble nature can be just as useful for more somber and personal stories. Ojamajo Doremi just becomes richer and richer the more it builds up its larger cast, so I’m happy to see it putting that investment to use, and ready for whatever’s next. It’s time for some mediocre magic with the ojamajos!

Episode 31

Oh nice, it looks like we actually are getting another character story – our cold open introduces us to Shino, as well as a young boy on a horse who rides up to give her a doll. Doremi is good at a lot of things, but these character vignettes are its bread and butter – emotionally rich, dramatically diverse, and generally centered on thematic points that range from classic children’s story morals to surprisingly nuanced points about life and loss. They raise Ojamajo Doremi from a compassionate and very engaging work of entertainment to a genuinely important creation. I can think of few callings more noble than creating works which help children make sense of the world and come to care about each other

And we open the episode proper with the introduction of the Level 5 exams. I’d originally assumed these various rank exams would help offer some overarching dramatic structure for Doremi, but that’s turned out to not be the case at all. While we’ve had multi-episode conceits like the Majo Ruka arc and our current Pureleine business, the actual witch exams have pretty much always been either episodic larks or afterthoughts appended to the end of entirely unrelated stories

And in a way, given how Doremi’s own priorities have played out, that makes sense. This isn’t a story about the dazzling wonder of magic, this is a story about normal people solving relatable problems with a dash of magic sprinkled in for spice. Focusing on the mechanics of magic here would be prioritizing the garnish over the steak

Doremi is disheartened by Rika disparaging her chances, but brightens at the chance to mock Pop for not being able to stay up late. How many times must this happen, Doremi. How savagely must you be dunked by your sister for you to learn that you will never, ever win these exchanges

Lots of great Doremi faces to open us this week

Majo Rika has Pop’s back even as Pop treats her like a stuffed animal. See Doremi, there’s no beating this girl

“Presents from Mongolia.” Well, that’s unexpected

Apparently we’ve arrived at the end of summer vacation. Ojamajo Doremi strikes a pretty nice balance of continuity and self-contained storytelling – there is definitely a sense we’ve been moving through the year, but that’s just a reward for people who’ve been watching consistently, not a requirement to engage in the drama. Lots of works have to maintain some balance of continuity and accessibility like that, and “reward long-time fans without punishing new fans” is generally the (not always practical) rule to go by

I like the stylized perspective of this hallway shot. The show in general is often able to get away with some evocatively interpretive background art due to its generally loose, picture book style

Tamaki impressing everyone with her souvenirs from Paris. Some very convincing “wow, your dad must be famous!” children’s dialogue here

So here’s Shino, who is indeed a member of the class. Her friend from the opening must be Tamila

Shino’s tidy Mongolia lesson and news of her vacation pull focus from Tamaki. Uh oh

TAMAKI CAN ALSO READ FOREIGN WORDS. Okay good, this is a bit, not a conflict. “Tamaki is jealous” seems like a weak place to take this

“What’s wrong?” It is basically always Hadzuki who offers this line, and first notices one of their classmates is feeling badly. I really like that – not because it reflects well on Hadzuki, but because it reflects compassionately on the other girls who don’t do that. We’re not all equally emotionally intelligent, we’re not all great at noticing when others are in pain, and the fact that Doremi and Ai are less good at this than Hadzuki is never used as any sort of disparagement of their character

Goddamnit Tamaki is back we really are doing the jealousy storyline

“I wish she would shut up.” Yeah, this segment isn’t the best so far. Tamaki’s a petty and self-obsessed person, and you can use that to either express growth or generate comedy, but here it’s basically just being used to create arbitrary friction. Some characters really get screwed that way – hated by audiences because some author forced them into a naturally abrasive dramatic position

“This was Tamila’s only toy.” Ooh, this I like. A very specific conflict – being given a gift that’s simply too nice, and not knowing how to respond. Tamaki’s presence is also beginning to make more sense, since she could definitely learn from this situation

Shino thanks her useless friends for their terrible advice

And the girls head off to outright ask Tamila what present he wants in return. I love their well-intentioned bad ideas

Some nice embellishments for today’s bank footage, courtesy of the late afternoon sunlight

They perform the ritual, ask “what does Tamila want,” and nothing happens. A fairly clear lesson, but of course our girls aren’t ready to learn it quite yet. And oh shit, they just used their last magic spheres

Majo Rika is highly impressed by the sight of Doremi and the other girls making a bunch of clay stars with a mold, which mostly just leaves me with the impression that Doremi’s crew are the least capable employees of all time. No wonder Rika was happy to have Pop join the team

A nice reprise of Hadzuki’s absurd cat eyes

“I know, let’s ask Oyaji!” “That was a bad idea.” Amazing comedic timing on this. If Oyaji just exists to show up for eight seconds and immediately be shot down, I am way more on board with his character

The show attempts to create a moe Rika and lands somewhere between vaguely unsettling and horrifying

“What’s wrong, Doremi?” It’s so nice that Pop can directly contribute to the main Doremi narratives now

We get a surprisingly contemplative set of cuts leading into the exams. Normally, this show doesn’t really spend full scenes on introspective worrying like this, particularly for a conflict as plain and tangible as “we need spheres.” Focusing on Doremi and the others’ sense of genuine entrapment here makes that entrapment feel real to us – conflicts are only as insurmountable as shows tonally sell them to be

Their test is to use magic clay to create what the two test-givers desire. So I guess this episode’s overall theme is “learning to understand what other people want,” split between two half-sized conflicts in the mundane and magical worlds

“You should find out using magical stage!” Oh no, their cover!

I feel like the most clear place this could end up would be the answer being “nothing,” because the magic lesson they have to internalize is that it’s best to avoid solving problems with magic if at all possible. That also applies to the Shino narrative, so it seems like a tidy direction to take this

“Can you give us a hint about what you want?” “It’s this feeling.” (Moto and Motomoto wiggle indistinctly, it’s unclear what point they’re trying to make)

Is it… is it back scratchers???

Okay, so the answer is back scratchers, but in a way that also reflects on the episode’s larger points. The fact that Doremi was so confident and so wrong, but still managed to make the test administrators happy, reflects how we often let our own preconceptions getting in the way of listening to what other people want

Oh my god, this Doremi slumped in bed is so perfect. What a great pose, what a universal mood. Love the music here, too

The most recurring visual motif for Mongolia has been that grand blue sky

Through carefully examining Tamila’s postcard, they realize he must have run out of colored pencils. A graceful illustration of how taking an interest in the lived experience of others can enrich your relationships with them

And Done

Huh, that was an interesting one. Structurally, it pulled something a bit similar to last week’s episode – this was essentially two half-episodes that each prioritized one of Doremi’s main pillars, splitting the difference between magic and classmate drama. Unlike last episode, however, the two priorities here reflected each other directly, and the ultimate resolution of the classmate drama built naturally out of the ending of the magical material. That said, the split focus also meant this episode’s character story was a bit more simplistic than many others, lessening its emotional impact. A sturdy but middle-of-the-road episode altogether, demonstrating Doremi’s eternal consistency and regular charms!

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