After watching Shugo Chara and not being happy with the direction the anime went in, I was on a quest to find another magical girl series to capture my attention again. One that had more female characters, to be specific. Watching AMVs on YouTube to pass time when I should have been studying, there was a clip I recognized, and did some digging. During my search, I learned the show was called Ojamajo Doremi, remembering that I had watched it years ago on TV.
Content Warning: Kidnapping | Spoilers for Ojamajo Doremi
Ojamajo Doremi is a series about a group of witches in training.
The series starts when Doremi is forced to become a witch’s apprentice because she accidentally turned the witch into a frog. The series follows the main characters as they go through girlhood and learn more about the world and themselves. All while facing the responsibilities of being a witch. I had seen the English version called Magical DoReMi on 4Kidz Entertainment a few times on television and enjoyed it for what it was. I found that 4Kidz didn’t adapt the entire series and even changed numerous aspects of it. Disappointed, I decided I wanted to know more about this series.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, YouTube wasn’t as strict about copyright as it is now. YouTube was where plenty of people, including me, went to watch anime. Someone uploaded the entire series on the site, and that’s where I was able to watch the series before it got taken down. Companies weren’t wrong for having their shows removed from YouTube because it was a case of piracy, and they have the right to push back against that. Many of the series uploaded to YouTube ended up finding new homes on Crunchyroll and other streaming services. Ojamajo Doremi was one of the few to get left behind.
As stated earlier, when Ojamajo Doremi was available to watch legally in America, it was dubbed by 4Kidz.
While I am not someone who takes an issue with dubbed anime, the anime dub felt a bit disrespectful to the original series. For one, 4Kidz changed everyone’s names. Instead of their original Japanese names, the characters were given American and European names. The English dub did everything it could to make the series look like a town in America than in Japan. They erased Japanese writing in the backgrounds and cut scenes.
4Kidz Entertainment did change scenes and dialogue as well. There was one particular episode that got changed entirely, “Hazuki is Kidnapped!”. Hazuki, the best friend of the main character Doremi, was kidnapped by two men as a way to get money out of her family. The English dub changed the entire episode by rewriting the script to make it seem as if Hazuki were spending time with her family. This change was entirely inappropriate because of the sensitivity and seriousness of the subject matter. Because of all the modifications made, the English dub felt like a mockery of the original series.
Aside from the questionable fifty episodes we did get in English, you couldn’t really watch it, legally, to be specific.
That was pretty much all we had to view the series in America back then. Now, even the 4Kidz Entertainment version isn’t available. While you can buy physical copies of the series, they’re very expensive. Stock is limited because copies are no longer being made. This show is basically inaccessible from an ethical standpoint.
Fast forward to the 2020s, and there are only a few official releases for Ojamajo Doremi. A 2-minute-long anniversary special, a music video, and tons of merchandise. Most of the news nowadays about this series is about merchandise. The most recent update we have received regarding the production is that there will be a new short. But I have gotten to a point where I don’t want the merch. While I appreciate that there will be a new short, I just want to be able to watch my favorite childhood anime again.
All this new memorabilia feels hollow. Fans can’t revisit what made them fall in love with the series in the first place.
Sure, people share photos from the series all over Pinterest and Instagram. Even I play the theme song for the third season in my YouTube videos because of how much this series means to me. It’s frustrating enough for those who grew up as fans; it is difficult for this production to gain new fans because there is no way to stream or rent the series in most countries. And piracy isn’t something to promote. There is only so much people on social media can do to show their appreciation for it. Because, at the end of the day, we can’t watch it.
Sometimes, it’s hard being an Ojamajo Doremi fan.
