Ojamajo Doremi series
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Ojamajo Doremi's musical theme is also reflected in its logo
is a magical girl anime series that has obtained wide popularity among young girls in Japan. Its popularity rivals that of the also popular Sailor Moon in the mahou shoujo (magical girl) genre of Japanese animation. Over four television series, the Ojamajo Doremi metaseries is currently the longest running magical girl franchise with a total of 201 episodes. There are four television series, two movies and a thirteen episode OVA in the metaseries. A manga adaptation was published by Kodansha written by Izumi Todo and illustrated by Shizue Takanashi.
Story
The series anime focuses on two main themes. The first is the heroines' efforts to become skilled in the art of magic, and secondly the friendships and relationships between them in the human world. In Majo-kai, the world of witches, they focus on fighting enemies, the Queen's fearful predecessor, or hostile wizards. In the human world however, they use their magical talents to help those in need. Being trainees in magic, their powers often do not immediately provide a solution to their problems. In the end, the primary moral of these stories is not about power, but about kindness and compassion.Series
There are four story arcs to Ojamajo Doremi.
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Continuation
- Ojamajo Doremi: After Onpu falls asleep because she did performed forbidden magic, the girls try to wake her up by using the banned magic themselves. The Queen punishes them and takes their magic away (The magic is given back by the Queen herself to allow Doremi and other girls protect the new-born baby Hana in ♯.)
- Ojamajo Doremi ♯: Hana becomes ill and the only possible way to save her is a magic flower that blossoms only in Majokai. Unfortunately the flower is cursed and the girls fall asleep one after other. Finally Doremi, before going to sleep, gets the flower and Hana is saved.
- Mo~tto! Ojamajo Doremi: With the help of the new Ojamajo Momoko they wake up the Ancient Queen. The Ancient Queen is angry and sad with humans after having lost all her sons and daughters and her husband, but Doremi convinces her that inside her heart she still has beautiful memories of them. Ancient Queen Maho Tourbillon remembers the happy times she spent with her family and the cursed wood retreats.
- Ojamajo Doremi DOKKA~N: After Doremi and the girls wake up the Ancient Queen in the end, she cancels the "Grenuille spell" that makes a witch turn into a frog if discovered. The Queen reveals her true personality as Yuki-sensei and asks the girls to make a decision: becoming witches or returning to human world. Doremi in the name of all her friends says that they prefer to go on living as humans even though they must renounce to their mystical powers. They split from Hana, who becomes the new Queen of Majokai, and prepare for their last day at Misora Elementary School. In the last chapter Doremi feels very sad, because she doesn't want to separate from her friends, and instead of going to school she stays in Maho-Do. All of her schoolmates go to visit her and remember how nice she was and the good things she did, and Kotake his friend that was always chasing her admits that he loves her. It's only Hana in the end who makes Doremi go out, or else she will reveal her magic powers. The last scenes are from the girls retrieving their degree at Misora Elementary School with the song "Watashi no Tsubasa" (ending of Dokkan) as ambient music. Aiko returns to Osaka with her parents, Momoko to New York and Hana to Majokai, the last image we see are Doremi and her friends together with a phrase by Doremi "I'm already not the world's most unfortunate girl, I'm just the happiest girl in the world...."
- Ojamajo Doremi Na-i-sho: Doremi meets Faami Harukaze, a girl that looks like Doremi but with longer hair. She introduces herself to Doremi as her future granddaughter (although the identity of the Grandfather is never revealed). In the end Faami gets a typical Japanese doll from Doremi and we see that Faami herself is also a witch. This OVA raised a kind of speculation about Toei working on a new Doremi fifth season with Faami and her new Ojamajo friends, but up to now nothing has been revealed by Toei.
Adaptions
In Japan, Ojamajo Doremi has aired on each of the ANN TV stations (Asahi Broadcasting Corporation (ABC, Japan), TV Asahi, Nagoya TV (Metele), and others) and Broadcasting System of San-in Inc.. Ojamajo Doremi is produced by Toei Animation and ABC.
In North America, 4Kids Entertainment has licensed the show under the title Magical DoReMi, which is currently airing on 4Kids TV since September 10 2005.
In Korea, Magical Remi airs on Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation and Tooniverse, licensed by Iconix Entertainment. Other countries' companies to license the series are France Fox Kids, Germany RTL II, Italy Italia 1, Mexico Unicable, Spain Fox Kids, Portugal Canal Panda and [[2:]], Taiwan [YOYO TV], Hong Kong TVB and a network of regional stations.
In the Italian version, each of the main character's names has been changed to suit the musical theme.
Locations
Misora is a hilly city. It was a castle town of the Misora feudal clan towards the end of the Edo era.- Misora First Elementary School: The elementary is on a hill with views of the sea. The girls' school is the location of many problems that the heroines try to solve. Across all series, the heroines attend school here from 3rd to 6th grades.
- Maho-do: Majo Rika's shop which was redecorated and is now managed by the ojamajo. Initially selling magical items, the shop was transformed into a variety of stores, remodelled into a flower shop at one stage and reopened again as a sweet bake house.
- Majo-kai: Access to the Witches' world, Majo-kai, is through a door at Maho-do. Initially the girls attend their tests here. It is ruled by the queen and her council of twelve elders. It can only be accessed at certain times of the month, although it is not linked to the lunar phases.
Themes
- In Japan, the show's name combines the terms Ojama (clumsy) and Majo (witch) in Japanese and is initially a derogatory term that Majo Rika uses in frustration. Eventually the term is used to refer to the girls as apprentices.
- Musical Theme: There is a strong musical theme throughout the series. The heroine's name in the Japanese version is Doremi, (Dorie in English) borrowing from the Solfege system of note learning in music. In the United States, the title was slightly altered to Magical DoReMi which reflects the three dubbed names of the heroines (Dorie (Doremi), Reanne (Hazuki), Mirabelle (Aiko)). The fairies' names also reflect the Solfege, each being named after a note. The transformation that the girls perform must be completed before the transformation music stops to prevent it from failing. In Mo~tto! and Na-i-sho, the transformations involve clapping on parts of the body in time with the music for the transformation to succeed.
- Fairies are granted to the heroines after passing their level 9 (being the lowest level) tests. Bound to the magical power of their master, they are initially inept and grow along with the girls. They can transform into the same form as their master but cannot speak, but eventually they will learn to transform into others. When they are within their magical spheres they cannot be seen except by the girls.
- In the original series the fairies are seen in the eyecatch along with the magical register which is given to the girls at Maho-do. The register acts like a cash register and can produce cards.
- Magical Stage (Perfect Harmony)(マジカルステージ): Produced when the ojamajo summon it together in order to use more advanced and powerful magic.
- Banned magic: Healing wounds and reviving the dead is prohibited. Tampering with the mind of a person is also prohibited, but there are several instances were a mild type of tampering is left unpunished, usually because it had positive effects. Also, using your powers for selfish reasons is allowed as long as you don't make any harm. Penalties can be assigned from the queen of the Majo-kai and one of the most severe punishments is to be put to sleep for one hundred years. Majoruka has an amulet that protects against being sent to the magic world for punishment.
- Magical Wands are used to cast magic using the power of magical balls. Each one has an incantation which is specific to each wand. The wands appear when buttons on a colorful dial are pressed, each button again representing a note on the Solfege. This dial has been released as a toy and is referred to by Bandai as a Dreamspinner. Bandai have also released the Wandaler which reflects the style of the original wands and the Wandawhirl, which resembles the wands in the second half of the first story arc.
- Magical balls are the currency of the witch's world, as well as the source of magical power for apprentices. Items of the human world can be exchanged for magical balls. The importance of an item sets the exchange rate. Second level magic balls are introduced once the ojamajo have passed their sixth level test and Doremi # introduces two more types of magical ball, which are referred to as magical seeds. Each ordinary magical seed has the magic power of about 50-100 magical balls. The Royal magical seeds however has the power to summon magic as strong as a magical stage with one girl's power rather than all of them dancing to summon the magical stage. But the royal seeds only grow every ten years from the tree of life, so therefore the girls were only permitted to use it when they are protecting Hana-chan from the evil wizards.
Voice actors
Momoko, Aiko, Doremi, Hana, Hazuki and Onpu from Ojamajo Doremi Dokkan
Japanese seiyū
- Doremi Harukaze (Chiemi Chiba)
- Hazuki Fujiwara (Tomoko Akiya)
- Aiko Seno (Yuki Matsuoka)
- Onpu Segawa (Rumi Shishido)
- Momoko Asuka (Nami Miyahara)
- Poppu Harukaze (Sawa Ishige)(In one episode, Yuka Shino took over this role)
- Hana-chan (Ikue Otani)
- Majorika (Naomi Nagasawa)
- Lala (Megumi Takamura)
- The Queen of the Witch's Land (Credited as a question mark "?" throughout most of the series, revealed in episode 50 of the fourth season as Yuka Imai)
- The Queen's Predecessor (Mika Doi)
- Keisuke Harukaze (Yuta Mochiduki)
- Haruka Harukaze (Yuka Shino)
- Miss Seki (Nanaho Katsuragi)
- Miss Yuki (Yuka Imai)
- Tetsuya Kotake (Kumiko Yokote)
- Reika Tamaki (Ai Nagano)
- Masaru Yada (Nami Miyahara)
- Nobuko Yokokawa (Kyoko Donowaki)
- Yuji Sagawa (Reiko Fujita)
- Yutaka Ota (Noriko Fujita)
- Toyokazu Sugiyama (Reiko Kiuchi)
English voice actors
| Korean voice actors
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Songs
| Opening themes | Ending themes |
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Manga
Kodansha published six volumes of manga which span several story arcs.1st Story Arc
2nd Story Arc
External links
- France
- [magicaldoremi.net] A French website that is also in German and English.
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