For information regarding episode or character changes, view their respective pages!
Magical Doremi is the official English dub of Ojamajo Doremi. It was licensed by 4kids and aired during their morning girls block alongside Mew Mew Power and Winx Club.
Magical Doremi was met with mixed reviews and released a variety of merchandise for a short while.
History
According to a report from C21 Media, 4Kids Entertainment had been working on a deal with Toei Animation to acquire a licence to the Ojamajo Doremi franchise since late 2003 with the desire of expanding their line-up of shows aimed at a female audience.
On August 10th, 2005, 4Kids announced that they had made a licensing agreement with Bandai America to serve as the master toy licensee for distributing Magical DoReMi merchandise in the United States. The toy line included a wide range of dolls, playsets and role-play items that were expected to be available for retail in Spring 2006. Both companies were excited on the deal. The CEO of 4Kids Entertainment; Alfred Kahn showed faith in Bandai America's marketing, while Bandai America's Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing; Bill Beebe stated that they were expecting high demand on the toy line.
Nearing the show's premiere, 4Kids announced on their website that Episode 4 will be broadcasted on 4Kids TV as a preview episode on August 13th, 2005. Around this time, 4Kids were said to have held a poll to determine which of their new shows would premiere first and Magical DoReMi supposedly ranked among the top contenders. The official premiere for Magical DoReMi begun on September 10th, 2005 and was branded as part of a "Girls' Hour".
Around the time the series was reaching its midway point, the dub stopped airing on television after holding a final marathon. The remaining half of the series was dubbed and release on the 4Kids website, along with the first half, until they eventually lost their rights to the show and had to remove its content.
Merchandise
Trying to popularize the series, 4kids had made plenty of merchandise in hopes to attract little girls to the bright and colorful toys.
Items included:
- Dorie, Reanne and Mirabelle dolls that could speak phrases they said from the show. They come with a wand, witch uniforms, and their normal clothing.
- Smaller, non-talking dolls that resembled the larger ones.
- Small figurine sets of the main cast. Consisting of Dorie, Reanne, and Mirabelle in both normal and witch forms, Caitlyn, Patina, Laralie, and the Fairies.
- Costume objects like the witch outfit, gloves, hats, wigs, brooms, wands, boots, and the tap on a necklace that usually played music and lit up.
Unreleased Merchandise
Various unreleased merchandise for the series was shown at a Toy Fair in 2006. However none of it ever hit store shelves, most likely due to the show being canceled.
- Dolls for Caitlyn and Ellie, both with a wand, normal clothing and witch uniforms. It's anticipated these dolls were able to speak phrases from the show just like the other dolls.
- A couple more figurine sets. The first one features; Caitlyn (In both normal & witch forms), Dorie (Dog form) and Feredagio. And the second one features; Ellie (In both normal & witch forms), Patunia and Felina.
- An unreleased Wandawhirl can be seen on the bottom left.
Editing
Like their other previous dubbed anime, 4kids attempted to give the series a "western" orientation to fit the ratings and be more familiar to viewers. Many lines were changed or modified, and several things had been painted over or changed entirely. While the original series had been intended for any age, Magical Doremi was strictly made for Elementary School students.
Some major edits include:
Kanji
- Due to being an unrecognizable writing for most of the English viewing audience, it was either erased or painted over into an English word or symbols.
Violence
- While minor injuries were mostly kept in, things with blood or implied blood was erased, lessened, or covered up. Some scenes deemed too graphic or time-consuming were cut out.
- 4Kids completely changed the plot of episode 19. They changed it so that Hazuki was never kidnapped at all and that her kidnappers were her uncle and his friend.
Cut Scenes/Episodes
- In each episode, the few minute portion before the title card was cut. Most-likely for time restraints. The Eyecatches were removed entirely.
- Episode 30 was never aired for unknown reasons. One can assume that it was probably because it involved 3rd graders walking through a graveyard at night with no parental supervision, which may appear inappropriate for the American audience.
Additionally, the episode would be deemed "too controversial" for broadcasting due to heavy elements of religion: Yamauchi is a Buddhist, evidenced by the contents in his house, such as his ancestors' clothing and the large statue of the Buddha. It remains unknown as to whether or not 4Kids actually dubbed this episode, but it is unlikely that they did. However, its existence seems to at least have been acknowledged, as on their website, "30" was a number skipped on their episode listing.
Add-ins
- While the dub removed a lot of things, minor things had been added to "compensate". Like their own title cards, changed songs, and a special new feature at the end of an episode titled "Witchling Sing-Along".
- The original background music is not kept and was replaced with a new soundtrack created by 4Kids. Occasionally sound effects from the original show are used, coupled with new sound effects added in by 4Kids.
Japanese
- Most of the references to Japanese culture were edited or removed altogether, such as takoyaki (octopus dumpling balls) becoming chocolate doodles/cookies. Rather than having the show take place in Japan as it had been originally, the dub heavily implies that it takes place in the United States of America.
Characters
- Characters and locations also gained name changes. While the characters mainly retained their personalities, some had been completely exaggerated or somewhat out of character.
Reception
The series was met with poor reception and generally kept a low rating, being unable to gain a solid fanbase or audience. It was theorized to be because of the time they chose to air the program, doing it so early that it was missed by most viewers, along with how they tried to make it a low-rating show for younger children.
Trivia
- Before the series was removed from the 4Kids website there was a picture of Momoko in a group shot from Motto.
- Back when the series aired it was heavily rumored that Hana's name would be Flora, while Momoko would be Anna or Mindy.
- In one of the Sing-Along's, a blue colored tap made an appearance.
- While airing (not counting small marathons), Magical Doremi was never on past 9:00 am.
- Magical Doremi was the only known Dub at the time that was never aired on 4kids entirely on TV.
- After holding the license for so long, 4Kids has also lost their rights to One Piece and Pokémon, making them the second and third dubs not to be completed.
- In April 24th of 2010, the first episode of the dub was shown on the CW4Kids at 7.00 a.m.
- This was suspected as them attempting to show it a final time before their license expired.
- Originally a rumor circulated around, saying the reason 4Kids lost their rights was because the original producers were unhappy about the numerous changes made to the show and personally striped them of their license.
- However this rumor is completely false as the real reason for 4kids lost the rights was because their license to the series had expired and they didn't bother re-newing it due to the dub's low interest.
Gallery
