Fanfic / Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows

Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows is an Ojamajo Doremi Fan Fic written by PrettiWitchiMegChanChi (Archive) over on Fanfiction.net.

The overall plot goes as follows: A powerful clan of Witches called the Shadows, who are led by Black Queen, are planning to destroy their light halves and take over said light halves' home. Namely, the Human, Witch, and Wizard Worlds. They must be stopped. Also, the Queen and Majorin become a couple and completely overshadow or derail the plot.

The story itself takes a change from the normal formula of Ojamajo Doremi and temporarily makes them into Magical Girl Warriors to fight off this threat. However, the story isn't quite as good as this premise sounds...

As of 9/6/2015, the author has been banned from Fanfiction.net, and she has not uploaded anything to her DeviantArt. Thus, had it not been for the archives, this fic and its sequel Ojamajo Doremi: Witches at World's End in their original forms would have been lost for good.

A chapter-by-chapter MST of Rise of the Shadows can be found on Deviantart. Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and Bonus.

Archives of all chapters of Rise of the Shadows and the three first chapters of Ojamajo Doremi: Witches at World's End are also available.

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This work contains examples of:

Tropes present in both

• Artifact of Doom: The Book of Shadows, which tells of the history of the Shadows and has everything they need to complete their plans. Subverted in that the protagonists themselves can use it to eliminate the Shadows once and for all. It was mentioned in Witches at World's End, but Black Queen theorizes that is has been destroyed.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Seven Seals are a set of these. The Shadow Ojamajos were mentioned as being boosted by the power of the Seals they were holding. Said Seals are also what allows the Queen to use her Super Mode. It's slated to make a return in Witches At World's End and grant Majorin a Super Mode of her own.
• Back from the Dead:
  • The Queen of the Witch World, in her Super Witch Form, uses her new powers to bring back Majorin and the fallen Ojamajos when Black Queen has them killed. Her not dying as a result is handwaved away as being another new power granted by the Seven Seals.
  • Black Queen uses her magic to indirectly bring back Evil Rin and the Shadow Ojamajos. This spell was described in the narrative as being a Shadow's means of getting around the Sacrificial Revival Spell rules present in canon.
• Beige Prose: Most of both fics aren't well described (if at all) and is one reason why both aren't as good as they could've been.
• Big Bad: Black Queen, the Queen of the Witch World's Shadow, is the one driving the events of the story proper.
• Black-and-White Morality: The Shadows are evil and trying to Take Over the World AND exterminate their light halves. Said light halves are good and only act to defend themselves.
• Card-Carrying Villain: All of the villains know they're evil and revel in it. Special mention goes to Evil Rin, if her name is anything to go by...
• Casting a Shadow: The Shadows' primary elemental power centers around shadow-based versions of the protagonists' magic used in canon.
• Casts No Shadow: The Shadows, being Living Shadows, are unable to cast shadows of their own no matter what kind of magic they use. It is virtually the only way to tell a Shadow-in-disguise from a "Light Being".
• Cool Sword: The Queen gains one when she transforms for the first time. It's a "keyblade".
• Curbstomp Battle: Two examples.
  • During the climax of Rise of the Shadows, the Queen gains a Super Mode that makes her powerful enough to deflect all of the Shadows' attacks and vaporize them in one attack of her own.
  • Black Queen personally assaults the Witch World to draw the Queen out. By now, she has learned how to use her "Keyblade" when not in Super Mode and tries to take a crack at defeating Black Queen again. Black Queen catches the blade and throws the Queen back with little effort.
• Dark Is Evil: The Shadows are all based around darkness and come from a dark realm hidden within the very shadows themselves. They are all portrayed as evil and self-serving.
• Deus ex Machina: The Queen's Super Witch Form due to the lack of foreshadowing. Without it, the Queen would have had no chance whatsoever at stopping the Shadows from realizing their goals.
• The Dragon: Evil Rin, Majorin's Shadow, is this for Black Queen in that she is her right hand Witch and does a lot of action on behalf of the Big Bad.
• Evil Plan: Black Queen's plan is to gather the Seven Seals, take the Book of Shadows, and use both to conduct a ritual that would allow Shadows everywhere to walk freely in all worlds. End result: All worlds ruled by darkness.
• Fantastic Racism: The Shadows toward the protagonists. They refer to them as "Light Beings" and consider them inferior in every possible way.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Black Queen. She is the Big Bad of the story and an all-around evil tyrant.
• The High Queen: The Queen of the Witch World retains her canon role. She also opposes Black Queen.
• Implausible Hair Color: Black Queen's hair is described as being a black as night, or maybe even blacker.
• Jerkass: All of the Shadows display a very selfish personality and go out of their way to belittle and mock their Light Halves. Shadow Hana herself spurns Hana's offer of friendship and strikes her.
• Living Shadow: From a certain viewpoint, the Shadows themselves are this, being sentient even when being cast by their Light Halves.
• MacGuffin: The Seven Seals. Unlike other examples of this trope, the villains have already gathered them up by the middle of the story while the heroes have no idea they even exist.
• Magical Incantation: All of the phrases the Ojamajos use are here, including Magical Stage. Averted with the Shadow Ojamajos.
• Meaningful Name: Evil Rin. She is an evil version of Majorin and has "Evil" in her name.
• Obviously Evil: The Shadows. They are dark, the least evil things they do are severe mischief, and they will gladly commit murder. Evil Rin just makes it blatant in her case.
• Original Character: Black Queen, Evil Rin, and the Shadow Ojamajos cannot be found in canon whatsoever and are strictly fanon characters. Shamaya, Konomi, Haru, and the Elemental Witches are added in the sequel.
• Outside-Context Problem: Black Queen, and by extension the Shadows as a whole. Sure, they're supernatural entities that wouldn't be out of place in a Magical Girl anime, but here's the thing: Their violence and sadism is far greater than the canon villains, which is shown when they outright kill the protagonists.
• Palette Swap: All Shadows look exactly like their Light Halves, except for color; most of them just have darker colors than their Light Halves. Black Queen and Evil Rin take this a step further; the former replaces all the white on the Queen's garb with black while the latter is black, gray, and silver.
• Precision F-Strike: Implied. Shadow Aiko tends to say certain words like "ticked" or "freaking" only to have the narrative say that she didn't actually say those words. Word of God confirms that she tends to swear a lot, even though the Japanese language, which all characters are allegedly speaking in, has no swear words.
• Psychotic Smirk: Evil Rin's default expression is a smirk that the narrative even describes as "trademarked". She wears it whenever possible except when she's angry or fearful.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Shadow Ojamajos. Each is the shadow version of a specific girl and they are all evil, gleefully engaging in Troubling Unchildlike Behavior.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The Queen and Black Queen both do far more than other royals in other stories. The Queen is the less active of the two, but she is the one who ultimately finishes off the villains. Black Queen is the Big Bad and thus the one driving the plot. She herself takes an active role in the spell that would complete her plans.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The Queen and Majorin. Even though the title says "Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows", the Queen and Majorin can be considered the true heroes of the story. They get even more screen time and development than the titular villains and even the canonical main characters. The Queen even gets a Super Mode. However, the Queen and Majorin (more so the latter) don't get a lot of screen time in canon either, but the story could've done more with them instead.
• Shadow Archetype: The villains and their minions are the shadows of the protagonists. All of them have several traits in common with their respective Light Half, but they still tend toward being mischievous and evil. They also express traits that their counterparts either conceal or have no idea about.
• Shadow Land: The realms of the Shadows are this, being described as dark versions of various other worlds. The story doesn't give much context, but the implications are there.
• Shadow Walker: Shadows have the ability to teleport at will from place to place by melting into the shadows of either another Light Being or an inanimate object.
• Super Mode: The Queen of the Witch World gains her Super Witch For when her feelings of hope and motivation to stop Black Queen let her take the Seven Seals. Word of God confirms that Majorin will get one of her own in ''Witches at World's End in addition to the Queen getting an upgrade to her Super Mode.
• Take Over the World: Black Queen's goal. The prologue does give a more justifiable reason, but it's quickly lost in favor of making her look more evil. She retains this goal in Witches at World's End, but she fears that it will be much harder this time around.
• Theme Naming: The Shadows. Take any character's name, add "Shadow" in front of it, and then drop the surname (if any) and presto! You've got the official names of each Shadow! Evil Rin and Black Queen are the only exceptions...or are they?
• The Trickster: Shadow Doremi. She enjoys playing pranks on unsuspecting people, particularly Doremi. Word of God claims that all of the Shadow Ojamajos are like this, but not to the extent as Shadow Doremi.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: The author seems to feel the need to remind readers of things that were established in the previous chapter and continue doing so for another chapter or two, such as the Shadows' telepathy and even which chapters the flashbacks take scenes from.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Black Queen and her minions; the former is a scheming and ruthless villain who wouldn't hesitate to order the deaths of innocents, including children, while the latter are collectively her sociopathic soldiers who gleefully follow orders to kill. The show the fic is derived from, and even the fic itself, are quite lighthearted and rated K+ and and give a generous number of lampshade hangings; the former even demonstrates White-and-Grey Morality.
• Villainous Crush: Evil Rin has expressed a lust toward the Queen, if her nickname for her is anything to go by. The Queen doesn't reciprocate in the slightest.
• Weapon-Based Characterization:
  • Evil Rin prefers to use her diamond-infused dagger in fights as opposed to magic.
  • The Queen gains one of her own in the form of her new "keyblade". Like Evil Rin, she opts to use it over her powerful magic, even when it's not the most effective thing to use.
• Winged Humanoid: The Queen in her Super Witch Form (normal and upgraded) sports a pair of angelic wings. Majorin gets these too when she gains her own Super Witch Form. A drawing of them made by the author can be seen here.
• Would Hurt a Child: Black Queen was about to personally attack the Ojamajos when the Shadow Ojamajos burst in. She blows them all back with her powers in Witches at World's End before challenging the Queen.
• Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Two examples, one per fic:
  • Black Queen had her Light Half at her mercy and could easily have killed her then and there, thus stopping the biggest threat to her plans and preventing the Queen from turning the tables. She lampshades this in Witches At World's End after her flashback.
  • Black Queen again could simply kill the Queen after curbstomping her at the start of the sequel, but she opts not to because "it's not the time, yet."
• Yandere: Evil Rin clearly has a lust for the Queen and feels that she should be in love with her back; Evil Rin even refers to the Queen as "[her] precious snowflake". She shows no qualms over killing her though and will gleefully follow Black Queen's orders, even if they would lead to the Queen's demise.

Tropes present in Rise of the Shadows

• All Your Powers Combined: Magical Stage, which is carried on from canon (and even uses Hana's powers in this fic to boot), uses the power of all Ojamajos present to execute. Shadow Stage, the Shadow Ojamajos' dark equivalent, is described as being stronger and is the best attack of the Shadow Ojamajos.
• Anti-Climax: For all the hype of her being the most powerful of the Shadows, Black Queen goes down far too easily in the final battle and does little other than give orders for her minions to follow throughout the fic. There is some justification for the former since the Queen was in a Deus ex Machina Super Mode when the "fight" occurred.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Hana and Hazuki. Both are, in canon, the least likely to engage in fighting. However, given the circumstances in this story, they have no choice but to fight. Hana rushes in to defend Doremi when Shadow Doremi strikes her while Shadow Hazuki quips at Hazuki "finally growing a backbone" when the latter launches an attack.
• Breaking Speech: Evil Rin delivers one to Majorin regarding her self-worth. It works, and Majorin suffers a Heroic BSoD.
• The Brute: Shadow Aiko is described as physically being the strongest of the Shadow Ojamajos.
• Calling Your Attacks: Each of the Ojamajos use their Magical Incantations to launch attacks. The Shadow Ojamajos call "Shadow Stage" when fighting their Light Halves for the third time. The Queen, in her Super Witch Form, calls out "Queen's Starburst" right before running Black Queen through.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Doremi, just like in canon. Although the fic does explain some of her clumsiness as being the work of Shadow Doremi, the latter character claims she's clumsy with or without her, regardless.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shadow Hazuki takes the cake, lampshading her Light Half screaming and running from her own shadow. Shadow Pop is this as well, being Pop's Shadow. The Queen of the Witch World isn't exempt from this either.
• Disney Death: Majorin and the Ojamajos are all killed in the final battle. However, the Queen's new Super Mode allows them to be brought back to life without anyone else dying.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Shadow Ojamajos despise their Light Halves for their various quirks that they find annoying. How do they deal with it? By gleefully attacking them when given permission from Black Queen, insulting and belittling them, and finally killing them in cold blood.
• Eleventh Hour Super Power: The Queen gaining her Super Mode at the "climax". Her strong positive emotions are enough to attract the Seven Seals over to herself and temporarily absorb them to gain their power, thereby making her more than strong enough to curbstomp the Shadows and save the world.
• The Evil Genius: Shadow Hazuki and Shadow Onpu are confirmed to be the brains of the Shadow Ojamajos, the former more so. Shadow Hazuki does have more snarky moments and gives exposition, but her status as The Evil Genius is only there because her Light Half, Hazuki, is The Smart Girl in canon.
• Excuse Plot: This story boils down to "Evil villains are threatening to take over the world. The heroes must stop them with a new power and then confirm a love interest."
• Expy: Word of God has confirmed that Black Queen is based off of Maleficent. She has also confirmed that the Queen's Super Witch Form is based on Super Sonic...which is, in turn, based on Super Saiyan Goku.
• Flat Character: Every Original Character presented had little as far as personality and Character Development. Evil Rin had some additional quirks about her, but she is as flat as the others.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Black Queen. While she is powerful and thoroughly evil, her motives and goals are barely plausible and her plan can very easily be rendered implausible by Fridge Logic. Her personality is hard to pin down aside from just being evil and murderous. The only thing she has going for her is her high threat level.
• Grew a Spine: During the second brawl against the Shadow Ojamajos, Hazuki is seen landing a strong hit on Shadow Hazuki AND Shadow Onpu when earlier she is running (or flying) away, screaming. Shadow Hazuki lampshades it.

  Shadow Hazuki: Oh sure. NOW she decides to get a backbone!

• Heroic BSoD: Majorin suffers one after getting hit by Evil Rin's Breaking Speech. It was severe enough that she barely seemed to care that Evil Rin was about to simply kill her. The Queen gets one of her own after Majorin sacrifices herself to stop Evil Rin from killing her. It deepens after the Ojamajos are murdered.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Majorin intercepts Evil Rin's attempts to kill the Queen at the last moment. She ends up with Evil Rin's dagger lodged in her heart for her troubles. It doesn't stick.
• Heroic Second Wind: The Queen after Majorin and the Ojamajos are slain. The spirits of the fallen characters gather near her and give her a pep talk, giving her the strength needed to overcome her injuries and make a "No More Holding Back" Speech. Once that was done, the Seven Seals resonated with her and granted her a Super Mode.
• Idiot Ball: The Queen, after breaking free from her bonds, announces her plan to stop the Shadows in their tracks instead of doing something more practical. This nearly gets her killed when Black Queen effortlessly parries her attack.
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: When Evil Rin drags her Light Half Majorin into the shadows, she has to take her place and assume her form. The Queen notices something "off" about "Majorin" and gets a bad feeling. Then she sees a lack of a shadow...
• Informed Attribute: Black Queen is described as being the most powerful of the Shadows and their ruler. However, we never once see her power at all and she is killed without any effort on the Queen's part.
• Kick the Dog: Evil Rin and the Shadow Ojamajos do this after the former kills Majorin. Evil Rin claims Majorin's death was for the best and the Shadow Ojamajos openly mock the Queen and the Ojamajos while they're grieving Majorin.
• Kids Are Cruel: The Shadow Ojamajos. They mock, insult, and belittle their counterparts and assault them. They later up the ante by outright killing them in cold blood.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Several powers that BOTH sides have weren't foreshadowed in the slightest. The Shadows having telepathy was a big one, and the Queen gaining the ability to ignore the rules of magic when in her Super Mode is practically a Deus ex Machina.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Evil Rin angrily lashes out and inflicts one of these on the Queen immediately after the latter shouts that the Shadows "don't deserve to exist"; the former pins to Queen to the ground and uses her dagger to cut deeper and deeper wounds before finally tearing off her veil.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Black Queen is described by Word of God as being the type who prefers to let others do the fighting for her and only uses her power when she has to deal with others of similar power, like her Light Half.
• Out of Character: The Queen. In canon, she is wise, benevolent if strict, is competent enough to keep a Magical Land from going under for over 100 years and then some, and is more than willing to put her life and/or magical power on the line if it means saving the Ojamajos from the Big Bad, the power of whom putting hers to shame. Here, she is portrayed as being a rather helpless Damsel in Distress who is used as a hostage by the Big Bad and makes a decidedly unwise decision that gets Majorin killed.
• Power Gives You Wings: The Queen's Super Mode explicitly has angelic wings.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Evil Rin combines this with Breaking Speech. She outright tells Majorin how meaningless she is and that she can always be replaced when compared to the Queen. It works, and Majorin is driven into an Heroic BSoD.
• Sedgwick Speech: Non-fatal example. Hana pleads with the Shadow Ojamajos and offers friendship. Shadow Hana rebukes and attacks her for her troubles.
• Shout-Out:
  • There is one to Sonic the Hedgehog courtesy of the description of one of the Seven Seals.
  • There is a blatant one to Kingdom Hearts when the Queen gains her Super Mode; her new weapon in this form is even called a Keyblade!
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • Majorin tells Evil Rin how factually wrong her Breaking Speech was when she snaps out of her Heroic BSoD and starts fighting back against her Shadow.
  • The Queen rebuffs Black Queen's insistence on their victory in the climax, and it lets her swipe the Seven Seals and defeat the Shadows.
• The Stinger: Chapter 9 is less of a chapter and more of a trailer for the sequel, "Ojamajo Doremi: Witches at World's End".
• The End... Or Is It?: The end of Chapter 8 shows a pair of glowing red eyes and sinister laughter right where the Queen defeated the Shadows.
• This Cannot Be!: Black Queen gets this when her plans fall apart and Evil Rin and the Shadow Ojamajos are slain. She regains her composure right after she is run through by the Queen's finisher, however.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Queen has one instance, but it is quite egregious. After freeing herself, she loudly announces her intentions to stop Black Queen, who is more than capable of stopping her attacks, and decides to launch an attack of her own. Black Queen parries the attack and Evil Rin prevents another by attempting to take the Queen's life. Only a Heroic Sacrifice on Majorin's part keeps the Queen from dying, but this instance of stupidity did end up getting a precious someone killed.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: The Ojamajos transform right in front of the Shadow Ojamajos despite the fact that it takes some time in canon. Later, the Queen gains a lengthy Transformation Sequence as she enters her Super Mode. On both occasions, the villains do absolutely nothing to interrupt it.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The Shadow Ojamajos. They act like complete jerks and show no qualms over outright killing their Light Halves in cold blood.
• You Monster!: The Queen of the Witch World outright states that the Shadows "don't deserve to exist" after they murder the Ojamajos in cold blood, and it is clear that scene is supposed to be their moral event horizon.

Tropes present in Witches at World's End

• Call-Back: Several.
  • Onpu mentions that the Shadows tried and succeeded in killing them all aside from the Queen once before.
  • Black Queen mentally kicks herself for not killing the Queen when she had the chance.
  • The fic implies that another work by the author, "Jou-sama's and Majorin's Big Adventure", would have the same explanation on Elemental Witches as the one here. The narrative even lampshades it.
• Dead Fic: It was published back in April 2012, and it hasn't been updated since.
• Death Is Cheap: The Shadows are established to have a loophole in the rules of magic to cheat death. A powerful Shadow such as Black Queen takes the shadow of an inanimate object and shapes it into a Shadow that has already been killed. Thus, as long as there is a powerful-enough Shadow, the Shadows can never be truly put down.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: During the prologue, the Queen has a nightmare that supposedly foreshadows events later in the story. She had been having these nightmares for some time now. It's lampshaded when she begins to suspect that they're not dreams but "visions" of the future.
• Flashback: Black Queen has one back to chapter 6 of Rise of the Shadows followed by her mentally kicking herself for not killing the Queen when she had the chance.
• Forgot About Her Powers: The Queen does this. At this point, she has practiced with her Super Mode enough that is isn't draining anymore and she is fully aware of how powerful Black Queen is. She opts not to use it and promptly gets curbstomped for not using it.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Shamaya, Konomi, and Haru have the Queen and Majorin. The latter two were born when the Queen and Majorin got together, and even they weren't sure how. The former was adopted but is considered part of the family.
• Honor Before Reason: Black Queen states that she can kill the Queen right now if she pleased. However, for reasons known only to her (and the author), she has decided that the time to fight will be much later at the titular World's End.
• Kid from the Future: Three of them. Shamaya, Konomi, and Haru, the Queen and Majorin's future daughters, arrive from the future to warn of Black Queen's return.
• The Power of Love: Going by external sources, Majorin truly confesses to the Queen and the result earns her her own Super Mode.
• Time Skip: About one year has passed since the events of Rise of the Shadows.
• The Worf Effect: Implied. The description says that this time, even the Queen's Super Witch Form won't be enough to stop Black Queen.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Black Queen discusses this with herself. Even if she had killed the Queen when she had the chance, it would very well have been possible that she would have lost anyway. She chooses to drop the subject since she was dwelling on the past that she cannot change.

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