Recently, someone asked me to do a paradigm breakdown of the super niche anime Ojomajo Do-Re-Mi. I never actually finished this series, and it’s been years since I watched it. I have been making an effort to get far enough into the show in order to write a representative paradigm breakdown, but felt compelled to write a little about how magic in general is portrayed in this anime. 

General Story

Harukaze Doremi is a third grade elementary school student who is obsessed with witches. She thinks that magic would solve all of the problems in her life. Her little sister doesn’t respect her. Doremi is generally clumsy and not good at a lot. Even though she has had a lot of crushes, she has never once successfully confessed her feelings. 

On the way back from school, she discovers a shop and a suspicious woman—who checks every box that Doremi read in a very suspicious ‘Witch Profile’ book. In this setting, discovering a witch’s identity as a witch and breaking her cover turn witches into ‘Magic Frogs.’ (Curiously, the ‘rules’ in this book seem more true than false…but there is not any reason given why at the point where I am at in the first series.) This witch then makes Doremi her apprentice, hoping that Doremi can reverse the curse once she becomes a fully fledged witch. 

Thus far, the story has followed the troubles of Doremi’s classmates. Without fail, Doremi and her fellow witch apprentices always get involved and try to solve the issue somehow with magic. The three main witch apprentices are also tasked with helping the Witch-Turned-Magical-Frog Majo Rika (Witch Rika) with running her store so she can train them. The girls must go through a total of 9 exams in order to grow in their power and become full witches. 

Witches are Meddlers

This is a universal constant about witches that this show gets 100% correct. If there is one thing I know about all witches universally, it’s that they think their ideal version of reality is far better than the one that we actually have. Witches are nosy. Witches are always getting into the business of others, and think they are the ones who should fix things. The more emotionally invested a witch is in someone…the more likely they are going to stick their nose into anything involving them. 

As cringy and goofball as it seems…this portion is 100% correct about every single witch I have ever met. And I know that I’m the exact same. 

This is one of the reasons why people who cross witches can have such a huge twist in their luck after that betrayal. It’s not necessarily a curse or even a hex. But, it’s the result of a witch taking back all the beneficial magic she cast on that person’s behalf. And that’ll look like a huge turn of bad luck and disaster in some cases. 

Emotion as Currency

This is overtly stated in one episode. The value witches see in something is related to how much it is treasured or how much attachment people have to it. This is similar in a few ways to the setting in Sugar Sugar Rune. Magic runs on an energy currency (in this world it is magical spheres) and the emotions of humans have values assigned to them in one way or another. 

Thus far in Ojomajo Doremi this was illustrated with a child’s favorite hand-me-down shirt, when it was assigned a value of a whopping 20 magical spheres. 

Raising Familiars

Apprentice Witches receive a baby fairy after passing their first exam. It’s their job to raise this fairy, and teach it. As in real life, you can only get back what you put into a familiar. You can’t take the lazy way out and expect a very strong, super competent familiar that is very loyal to you. 

You can see this in contrast between the relationship between Doremi and Dodo as opposed to Aoi and Mimi or Hazuki and Rere. Even the harsh Majo Rika is shocked that Doremi would scold her baby fairy right away instead of teaching her properly. 

At the same time…maybe you should have said something about that first Majo Rika. Hard to say, because Majo Rika sometimes forgets to say important things, but Doremi is also awful at listening. 

Thoughts

It’s fun to see several occult ‘truths’ presented in a show like this, and I am looking forward to getting far enough in the series to do a paradigm write up.