Ojamajo Doremi Dokka~n! 28
Really damn good episode. The way it progressively integrated every girl into the house while turning the premise on its head was impressive coupled with a gentle pace that built organically to the little thematic quip by the end. Gotta thank Yamauchi for this one, he always delivers on this series.
More interesting however, was the involvement of Umakoshi as AD. He rarely appears in Doremi, only doing 1 or 2 episodes a season, but for Dokkan he had 4 slotted (1, 28, 40, 51). While watching Naisho I noticed something slightly different about the drawings. Of course they were on average of higher quality thanks to Naisho being a 13 episode OVA instead of a cheaper, 50 episode TV series, but that's not it. After watching a pre-Naisho episode with Umakoshi AD I realize what was missing:
The trademark Umakoshi way of drawing noses wasn't fully developed yet! I checked some eps from previous seasons too, and it was also like this. Now, go 1 year later into Naisho, or even later into the Doremi 16 covers, and we get:
It seems like the little circle he drew for the noses got more and more simplified, with one half omitted entirely and it ended up becoming that distinctive and instantly recognizable curved line. Sometimes he draws it straight like in the left shot, sometimes it's more broken-up like in the two others. In some shots you'll still see the full little oval, or even just a bit of the other half. I really like how it looks with the shading on the other side, it gives otherwise flat faces a bit of a three-dimensional feeling and a lot of character. Later he would go on to make Heartcatch in
this same vein. Of course Umakoshi has a huge range as a character designer, so you won't usually find this kind of stylization in something like Mushishi. It's most prominent in Heartcatch and Doremi Naisho, and I feel like this particular quirk came directly from his work on the TV show.
The designs Umakoshi was doing before were comprised of classic 90s semi-realism (Grappler Baki, Berserk) or full-on shoujo (Marmalade Boy, Gokinjyo Monogatari); Doremi's designs are like a cross of his shoujo side, as they have Marmalade Boy's neutral faces ripe for cartoony deformations coupled with Gokinjyo Monogatari's simplified forms and 'mover' propensity. To a large extent Doremi's designs also avoid the shoujo aesthetics of those two and feel more 'kids show'. These designs were definitely Umakoshi's most satisfying at the time, and still remain among his absolute best works.
