Folks, it is absolutely time for more Ojamajo Doremi. After basically gorging myself on the show for two weeks following a windfall of Doremi funding, I have at this point taken a week and a half off from the production, which I feel is more than enough time to grant me the perspective of distance. And what this perspective of distance tells me is: Doremi kicks ass. The show has been a visually engaging, charming, and emotionally rich production from early on, but the introduction of Onpu actually seems to have taken the show to a whole new level. Recent episodes like the level four exams and the sentai spectacular of last episode stand among the best in the series to date, alternating between beautiful magic world adventures and sensitive personal dramas.
Though Doremi still struggles with each new exam, we’ve at this point moved past our leads generally failing to use their magic effectively. Their magic actually works now, and though magical stage’s solutions are often a little circuitous, the growing competency of Doremi and her friends is enabling more and more ambitious and fanciful stories, as they pull off tricks like summoning an entire friggin’ kaiju. Between that and Onpu’s growing prominence, I’m very excited for whenever our young witches actually clash. But whether we’ve got that, Doremi’s exam retake, or something else entirely coming, I’m pumped for more Doremi. Let’s get right to another episode of this lovely show!
Episode 43
I actually haven’t even started the episode yet, but the thumbnail is a smug Tamaki face. This is gonna be good
We open with some lovely fireworks, leading into Tamaki standing with a man I assume is her father. I take back the smugness – Tamaki looks genuinely, honestly happy here, and not just lording her superiority over someone else. Is this finally the episode where Tamaki’s feelings are actually respected, and she gets humanized a bit more overall? I’M VERY EXCITED
And we open with Aiko complaining about another fight with her dad. The two of them share a uniquely level relationship, which we may be comparing with Tamaki’s very different family life
“You fight because you’re on good terms.” Doremi casually articulates what might end up being this episode’s thesis
Another classmate arrives by car – Shiori. She seems to be having a fight with her father as well
Looks like she was genuinely out for a while because of illness, which explains why we haven’t seen her in class
“Tearful Memories of Papa and the Fireworks.” Hoo boy
Shiori gets a perfect score on her test, prompting some ribbing from the near-perfect Tamaki
Doremi’s hair-orbs deflating when she’s sad is an extremely good gag
Those hair orbs really are something, incidentally. Doremi has an utterly unrealistic hair style, and it gives her a fantastic cartoon profile – you can pretty much always pick her out in a crowd at any distance, an important feature for a cartoon heroine
Tamaki makes some grumbling about the legitimacy of Shiori’s score, but no one supports her. It feels like Tamaki’s support within this class has eroded steadily all through this show – these classmates are just too kind and earnest to really be caught up in her social games
Shiori’s dad teaches cram school
They start talking about the relative strictness of their dads, and Tamaki keeps trying to one-up them. This is the quality they’ve successfully mined for silly conflicts in the past, but here, it comes across as particularly desperate. There’s a sadness in Tamaki’s poise, and I’m hoping we finally investigate it
Adorable shot of tiny Doremi being taught to ride a bike. Apparently Doremi’s hair orbs grow along with the rest of her
“My dad had private instructors teach me all those things” Tamaki says, not realizing how sad this statement is
Her classmates point out that this isn’t a good thing, and Onpu delivers the finisher with a cold-ass “maybe your father doesn’t really love you.” Oh Onpu, you are genuinely terrible
Tamaki sinks into a depression, represented by a literal spiral in the background. Doremi’s aesthetic looseness once again lets it get away with a pretty visually disruptive trick, as it literally shrinks Tamaki’s layer over the spiral
“How can my papa not love me? He gives me everything I want.” Tamaki is catered to, but her insecurity here implies she doesn’t possess a genuine closeness with her father
“Onpu went a bit too far with what she said.” ‘Don’t assume others are emotionally strong just because they put on a strong front’ is also a good lesson, though I doubt Onpu would care either way
A tense piano melody for Tamaki’s home confrontation. Really appreciating the uniquely close focus of this episode – we’re not learning about Tamaki in a general sense, we’re sitting on her shoulder and hearing her thoughts through an extremely stressful personal incident. I appreciate that all the time we’ve spent with Tamaki as an antagonist has actually facilitated this episode’s ability to so closely focus on one moment in her life
She breaks her father’s favorite vase just to provoke a reaction, but he remains calm. If he actually loves her, why doesn’t he actually care about her actions or behavior?
Having failed to make her father genuinely engage with her, she runs off, and finds Shiori in a similar position
Doremi gets excellent dramatic mileage out of the bridge over this one river in the middle of town. It shows up again and again for key dramatic moments
Seki-sensei once again going beyond the call of duty in organizing a search for Tamaki. Pay teachers more!
It feels pretty unrealistic to conscript the other classmates into searching for Tamaki, but I suppose this is the cast we have
Oh my god tiny bunny outfit Tamaki I was not prepared
SHE SPILLED COFFEE ON HERSELF THIS EPISODE SUCKS
So after injuring her as a very young child, her father vowed to never make her cry again. His position is perfectly understandable
Tamaki’s own insecurity about her father spoiling her is also understandable, because her classmates basically taught her that discipline is the essence of true love, but he doesn’t actually seem like a bad dad in any way
This episode ultimately might be less about teaching her father restraint, and more about assuring kids that even their parents’ discipline is an expression of their love
There’s also the matter of different cultural expectations when it comes to parenting. Corporal punishment has been pretty much entirely rejected in my country, but still seems pretty common in Japan. Sequences which play as “wow, that parent went over the line” to an American audience might just be intended to illustrate firm parenting here
“Everyone, go back home and wait.” The idea that an entire class of elementary schoolers would be summarily dismissed to make their own way home at night is also pretty funny from an American perspective, where we are utterly terrified of strangers and demand chaperones at all times
Magical Stage totally phones it in this week, straight-up giving them a compass that points to their destination. “Maybe they could like… summon a dog that… chases them to… ah fuck it, I’ll just give ‘em a map”
Stuck in Tamaki’s empty villa, Shiori’s fever returns. Her father was right to prevent her from coming here
I suppose that’s the most direct and unimpeachable moral: “even the times your parents prevent you from doing what you want are often an expression of their love and concern”
“We can’t use magic to heal her, but we can use it to help them with other things!” Doremi is being uncharacteristically clever and competent this episode, likely because the Shiori-Tamaki story takes up so much space in the episode that there’s not enough spare time for Doremi to screw up. Kinda funny how pacing concerns can affect things like characterization in this way
Doremi being way more excited about turning into a cockroach than the other two gives me strength. I love how much fun Doremi always has with their dumb adventures
It’s also wonderful seeing Tamaki get a chance to be the hero. She’s petty and self-absorbed, but she still wants her classmates to be safe and happy
Doremi helpfully attempts to warm up Shiori by burning the house down
“Beautiful fireworks, fire up!” From incompetents who occasionally got something right, Doremi and her friends have become genuine guardian angels of her whole class
“Your father loves you more than anyone in the world.” Good. It wasn’t really her father who had to make a big personal transition here – it was simply that Reika needed to understand her father genuinely loves her
And Done
Alright, a genuine Tamaki episode at last! And a pretty unique episode at that, one specifically focused on the bonds between parents and children. While I wasn’t a fan of this episode’s use of corporal punishment as a general stand-in for stern parenting, the bond between Tamaki and her father still rang true, and it was great to see Tamaki both working through complex insecurities and also eagerly helping her classmates. And watching Doremi totally kick ass as Witch Team Captain was great too, even if I fully expect her to return to incompetence next time. Seeing these characters grow and move outside of their comfort zones is a wonderful experience!
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