Trivia / Ojamajo Doremi

• Acting for Two: Nami Miyahara voices both Momoko and Masaru.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Rumi Shishido, who voices Onpu Segawa, was an Idol Singer like Onpu, and both also had mothers that pushed them into that career. Shishido even says Onpu's personality is similar to hers, and that, like Onpu in Ojamajo Doremi 16, she also had trouble finding more mature roles due to people type-casting her Onpu voice as more appropriate for kid-friendly shows.
  • Nami Miyahara, who voices Momoko, has a similar background to Momoko in that she went to live abroad with her family at a young age and became fluent in English (though the difference is that Miyahara lived in Austria instead of the US).
• Anime First: The manga series that came about only covered a small amount of the anime and changed several things.
• Cancellation: In the United States, Magical DoReMi was taken off air from low ratings after being on the channel for only half a year. Part of it may be related to Magical DoReMi airing at 7:30 AM every Saturday (a time where no one would actually want to get up to watch the show), but the sad truth was, considering the state of non-cable children's programming at the time, the show was never was going to be popular. This is partially due to the United States' lack of interest in magical girl shows and also because children's television blocks became unpopular in the late 90s. By the mid-2000s, 4Kids TV was still one of the only few non-cable cartoon blocks still struggling to stay alive. The remainder of the series was then put on 4Kids' website via streaming. There was also a planned second wave of toy sets for the second half of the show, some of which leaked Oyajide and Onpu's names, but never came to fruition because of the flop.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • In the Mexican Spanish dub, Doremi is voiced by the Mexican soap opera actress Vanessa Acosta. This was a pretty unusual casting move for a Mexican actor, since Mexican Spanish dubs for anime series never use famous actors compared with other dubs from other kinds of stuff (like Western Animation, Disney movies, etc.)
  • Tomoyo Harada, a pop idol from The '80s turned actress, voiced Mirai Sakura in episode 40 of Dokkan.
• Completely Different Title: The anime is known as Magical Doremi in numerous other dubs, as the word "ojamajo" is an untranslatable pun on the words "Ojama" (something/someone who gets in the way and is useless) and "Majo" (a witch). 4Kids went a step further by calling it ''Magical DoReMi," changing the meaning of the title from a description of the main character into a combined pun of the first two letters of the new names they gave the main characters: Dorie, Reanne and Mirabelle.
• Crossdressing Voices:
  • Many of the male classmates are voiced by women, with the exception of Nobuaki Yamauchi, Takurou Hagiwara, Jun Sato, and Susumu Yanagita.
  • Akatsuki is voiced by Tomo Saeki, Fujio by Mamiko Noto, Leon by Mayumi Yamaguchi, and Tooru by Kazumi Okazuki, all of whom are female.
• The Danza:
  • Igarashi has the same surname as the director of the show, Takuya Igarashi.
  • Miss Seki has the same surname as the producer of the show, Hiromi Seki.
  • Maki Takahashi, Igarashi's girlfriend, is named after Maki Takahashi, a sales representative of Bandai in charge of the show's toy line.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • Did you know that there were two English dubs before 4Kids licensed Doremi? The Ocean Group dubbed the Pilot Episode when Toei Animation attempted to launch the series for North American markets in 2000. There was also an English dub for Singapore in 2004.
  • Ojamajo Doremi received two different dubs in Spanish: one for Latin American audiences, and the other for Spanish audiences.
  • It also received two Chinese dubs: one in Mandarin Chinese for Taiwan, and the other in Cantonese for Hong Kong.
  • Not to mention it also received two European Portuguese dubs: one made by Santa Claus Audiovisual, aired on Canal Panda, which uses the main characters' names based on the German and Mexican Spanish dubs, and the other made by PSB, aired on 2: (currently known as RTP 2), which uses the original main characters' names in Japanese.
• Dueling Works: Majo Minarai wo Sagashite, the film's 20th anniversary movie, was in a duel with another movie based on a Toei Animation magical girl series, Sailor Moon Eternal. However, that film had a relatively weak performance compared to that of Majo Minarai wo Sagashite (Sailor Moon opened at #9, while Majo Minarai opened at #4). In addition, Majo Minarai wo Sagashite won the Best Animation Film Award at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards.
• God-Created Canon Foreigner: Majo Rhythm, who only appears in the PC game Naisho no Mahou.
• He Also Did:
  • Yoshihiko Umakoshi, the series character designer, also did the character designs for Casshern Sins, a show that is largely different in terms of storytelling and genre with Ojamajo Doremi. He would later go on to work on two more Toei Animation shows, HeartCatch Pretty Cure! (which seems to take several cues from Doremi, especially when it comes to stylistic choices and inspirations for certain characters) and Saint Seiya Omega, before working as character designer for the anime adaptation of My Hero Academia.
  • Singer/songwriter Bree Sharp worked as a writer for the English dub.
  • The sound engineer, Suzanne Goldish, would also go on to direct a few anime dubs with the L.A-based Studiopolis, including Bleach (episodes 268-366), K, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Tiger & Bunny, and Sailor Moon (2014 re-dub).
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • 4Kids has not released anything past the first series. In addition, up until the late 2010s when Toei Animation re-released the series on Blu-ray, it was hard to access the show through buying the official home releases, especially when the majority of the original Japanese DVD sets are out of print.
    • The Singaporean English dub by Voiceovers Unlimited from 2004 is completely lost. It aired on Channel i before being taken off the schedule just a few months later, only for Channel i itself to shut down a few months after *that*. No footage exists on the internet, and not much is known about the dub. One can only hope that someone recorded the episodes as they aired.
  • There was once a Portuguese dub in Canal Panda. If you didn't see it while it was being shown on TV, you have lost it forever. Even finding the show from people who did record it is nigh-impossible on the internet. Only some random episodes can be found from this dub.
• Missing Episode: Episode 30 ("I Want to See a Ghost!") from the first season was cut in the English dub for unknown reasons.
• No Export for You: Only the first series made it to the US, and it doesn't seem like the other series, films, and other parts of the franchise will make it (and on the off-chance they do, it's an almost certain fact that 4Kids won't be handling them since Toei cut off all ties with them due to One Piece).
• Non-Singing Voice: The Italian dub does it in Season 2; creepily so, having four little girls singing with the same, adult voice. Averted in later seasons, and it's better like that since Emanuela Pacotto, Onpu's Italian VA, is an amazing singer (she also did Utau Hoshina and Twilight Sparkle, always singing in her voice).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Yuka Shino filled in for Sawa Ishige in episode 27 of the first series.
  • Oyajide was originally voiced by Ginzo Matsuo until his death in the middle of Motto, causing him to be replaced by Nobuaki Kanemitsu.
  • Ai Orikasa voices Ms. Yuki in the Traful x Ojamajo Doremi Web Movie due to Yuka Imai having retired from voice acting.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Even though Ojamajo Doremi hasn't been released past the first season in the United States, many websites (through user submissions) reported Momoko's dub name as Anna Robinson, even though nothing has been said.
  • Prior to information on the Ocean pilot dub of the anime being revealed, there were rumors of a dub of the anime by Cloverway that dubbed and aired two seasons (even more episodes dubbed than the 4Kids dub) in Australia before being banned for the sexual situations that occured in later seasons.
• Post-Script Season: Every series after S1 could be considered this. Sharp especially since it reuses a few plot elements and points.
• Real-Life Relative: In the Mexican Spanish dub, Doremi and her mother Haruka (voiced in Spanish by Vanessa Acosta and Dulce Maria Romay respectively) are daughter and mother in Real Life.
• Recycled Script: The Post Script Seasons all recycle the same formula set up by the first season. In every season, the main characters have to pass a series of tests to stay as witch apprentices — in Sharp, they had to help Hana pass her baby exams as a condition to being witches; in Motto, they had to pass Patissier exams to earn their apprenticeship back; in Dokkan, they have to help Hana pass her witch exams.
  • In the first episode, Doremi envisioned herself as a Witch Frog; during an early episode of Dokkan, Hana did the same thing.
  • Doremi's actions caused Dodo to fly away in tears during S1; in Sharp, Doremi's actions caused her to leave again, albeit this time in a huff.
• Referenced by...: Has its own page.
• Screwed by the Merchandise: Another reason why Magical DoReMi failed in the United States was because the toys (important for a Merchandise-Driven franchise!) were met with disappointing sales, especially when compared to the millions made in Japan during the original run. It was to the point where a planned second wave of toys was ultimately cancelled.
• Translation Correction: In episode 35, the sign on the women's restroom originally read "Lady's." The English dub corrects it to its grammatically correct term, "Ladies."
• Troubled Production: As if it was not enough that the European Spanish dub of the third season had a tight work schedule, their dub studio burned down in midst of the project, with its inevitable budget cuts and delays. This is the reason why a couple of in-universe songs by Momoko and Onpu from that season were left in the original Japanese, instead of being re-recorded in Spanish as in the rest of the series.
• Unfinished Dub:
  • In the United States, only the first season was dubbed. Some of the countries that received dubs up to season 4 didn't get season 5, Na-i-sho. Many countries only received dubs for the first two seasons.
  • The European Portuguese dub made by PSB only covered the first season.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Main character Doremi was originally going to be called Onpu, with the name Doremi initially planned to be given to her younger sister Pop. But a trademark dispute led to a change of plan, which resulted in the characters' final names and Onpu becoming a rival character.
  • Doremi was originally designed with double ponytails before ending up with her double chignon hairstyle. Hana went through several revisions, including outfits that sported a dress instead of shorts, and different hairstyles.
  • In the United States, there was supposed to be a second wave of toy releases to accompany the second half of the first season. Some of them leaked Dub Name Changes for Onpu and Oyajide before they were officially revealed. However, because the series flopped, the toy sets were never released.
  • Ojamajo Doremi Na-i-sho was originally going to be a direct-to-DVD Original Video Animation. However, it was turned into a fifth television series that aired on Sky PerfecTV instead of its usual spot on TV Asahi, which was then occupied by Futari wa Pretty Cure.
  • Looking for Magical Doremi, the 20th anniversary film, was originally going to be about Doremi as an adult experiencing a "miracle" through a time paradox. Midori Kuriyama himself stated that it was going to be about Doremi as a 20-year-old trying to look for the time capsule she and her friends buried during their elementary school graduation. However, when Junichi Sato pitched the idea to Yoshihiko Umakoshi, Umakoshi voiced concerns that since Doremi and her classmates would be the same age, this would alienate some viewers who were not in their generation or weren't the same age. The staff also decided that they wanted to appeal to a more general audience than just Ojamajo Doremi fans and avoid a Continuity Lockout. This led the staff to create Sora, Mire, and Reika, while treating Ojamajo Doremi as a Show Within a Show.
• Chiemi Chiba, Tomoko Akiya, Naomi Nagasawa, and Megumi Takamura originally auditioned for the role of Pop. Along with Sawa Ishige and Rumi Shishido, Nagasawa and Takamura also auditioned for Doremi as well.

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