夏目友人帳 陸 / Natsume Yuujincho Roku / Natsume’s Book of Friends Six

Natsume Yuujinchou continues to be a slightly-under-the-radar success story in Japan. I see toy Nyanko-senseis all over the place, but I have to say even there, I’m not sure if they know the character or just bought what they thought was a cute generic cat. Certainly there are a lot of fans watching this anime, going to the themed cafes and buying the figurines, but it simply doesn’t feel like a big anime, in the way that Yuri on Ice or Attack on Titan do.

Yet it’s continued into a sixth season now, sadly only 11 episodes but going strong. No cute fox-boy episode this time, but a lot of new development for Natsume himself, then interesting twists at the end where Natsume finally shares the secret of his book of friends with another human, plus starts to think about his grandfather.

The show remains episodic, of course, as it always has been. Natsume and his supernatural friends help out more interesting youkai, from a funny old fellow who leaves flower patterns on rocks and has lost his apprentice to an interesting crow-boy who fell in love with a human but left her without closure – only for her to trick him in a fun reversal of the usual folklore stories.

The art has settled now – it doesn’t have its own clear style, but it always looks pleasant. Something that wasn’t guaranteed in the first couple of seasons. Natsume is pretty and likeable and oddly touchy-feely with his friends and mentors in this season – perhaps aimed at the female fanbase.

There was very little real development except in the final double-episodes here, but Natsume is getting inexorably drawn into the world of the exorcists – and I want to know what happens when he can no longer escape their pull. 

夏目友人帳 伍 / Natsume Yuujincho Go

Quietly, without causing many ripples and certainly without grabbing the attention of the Western anime scene, Natsume Yuujincho has become one of the most important and successful animes of the decade. Last time I was in Animate, Ikebukuro, the café was themed for the show. I probably see Nyanko-sensei charms hanging from young people’s bags more than the mascots of any other show – though it’s possible some were bought without actually knowing the character, just as a cute cat. But the anime keeps getting renewed, almost to the point of being a long-runner. The fifth season ended a few weeks back, and the sixth is already announced for April. It’s also one of the very few shouji titles where there are plenty of figurines available – usually it’s only the extremely homoerotic shows like Free! and Kuroshitsuji that get figures.

I have no complaints. I really enjoy this show. It was more of the same, with a few more kernels of information about the wider society of exorcists and a bit of backstory for Natsume’s adoptive parents, and some kind of season finale rather than a slow ‘Natsume gets sick and the ayakashi contemplate how ephemeral human life is’ episode would have been nice. I was also a little sad the whole season went by without an episode with the Little Fox, the show’s most adorable character, but Natsume himself had plenty of adorable moments.

Perhaps the cutest episode centred on a little girl youkai searching for a man who was kind to her fifty years earlier, another iteration of the show’s recurring theme of time seeming different for beings who exist for millennia. There are also several funny and memorable youkai this time, from a funny babyish giant bird to little rabbit-type spirits and a funny stubborn mushroom with big dreams. One nice episode focuses on a youkai trying to blend into normal human society, though of course it’s never quite possible.

The pace remains slow and the show always subtly celebrates a traditional, unhurried, community-based Japanese lifestyle, which really helps give a feeling of softness and warmth to everything. Natsume himself is certainly a feeble and unthreatening protagonist, but it’s hard to dislike him. If anything, he makes people want to look after him.

Slow, soft, enjoyable but sometimes hilarious, Natsume Yuujincho is a show I’ll watch as long as they keep making it. 

夏目友人帳肆 / Natsume Yuujinchou Shi / Natsume’s Book of Friends season 4 (plus OVA)

It’s been two and a half years since the end of Natsume Yuujinchou season 4, which is the longest gap yet between seasons, with only the OVA about a weird snowman creature at the beginning of this year since, but I’m still hoping there’ll be more made yet, because I very much enjoy this world, these characters and the bittersweet atmosphere throughout.

As I made clear in my reviews of other seasons, this is actually where I began watching. I simply assumed the action started in medias res and until the appearance of Natori – clearly known to Natsume but lacking a proper introduction – I didn’t even realize I hadn’t started at the beginning.

So yes, the first and the last Natsume Yuujinchou I saw was from this season, but I don’t regret that. I saw some of the best episodes early on, because this is a good series and I’m glad I got hooked. The extreme cuteness of the opening sequence helped, too – because it, like much of this season, is focused on finally fleshing out some of Natsume’s past.

There are plenty of smaller-scale episodes: one with a little furball resembling a tribble, one where Natsume gets shrunk and put in a jar so Nyanko-sensei has to go to school looking like him. Then there’s a slightly more serious couple of episodes where he has to impersonate a god and take part in a contest to prevent an environmental disaster.

But the heart and soul of this season are links to Natsume’s past. Links through old friends and old mementos, but chiefly a visit to his old home, where he once lived with his late parents. It’s very sweet, really – this somewhat damaged young man who now has good friends thinking back over his difficult past. He was always ostracised for his strange behaviour when he was forced to interact with invisible spirits in front of other people. He made the other kids in his foster homes ostracise him and would often disappear. His coming-of-age story is particularly significant not just because he found a loving home – which is touching enough – but because he’s also at an age where he can have a degree of independence. He may well still behave oddly at times, but he doesn’t need to be protected so much.  

While this is progress, it still feels like there’s a whole lot of real story yet to be revealed. I know there’s a manga to read, and one day I may go seek it out. But I’d like to see more animated. Brain’s Base got progressively...gentler with how they animate this show. Things looked more and more clean, smooth and delicate and that made things just a little prettier with each season.

We still have more to learn about Natsume’s parents, about the guild of exorcists who have taken an interest in him, and of course – though we may never get there – whether or not Natsume will keep his end of the bargain up when it comes to giving Madara the book when the time comes. It would be a very sad epilogue if the series ended there, and I don’t think it would need to, but it could certainly be very affecting done well.

I grew to very much like this anime over its four seasons. I sincerely hope I get to enjoy more. Especially of the lil’ fox boy! GODDAMN HE’S TOO CUTE.

夏目友人帳 参 / Natsume Yuujinchou San / Natsume’s Book of Friends season 3

I didn’t realise until I went to Japan a couple of months ago how popular Natsume Yuujinchou is over there. With Nyanko-sensei toys in every arcade, little models everywhere there were gachapon and the manga prominently displayed in bookshops, it was probably the most visible I’ve seen any non-Jump anime be there since I went over at the height of Fullmetal Alchemist’s popularity – and it doesn’t have the hot-new-property quality Danganronpa had when we visited last year. 

The fact is that the funny fat cat who acts like a petulant middle-aged man and the pretty-boy sidekick who is meant to be the show’s main character clearly resonated, and the show is more successful than I had realised.

And yes, I got a couple of little gachapon toys, featuring both Natsume and Nyanko-sensei.

Series 3 was effectively more of the same, but there were subtle changes, both in presentation and in story. The art seems to be simpler and effectively looks cheaper, yet somehow small changes have made Natsume himself look much cuter. 

The series isn’t scared of broaching homoerotic elements, while trying desperately to avoid being vulgar about them, for example by letting Natsume be possessed. We also see more of Natsume’s lonely, misunderstood past, and the overall message of the show – especially its final episode – that it’s good to have friends and comrades is sweet. Even if they’re a bunch of weirdoes. 

His human friends are also given greater insight into how he lives, now, especially those who also have some sense of the supernatural, and essentially this is a series about strengthening bonds.

Gotta say, though – sorry, humans, but when your bonds are with hilarious huge-faced spirits and giant awesome horse-spirits, that’s gotta stand for something.

There’s also an episode devoted to the ridiculous adorable little fox character, learning to stand up for himself and rely less on others – though he still has his enormous boy-crush on Natsume, bless ’im. I’d happily watch a whole anime about fox-shota adventures, but I’m afraid that’s not really what’s on offer, haha.

If there’s a problem with this series – and especially having already watched half of season 4 by accident I know this won’t be rectified – it’s that there’s no real progression. The show has always reminded me a lot of Kekkaishi, which similarly suffered from stagnation, but at least Kekkaishi felt like there were big loose ends dangling that needed to be tied up, and immediate tensions with Yoshimori’s family members. 

With Natsume Yuujinchou, there’s the huge question of what happens if Natsume returns all the names – not that I think it’s even vaguely likely that Nyanko-sensei will truly become a vengeful murderous beast, formidable though his true form may be. I like this set-up and I’m actually a little upset that it will come to an end because it’s so fun and comfortable to watch, but before too long I’ll think the show really needs a strong direction to head in, and the only way I can think of for that to happen is for the tensions between Natsume and the organised exorcist household to really come to a head.

続夏目友人帳 / Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou / Natsume's Book of Friends Continued (Season 2)

Perhaps appropriately, given that it is the only season to be titled as a continuation rather than being given a number like a sequel, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou is the only time a season starts without an opening episode that repeats the exposition to explain the premise...which is why I didn’t notice when I started watching season 4 that it wasn’t the beginning.

The second season is really more of the same. It kicks off with an imitator of Nyanko-sensei, who turns out to be a powerful youkai, and generally the series goes on exploring Natsume’s situation and developing his relationships extremely slowly. We also begin to have the theme of everyone else but Natsume wanting to choose a side – abandoning humanity to spend time with the youkai like his grandmother Reiko, or treating them like tools or animals like the exorcists. 

There are even humans who will use a youkai as bait to catch another. Natsume spends more time with the famous actor Natori – including a hot springs trip with him, a new level of homoeroticism. Otherwise, things are generally episodic again – Natsume might buy a painting that turns out to be the object of obsession of a kind-hearted spirit, or meet an old lady who met a mermaid in her youth and fears she cursed another with immortality.

Though the cute fox boy is not back in this season, he will return in the next. Instead, there’s a little dragon-boy who hatches from an egg who is quite absurdly cute – especially as powerful demons want to eat him – and another somewhat emo young spirit whose name was taken by Reiko and tied to a tree. 

There’s also a very interesting young boy called Kai who is prickly but of course warms to Natsume – and in the two-part season finale turns out to be more than he initially appears. His design seems almost a nod to Mushishi, but grey/white hair and a fringe that covers one eye isn’t exactly unique. It’s a little unconvincing how he departs to neatly round off the story, but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.

As the series gets closer to the present day, the animation marginally improves, but it’s never really what one would call stunning. Still, Brain’s Base get the art style nicely, and a slightly less bombastic style suits it.

The only thing I’m starting to find unconvincing is that Natsume’s supposed spiritual power manifests generally in one punch to the face whenever he’s in trouble, and that always seems to sort out even the most terrifying threat – before, of course, Nyanko-sensei intervenes.

I suspect that looking back, I’ll consider season 2 the most underwhelming of the Natsume Yuujinchou seasons, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless, and will happily continue with season 3.

夏目友人帳 / Natsume Yuujinchou / Natsume's Book of Friends: Season 1

As I said in my thoughts of Genius Party, I had a weird start to my experience of Natsume Yuujinchou. I started watching season 4 without any idea it wasn’t the beginning. And the odd thing was that it took until episode 6 for me to realise that I wasn’t watching from the beginning – because there was clearly a backstory to the relationship between Natsume and a celebrity with a moving birthmark/tattoo that I hadn’t seen. Every other relationship – from the cat to the more minor friendly spirits to the schoolfriends – I could take as natural elements of a story starting in medias res. Which, I suppose, is a sign of some very good writing. Or even if it was just me being dumb – by the time I got that far I was hooked.

Natsume Yuujinchou is the story of a boy with the power to see spirits. One day, one of the more powerful of them becomes Natsume’s ally and Natsume is drawn to their society while at the same time having to be aware that nobody else around him can see what he can. So far, very Bleach. But the execution is very different, in part because this is a shoujo series, not a shounen one – though it blurs the lines. If I were to compare it to any other series, it would probably be Kekkaishi, with a similar relationship with a protective spirit, family tradition and much emphasis on a rather goofy teenage male protagonist and how he interacts with his peers – rather than how much butt he kicks.

Though he has had a difficult time as a child, passed between family members and foster homes as his ability to see things creeps people out – a bit of a Sixth Sense backstory – Natsume has mellowed into a pleasant boy who doesn’t want to cause problems for others. But from his grandmother, who had the same ability but spent her life challenging spirits, he has inherited the ‘book of friends’ – a list of the names of spirits. These names allow the owner to summon and command the powerful beings, and though it doesn’t seem Natsume’s grandmother ever used the book for that purpose, it is a valuable relic and in the wrong hands it could be a terrible thing.

Into Natsume’s life comes a mischievous spirit who is arguably the series’ main draw, the childish, vulgar, impetuous and selfish spirit Madara, who takes the form of a fat cat and so gets the nickname of Nyanko-sensei. This cute, beckoning cat-style guardian spirit offers protection to Natsume in exchange for getting the Book of Friends upon his death, in a somewhat less creepy echo of the central relationship in Kuroshitsuji. His cat form is a kind of brilliant ugly-cute and his grumpy old man personality hiding a formidable power is a classic of Japanese storytelling, as seen everywhere from Toshiro Mifune characters to Muten Roshi in Dragonball. And, of course, Yoda. He’s hilarious and a key part of the series’ appeal.

Once the set-up is dealt with, the series becomes largely episodic, not too far from Mushishi in terms of Natsume encountering new spirits and hearing their stories, then sorting them out. He doesn’t travel much, but sometimes he’ll go to, for example, an old abandoned train station his grandmother went to once, and there discover a spirit that needs to be reconciled with his friend but has been waiting for decades for Natsume’s grandmother to return. In a way rather reminiscent of Western cartoon writing, these little stories will also be framed by something to parallel them in Natsume’s life – like friends in his school needing to reconcile. It’s neat, it’s simple and it’s very, very cute.

Not everything is episodic. Many characters recur, especially significant humans – we’ll see more of the exorcist, as I mentioned. Natsume’s schoolfriends stay in his life, especially one who has some small power to see spiritual elements: the season finale centres on Natsume’s developing kinship with him, which borders on the homoerotic. Significant spirits also come back, from comedy mid-level, rather bureaucratic spirits to a huge horse-like spirit who becomes a strong ally. There’s also the heartbreakingly cute story of a lonely little fox spirit, who is saved from bullies by Natsume and begins to hero-worship him. It’s absurdly cute and made my man-ovaries squeal. Dammit, I’m still too young to want kids, especially fox-spirit kids. But oh lawd, that kid was too goddamn cute.

I wouldn’t have been satisfied with just these 13 episodes. The story barely seems to have gotten going, there was no overarching plot to this particular season (ie not the same one that runs through the entire story) – but of course there are three more seasons to watch, so that doesn’t trouble me. And I think that if the story isn’t satisfactorily wrapped up, I’m going to have to read the manga. Because though I can’t say the series stands out in terms of animation, character, concept or performance, I became really emotionally attached – and that’s the most important thing.  

おジャ魔女どれみドッカ〜ン! / Ojamajo Doremi Dokka~n!

Though of course it can’t compare with how the kids who grew up watching this series felt, I was sorry to see Ojamajo Doremi end. It couldn’t have lasted as long as fellow Toei animation One Piece of course, and nor should it have, but I actually hold it in higher esteem than predecessors like Sailor Moon and Digimon. Ojamajo Doremi had so much heart it was deeply touching, and if ever there’s a revival, possibly adapting the still-ongoing light novels, I will certainly be there for it.

Unlike Mo~tto, I didn’t rush through Dokka~n, partly because the translators were still working on it (and their work is much appreciated!), but also because I was a little resistant to finishing the show and knowing there was no more of this sweet, relaxing series for little girls.

Previous series have in large part relied on the introduction of new witch apprentices to mark the start of new eras. Dokka~n does this too – sort of. In the beginning of the series, little baby Hana, heir to the throne of the witching world, decides she is fed up of being a baby and uses magic to make herself an eleven-year-old. A stubborn baby, she thus must learn to fit in with the structures of Japanese elementary school society alongside the other girls while of course still having the mind of a toddler – and some formidable magic powers. Doremi and the gang must care for her – and at the same time continue to work to free the former queen’s predecessor from her enchanted sleep by delving into her past.

The series is paced very slow, but that is no negative point. After all, this series is at its best when it is focusing not on progressing the main plot – though there are very lovely moments in it, not least the point where the curse on magical frogs is lifted – but on peripheral stories. Aiko and her parents’ broken relationship continues to have the series’ heaviest punches, but begins finally to shift towards a happy ending now. New focus falls on classmates like the one with social anxiety and the one who loves to write books about the people she knows, which make for very sweet asides. Cuter still are the little episodes of puppy love, and the not-quite-confession in the last episode is one of the cutest I’ve ever seen. Perhaps I’d like more of Akatsuki and the FLAT 4, who are barely seen this time, but they are perhaps distracting from the more interesting real-world stories the girls face. Onpu has to face failure for the first time. Hazuki knows that going to a specialist school is the best for her, but has promised Doremi she’ll go to middle school with her and is now in a difficult situation. Momoko is faced with the prospect of going back to America, and even if things go Aiko’s way, that may mean returning to Osaka. There are a lot of goodbyes to be said – and if they all decide to become witches after all, the girls must leave behind the human world altogether.

Of course, all this builds up to that staple of Japanese series about friendship between students – the tearjerker graduation episode. Doubled, because there’s also the ‘graduation’ of witch apprentices to full-blown witches to consider. As graduation episodes go, this is one of the best ones, a superb mix of melancholy, dramatic gestures and humour. It makes for a very powerful episode, and one that made me smile throughout.

Weaker parts of the season include the need to have another ‘shop’ gimmick, and having run out of things like flowers and cakes, the girls decide to try making tapestries, which is not the most dynamic or identifiable of activities. Then there is Hana’s pet baby elephant Pao, which is occasionally cute but mostly annoying, and solves the pecuniary problems of the Maho-Dou by...well, upon vacuuming up dark energy released by the former queen’s predecessor through its trunk, pooping out little golden pellets. That’s...that’s charming, that is.

But Ojamajo Doremi does one of the things that is a staple of why I love anime: it starts with the big premise, the girl who stumbles upon a witch and ends up having to become a witch apprentice, and then after being given plenty of time to breathe and develop, becomes about having to separate from your friends, learning parental responsibility, coping with your parents’ divorce and early romances. That’s not something you see in many cartoons, and it’s to be treasured.  

ふしぎ遊戯 / Fushigi Yuugi / Mysterious Play

Oh my, I’ve neglected this blog recently. Apologies for that! On the plus side, a few days ago I passed 100,000 views, which is always nice! Anyway, to today’s impressions – which this time are of the classic series Fushigi Yuugi.

Like several other anime I’m writing about at the moment, it took me a long, long time to get to finishing this 1995 series and writing my thoughts. I think I started to watch it in 2006 or 2007, when the first thought I had of this story about two girl transported into a mysterious world by a magical book and ending up leading legendary warriors into battle was of how strange and jarring the rhythms of the humour were. When I saw Teen Titans, it struck me that the sudden goofy swings between realistic and silly SD styles that were meant to be tributes to anime were a little off – but Fushigi Yuugi showed me that I had simply not been watching the right shows, for the same odd, jerky, often ill-timed changes were here, too. But the story was a simple and effective one and I found the characters very interesting – Tamahome with his skilful fighting and that kanji character on his forehead; Chichiri with his mysterious powers, funny way of ending sentences with ‘-no da’ and awesome hidden face; cross-dressing, clownish badass Nuriko and, eventually, adorable little Chiriko. Miaka was a likeable enough protagonist and the rivalry at the centre of the story was compelling. The antagonists also had some good designs and some interesting stories, especially Amiboshi and the psychotic Nakago.

However, by 2010 I had tired of it, finding it quite embarrassing to watch anywhere but in the comfort of my own home: an episode I watched on a train on March 31^st contained ‘attempted rape, girls restrained in underwear, twin boys kissing and lots of clothes getting ripped up’. This may have been a simplification, but it spoke to the reasons I became a little uncomfortable with Fushigi Yuugi and how it was written. I don’t mind the reverse-harem in shoujo action series, especially when the characters are as rich as these. I certainly don’t mind homoeroticism. But more and more, Fushigi Yuugi reminded me, of all things, of Twilight (though obviously predating it by years). The depiction of the female characters did not sit well with me – they were always damsels in distress, needing rescuing or getting abused. Again and again, the spectre of rape rears up – invariably as a horrible fate that is actually quite thrilling when narrowly escaped. Sex is treated as something very special and reserved for just one person, which I thought a positive message, but it is also presented as quite titillating to be treated as an object – if only for a while. Plus, while I liked Amiboshi and his story, the way identical twins were treated came over as very patronising and immature, making them seem at best like doppelgangers who sap the energy from one another, and at worst like sexual curios bound to be thought of as incestuous.

And, quite honestly, it all got rather dull towards the end, with it becoming increasingly apparent that the antagonists, the Seiryuu Seven, had no hope at all of prevailing, and that Yui was mostly just bonkers – again, rape or the impression of rape the rather cheap catalyst. The art was not terrible but the animation had dated very badly by the time I saw it, and while the voice acting was very strong, several of the voice actors still being very prominent today (Chichiri’s has been in everything from One Piece to Full Metal Panic to Lucky Star. Tamahome’s was Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing. And I find it hilarious that the voice actor for the emperor Hotohori went on to voice Excalibur in Soul Eater), the dialogue was often utter drivel with far too much of Miaka dramatically yelling out various names. It’s also painful when subs don’t get the nuances of ‘okama’ (here: the misleading ‘homo’). Still, I watched to the end happily, and there were tragic moments that were really very well done.

What delayed these thoughts by several years was having to watch the OVAs, which I really didn’t enjoy. The first batch were anime-original stories, and apart from some entertaining omake at the end of the episodes, they were very dull stories about Tamahome living in modern-day Japan and then mysteriously disappearing. Confusingly, the second batch went back to the stories from the light novels and this time, Tamahome is reborn as Taka, and must regain his memories of his old life. The final set of OVAs were a little better – by 2001-2, Studio Pierrot were able to make rather nicer animation, and these episodes, especially in the faces of (older) Chiriko, the young reincarnation of Hotohori and Hotohori’s little brother, reminded me of the character designs for their anime version of Hikaru no Go, no bad thing. The anime also had some rudimentary CGI which didn’t look bad considering the age of the anime (certainly not as jarring as the more recent MÄR adaptation, and not that far behind the gaichuu in Tegami Bachi) and was again based on the stories from the novels. There were episodes focusing on the backstories of particular characters, which were the highlights, but also a central story about gathering the reincarnated warriors to battle a bratty new priestess trying to replace Miaka. This part was rather more ill-judged, firstly because the antagonist girl was so over-the-top and so lacking in backstory she was absurd. And secondly because…well, the reincarnations apart from Nuriko’s were stupid, so we ended up getting a talking baby and a tiny little boy with a booming bass voice. It was all unintentionally hilarious, yet not to the extent it became entertaining.

Flashes of brilliance, strong characters and some very funny moments sadly don’t add up to something that warrants the ‘classic’ status this anime enjoys. 1995 actually isn’t that long ago, and there were much, much better anime out at the time – the most obvious choice being Rurouni Kenshin. 

も～っと!おジャ魔女どれみ/ Mo~tto! Ojamajo Doremi

Though I’ve been watching Doremi for years now, it’s only with this series that I’ve really started to love it. I suppose it’s quite telling that while it took me six months to watch Sharp, I watched the full fifty episodes (plus rather surreal short movie) of Mo~tto in under four weeks. It’s really the only series I’m watching just now that leaves me wanting more each time – and it’s a silly, playful comedy about little girls, for little girls. But at the same time, it’s very well-done.

After the climactic action of Sharp, the Ojamajos were again left without magical powers, having sacrificed their crystals to save Hana-chan from a deadly fever. But involved here is the fate of a very powerful witch destined to be the new queen, as well as the politics of bringing the witch and human worlds back together – and so the queen proclaims that the gang can be restored as Witch Apprentices, as long as they convince every member of the witch high council who opposes their restoration that they are worthy. For whatever reason, the way they are to convince these high witches of their worthiness is to bake cakes for them, which sometimes gets a bit Yakitate!!. To help them in this task, the Queen introduces them to Momoko, a blonde Japanese girl who moved to New York at a young age and forgot most of her Japanese, but there met a witch named Majo Monroe (who even has Marilyn’s beauty spot), and from her not only learned magic but how to be a pâtissière. Meanwhile, Hana does not cope well being taken away from her ‘mamas’ to be kept in a magical kindergarten, as is traditional in the magical world, a situation that comes to a head when the lingering spirit of the queen-before-last, responsible for the curse that turns witches whose cover is blown in the human world into frogs, takes notice of Hana and curses her to hate vegetables.

Thus, several plot strands run concurrently – the various dessert-making exams, more or less replacing the last season’s health tests; the heartache of missing the child you bonded with, which after a while turns into the attempt to make Hana like vegetables again by disguising them in different foods or changing the circumstances in which she is eating; and Momoko’s attempts to fit into Japanese society again when she is culturally very much American and doesn’t have a very good grasp of honne and tatemae. This last part spreads out to encompass the various other little stories of girls in Doremi’s class, including the other ojamajos, and is very much the backbone of the whole series, and its heart. It’s what makes the series much more interesting than the last ones, for while it covers similar ground to the ones in Sharp revolving around the young wizards (who I was quite sad to see were never mentioned again, even by Oyajide), they were much better. There’re some very touching little stories here, including ones revolving around classmates old and new: one girl is a hikkikomori who needs friends just like Doremi; another wants to be best friends with the writer girl who idolises Aiko. The SOS trio is split up, and one very cute boy wants to join in the terrible comedy action. A new smart boy is in Doremi’s class, who rather oddly is the second character voiced by Takeuchi Junko (or third if you count a female witch who happens to look just like her first character Kimitaka), which is a slightly strange choice given that her voice, best known as Naruto and the original Gon, is so distinctive. He comes into conflict with proud Tamaki, as does straightforward Momoko, but in reconciling some interesting ideas about racism, arrogance and tact get explored. These are the sort of episodes that really flesh out characters and make them interesting, and it’s these that make me so interested in what happens next.

Momoko’s seiyuu finally provides a strong link with Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, which always seemed to me a poor imitation of Ojamajo Doremi – previously other main Ojamajo girls played minor characters in PPGZ, Hazuki having been Miss Keane and Onpu having been rather oddly having been Sedusa, but Momoko was Bubbles herself. She’s an interesting voice actress, having learned English while at an international school at Austria, and thus being seen as a specialist in English. Her pronunciation is certainly far from natural, but it’s definitely a step up from a lot of supposed English-speakers in anime. She was previously on the cast – as the cool guy Masaru – but now she really gets to shine, and though it took a little while I soon warmed to her. Though she looked like she was…really designed to be a white girl but then it was decided that’d be too alien and turned into a blonde Japanese girl (in a world of natural blue and purple hair, mind), it allowed for some interesting things that aren’t often covered in anime, like xenophobia and tolerance.

A strange thought occurred to me when at one point I watched a new episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and it struck me that the two are really very similar. Several of the girls are much like those of the popular pony cartoon’s so-called ‘mane six’, there are similarities between the Magical World and Equestria, and the way stories are told when an individual main character causes problems when facets of their personality are exaggerated certainly has some crossover. Of course, Ojamajo Doremi isn’t as slick, as widely-lauded or as funny as MLP:FiM, but I have to say that nothing in the season and a half that show has produced so far has inspired the same sort of feelings I had when Aiko’s father lost his job and tried to drive his daughter away to have a better life with her mother.

おジャ魔女どれみ# / Ojamajo Doremi #/ Ojamajo Doremi Sharp

The different series of Ojamajo Doremi almost don’t count as such, seeing how after the season finale, invariably a cliffhanger about the girls no longer getting to be witches, the first episode of the next season airs the very next week. So it was with the beginning of this season, and so it was again at its end.

However, the seasons seem very much to have been conceived as separate, whole storylines with a good sense of progression and strong themes to define them. The first season revolved around Doremi and co learning to be witches, then taking part in a collection quest while having to face opposition from the mysterious Onpu. By the end of that season, Onpu was more ally than antagonist, but still had the wrong attitude to magic, and it was that which provided the climactic action.

We join Doremi and co given a new chance to be witch apprentices. Through coincidence – or fate – Doremi and co go to the magical world and happen to witness the birth of a new witch from a flower in the Queen’s garden. Naming her Hana-chan, they are now responsible for raising the baby. The first half of the series is more or less concerned with raising Hana, who is adorable but whose strong magical abilities cause problems. The second revolves around Oyajide, the collection quest summarily dispensed with, returning to the Wizard World and then conspiring to kidnap Hana to ransom her for more territory. He is aided by four young wizards, who are more or less counterparts to Doremi and co, though most of the time they manage to get hold of Hana, they just hand her to Oyajide at the wrong time, and he ends up on the receiving end of a spell from the Ojamajos and goes spinning off, Team Rocket-style.

These larger storylines are peppered with one-offs, both character-developing and throwaway. Most revolve around the theme of family – we have Aiko (the tomboy and thus inevitably my favourite) trying to reconcile her family, Doremi and Pop learning the value of their sisterly bond in the short movie (aired between two Digimon movies) and even see Majo Rika’s mother, a lovely but clumsy old dear who has the same habit of saying ‘Ara ara, maa maa’ as Alicia from Aria. Then there are numerous little stories, such as trying to help the fat girl diet before finally just accepting her as she is, and then in the last few episodes the tone swings to that pleasantly non-serious atmosphere of a cute anime going for melancholy as it looks like only a great sacrifice can save Hana-chan from her sudden fever.

It’s almost as if to offer proof that this is an anime for young girls and not for Nanoha fans, the priority being a mother and looking after a baby gets. Hana is more than a doll, and sometimes it’s hard for the girls to care for her in the right away, after all only being children themselves, but they love her very much and regard themselves as Hana’s ‘Mama’. For her part, she’s very cute, always causing problems, and the contrast between the hapless baby and her huge magical power is one of the charming points of the series. Doremi and the others are on occasion tested by the witches to ensure they are raising Hana right in a series of tests, and the writers prove themselves equal to Peach-Pit in taking characters formerly hard to like but then very loveable with an examiner who starts out prickly but eventually softens – as if Onpu were not evidence enough. Recurring comic characters from the first season who take the exam alongside the girls are hilarious, with the examiners Mota and Motamota both raising babies who they brilliantly call Teki and Tekipaki, and if the octopus/squid love story from the first season seemed ill-judged, their hilarious baby Atarimeko-chan more than makes up for it.

There is almost nothing in this series that isn’t cute, but it is also smart, likeable and can be quite moving when it likes. The only thing I could do without is sucking at a baby’s nose to clear its sinuses, but that may just be culture shock…

Series three: here

銀幕ヘタリア Axis Powers Paint it, White（白くぬれ！）/ Ginmaku Hetalia: shiroku nure / Hetalia Movie – Paint it, White

Don’t expect any Rolling Stones references based on that comma in the title – it goes no further than that.

If I were writing the review I expected to, that would be a neat way to start a rant about a franchise that likes empty references to poorly-understood ideas. And c’mon, a plotline involving aliens wanting to turn everyone on Earth into a homogenous mass of white blobs so that there will be no more conflict or war, only for our loveable personified countries to fight back in order to prove it takes all sorts, variety is the spice of life, and the different national characteristics are what makes the world such a wonderful place? It sounds utterly terrible. And they don’t even have enough footage to fill the feature-length run-time, so they pad the film with scenes from the weekly series! Sounds horrible, right?

Well, guilty pleasure as it is, I actually liked this quite a lot. Almost everything I disliked about the Hetalia series derived from the annoyingly inaccurate or short-sighted historical snippets. It would be much better, I said, if the mangaka had dropped ideas of historical commentary and concentrated on national stereotyping.

And that’s what this movie is. The only grating times are times that had grated before, like the snippet about France’s offer to join the Commonwealth being reinterpreted as a marriage proposal from France to England (who is really ‘Britain’ but generally gets called England). Other segments that randomly made the cut were more welcome, like the scene where England – presumably because of all our fantasy literature seen as able to see ghosts and mythological creatures – meets with a kappa while in Japan, somehow breaking up the pacing of the climactic scenes just right.

The shoestring plot fitted the adaptation of silly comedy shorts to a long piece, lazy as it was. Aliens called Picts have decided Earth is a sad, underdeveloped place, so decide to whitewash it – and everybody in it. The flying saucers send out a beam that turns people into mindless white blobs and architecture into crude wobbly line drawings. The minor characters of Hetalia are given little cameos as they are transformed, like Poland and Greece, while as usual any country in the Southern Hemisphere is not worth bothering with. Switzerland and Liechtenstein, meanwhile, are protected from all the film’s events because their permanent neutrality also protects them from interstellar war. The nine members of the World 8 (China thrown into the G8 for whatever reason) who had met at the beginning of the film but failed to collaborate now reunite (minus useless Canada) to strike back. Donning Pict kigurumi, they sneak into the alien mothership and divide into unlikely teams (the old Axis Powers, France and England and then the rest – ie the symbols of Capitalism and Communism thrown together without comment). They are soon caught, but for a moment sway the aliens with displays of their different cultures (Russia coercing the countries he’s conquered into cross-dressing and doing ballet), until England ruins it all by giving them scones, which of course nobody in the universe could think tasted good.

They beat a hasty retreat, but to no avail, and all the countries but Italy are transformed. The spirit of the Roman Empire returns to be one of the most surreal dei ex machina I’ve ever seen, singing an off-key metal version of the old (wish I knew HOW old) ‘In Heaven, the cooks are French…’ joke and bequeathing Italy with a pen – which is all he needs to show the joy of individuality to the faceless aliens. Then everyone does a Bon dance, by far the least annoying song ever associated with Hetalia.

It’s a simple outline, but it trundles along and allows for the interaction between stereotypes without it getting bogged down with historical inaccuracies. Things like ‘France and England always fight but quite like each other really’ and ‘China likes to produce cheap knock-offs of what the other counties do’ are the sort of thing the series needed more of. They ring true and are generally just funny. Of course, Sealand – who I always found the funniest – gets a brief chance to shine, and him jumping aboard his ‘country’ like a ridiculous mecha pilot was the biggest laugh the whole film got from me.

I don’t know why I decided to watch this film just when I did, but I wanted something light. It wasn’t easy to find, though – English subbed versions seem to have the rehashed sequences cut out and horrible streamed quality, so I watched a Spanish fansub in DVD quality, and pieced together the meaning from the Japanese and the Spanish subs, going to the streams the once or twice I couldn’t understand at all. I could always have just waited for the official English DVD release next month, but…I was in the mood for Hetalia last night, and that’s not something I can say often.

As pleasant a surprise as The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, this was genuinely funny and didn’t annoy me at all.