Dear lord am I ever happy to return to Ojamajo Doremi. I don’t yet know when you’ll be reading this, but as of today, I just finished writing my way through a hellish weekish and a half that included around twenty preview guide premieres, a Crunchyroll column on top of that, and two sprawling, confessional essays on Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion. It was almost certainly the most writing I’ve ever done in a single week, and I’m frankly still not through – I can’t really justify pausing the Current Projects for another weekend, so as of Thursday morning, I need to write three Current Projects articles and my next Why It Works column by some time on Sunday.
But as of right now, it is absolutely time for Ojamajo Doremi.
Watching this episode will technically fulfill one of my Current Projects obligations, but more than that, I need something I genuinely love and that always tends to bring me peace, and that is absolutely Doremi. This show is so charming, so visually engaging, so fundamentally thoughtful and kind. Last episode saw our heroes learning just a few of the many complex responsibilities of parenting, as they worked to take care of a baby with more magical energy than all of them put together. Hana-chan’s powers thus served as a clean metaphor for the emotional experience of parenting – you run yourself ragged, while your baby always seems to have more energy, demands, and tantrums ready. Doremi and the girls did the best jobs they could, handling their new responsibilities with diligence and pride.
It was an excellent episode on the whole, but after two episodes of establishing the season two premise, I’m kinda hoping we get to check in with Doremi’s classmates again. Either way, I’m sure we’ve got an endearing and thoughtful journey ahead of us, because goddamnit, this is friggin’ Doremi. Let’s see what episode three has in store!
Episode 3
We open with a shot of the moon, which has a big happy smile on its face, because this is Doremi and things are good here
The gentle linework and light pastels of this sequence create a wonderfully soft, dreamlike atmosphere. It looks like Pop is kneeling on a bed of fluffy marshmallows
And she’s praying for a way to stay up so she can take the witch apprentice exams! Aw jeez, this show is too good to me. A Pop episode and an exam episode at the same time? That is far too powerful of a combination
They’ve been seeding this episode ever since Pop became a witch apprentice, too. We jump from Hana-chan’s intro directly to one of the show’s surest dramatic payoffs
The new way to enter the witch world is a fountain with a built-in waterfall in the back of the shop. The Ojamajos are moving up in the world
“Making magical goods was fun, but selling gardening stuff seems like it’ll be fun too!” The girls are about to experience the harsh reality of moving from a captive market to a highly competitive field. Kevin O’Leary would not have approved of this business shift
It’s really nice to return to this show’s energetic and carefree multiplanar layouts and animation. We get these neat cuts of the girls sliding into frame in front of and behind each other, an effect that’s a little ostentatious in terms of how it draws attention to their animated nature (since they’re sliding as if they’re being pushed, not convincingly “walking” in and out of frame), but which creates significant visual energy and a sense of bustling drama. Ojamajo Doremi is far more willing to make choices that draw attention to the fact that it’s a fabricated cartoon than many anime, and as a result, it can take advantage of a wider range of visual tools
Nice little cut of Pop peeking over Hana’s crib. The obviously artificial animation tricks are balanced by this show’s consistently excellent character acting and expression work
Pop ends up waking the baby by playing with her
“Don’t Fall Asleep! Pop’s Apprentice Exam!” Hell yes I’m ready
The grand opening of the flower shop serves as an excellent excuse to naturally reintroduce Doremi’s classmates, as they all offer character-establishing reactions to the flowery wares
Tamaki’s intro involves her briefly being pompous and then swiftly getting owned, which pretty much covers it
Once again, Pop isn’t really considerate of the baby, carrying her up to the store roof. Her actions seem very true to life – young kids often have trouble setting aside their most immediate instincts to be considerate of the needs of those around them, and Pop wanting to play with the baby, and thus assigning her desire as something that the baby will also enjoy, feels like a natural illustration of that. Young kids often have difficulty separating intention from result – she’s not trying to do something inconsiderate, so she can’t realize she is
Granted, a lot of adults also have trouble separating intention from result, given how often they use “but I didn’t mean to offend you” as if it were a meaningful defense
Onpu’s the only one who notices Pop seems to be troubled, but she has to go to work
“I have to change my ways for her to like me?” Doremi is far more amenable to the lesson Pop actually needs to learn
Pop’s situation is also specifically reflective of gifted children, who often have difficulty when they first run into hurdles that demand they adjust their natural instincts
“I didn’t think taking care of a baby would be so expensive,” says giant idiot Majo Rika
Pop now learns of the witch exam coming up, but presumably these last couple days have shaken her self-confidence. She’s not used to not being good at something
And so she hatches her plan – she’ll take care of Hana for the night, since nobody who’s taking care of a baby can sleep through the night anyway. Brilliant work, Pop
As much as I love the witch world segments, I’m beginning to suspect Pop’s actual exam will simply be surviving this night
We get a lovely shot from above the Maho-dou, showing off its new greenhouse wing
The layouts of this segment are terrific. Lots of unique angles conveying the new architecture of the Maho-dou, with shots aiming over the flower displays of the shop proper, or down through the branches of the tree out back. These shots essentially place us in Rika’s perspective, quietly supervising Pop’s trials
She’s crying and she won’t stop. Lala and Rika have fallen asleep, but suddenly Onpu arrives
I like the choice of making the equally proud Onpu be the only one to realize that Pop actually needs help. This is a great moment of vulnerability for both their characters, and Onpu is integrating wonderfully into the general group dynamic, while still maintaining her own separate life and personality
“So you’re Hana-chan’s big sister for tonight.” What a great phrasing choice by Onpu. In order to teach Pop responsibility and the need to prioritize the desires of a young child, Onpu frames that process in terms of something Pop has always coveted, since Doremi will forever be the big sister of her own family
Onpu is a seriously relatable character for me – attuned to people enough to potentially be psychologically manipulative, but trying her best to use that skill for good
Onpu sings a lullaby. I like this quick beat of her unconsciously setting the tempo with her hand movements, since she’s used to being cued as a professional
This show has some transcendent moments. We hear the whole song, the show wisely letting this personal moment of bonding for Onpu and Pop play out in full. This is one of the best things about anime’s approach to storytelling, in contrast to conventional western storytelling – a willingness to live in a single beautiful moment, and explore that moment, instead of being bound by a need to continuously hit the next narrative bullet point
“I stayed up all night! And it’s all thanks to you, Hana-chan!” That’s one of the things about caring for a child – you learn you’re far stronger than you ever expected, because you simply have to be
God, the direction of this episode is so damn dynamic. I love this sequence of Pop activating the fountain, as her feet lightly touch on a pool reflecting the moon, and then we see her on her broom in a dramatic shot from behind
Welp, that makes sense. Along with Precure mainstay Takao Iwai, this episode was co-directed by Shigeyasu Yamauchi, one of Doremi’s most brilliant directors. His style of turning character art and environments into one contiguous, evocative layout, and his talent for bombastic visual framing that naturally creates a sense of great dramatic consequence, is clearly on display here
Pop ends up falling asleep, but when Hana wakes up and causes a milk typhoon in the Witch World, she saves the day
Pop gets to skip straight to level 6 apparently, which makes narrative sense. Time for Pop’s fairy!
And Done
Ah, Doremi. That was an excellent episode, and demonstrated more vulnerability and committed effort from Pop than I think we’ve ever seen before. It was also a great episode for Onpu, and that lullaby scene they shared easily counts among this series’ most beautiful moments. On top of that, this was also an incredible bounty of visual riches, as the Iwai-Yamauchi combo resulted in an episode full of both experimental, composition-focused layouts, and also lots of smart tiny cuts that lent a sense of continuous movement and dramatic consequence to all of the episode’s turns. Ojamajo Doremi might be a pretty good show, you guys.
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