Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte

Nurse Witch Komugi is a fascinating anime. It exists as a parody of the magical girl genre as a whole, but also a parody of an entirely different anime, SoulTaker, which embodies an entirely different tone. The SoulTaker production committee is actually responsible for the production of this anime, and even brought over the same dub actors to maintain consistency. Furthermore, Nurse Witch Komugi maintains this irreverent, highly referential personality throughout the show that is highly peculiar and specific to the time in which it was made, that being the early 2000s. It references everything from other anime like Fistof the North Star and Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan, to more unexpected things like South Park and early 2Chan memes. This eccentric personality is something I love about the anime, but the show itself sometimes ends up feeling like an excuse to make these references, leading it to become narratively unmoored. I'm not saying it needs to be some dramatic masterpiece, but I would prefer if it didn't just devolve into nonsense. Beginning with the story, as I said earlier, I love its sense of humor and the clever references scattered throughout, especially its callbacks to 2000s otaku culture and the early internet. It captures that atmosphere earnestly and honestly, which on its own is worthy of praise. Indeed, much of its score rests on the fact that I am a huge sucker for 2000s otaku culture, so the fact that this anime is so referential while being so self-aware carries a lot of weight. The story itself, however, is pretty rudimentary, and often trips over itself trying to make clever references, which ends up being a problem for the pacing and coherence of the story. The art is great, in that fun, nostalgic 2000s style, complete with all the garish trappings of magical girl anime, and a shockingly strong command of character design, which on its own elevates the art to the strongest aspect of Nurse Witch Komugi. They're all so visually complex yet exceptionally distinct, loaded with tiny details and design elements that bring them to life, even for the more mundane characters throughout. If I had to describe the colorful, energetic art in a single word, I'd describe it as electric. It stands strong even today, and it's because of random screenshots that I decided to watch it in the first place. The sound is good, with a fun soundtrack and voice work that matches the high energy of the show. It all works towards creating this rich atmosphere that perfectly captures 2000s weeb culture, especially in the context of an early, still-developing internet culture. The characters are very strong, especially for something like this, and drive the story along by their sheer energy. My favorites are Komugi, who is simultaneously the archetypal magical girl and the perfect subversion of the trope, and her arch nemesis, Koyori, who matches her absurdity as the perfect embodiment of and foil to the melodramatic villain archetype. As for the specials and sequels, the special episode is a bit messy and loaded with music videos, but the second episode of the sequel OVA, Nurse Witch Komugi Z, is the anime's strongest showing by far. It boasts a maverick visual identity, a fluidity of animation, and a sense of narrative purpose on display that is better here than anywhere else in the show. Indeed, if the entire anime was this caliber, then it would enjoy a much higher score. From what I understand, the newer series, Nurse Witch Komugi R, is completely different and almost entirely devoid of what made the original OVAs special. Overall, Nurse Witch Komugi is a fun, interesting little piece, and while I enjoyed it, most of the enjoyment here comes from the art and the references, so if that's not enough for you, then there's little else to be had.

Nurse Witch Komugi-chan is the perfect representation of what anime in 2000’s was like. Considering that this was a parody like anime, I wasn’t too surprised over what I was dealing with. This anime is makes fun of the magical girl shoujo characterization, which is famous in anime like “Precure”, “Sailor Moon” (obviously), “Cardcaptor Sakura”, while also parodying “The Soultaker”. The funny part about this show is that besides the main characters abilities, it also makes fun of the cosplayer stereotype that makes most cosplayer-like characters in today’s anime seem interesting to watch. There were moments that I wish they made fun of the cosplayerculture a whole lot more than I wish they made fun of the magical girl plot line, as it would have been a whole lot easier to do so. It also says a whole lot that Mugi-Chan ended up being one of the memorable characters in the shows first half (granted it is a short series), as I laughed at the fact that he gets relegated to be the perverted bunny rabbit that is also the helper of a teenage nurse witch like Komugi. Koyori’s character, from when she slips between good and evil, can be entertaining from time to time. However, she does seem to (almost) make me lose interest in her, mainly because I think more interested in how they managed to make “The Soultaker” into a parody in the first place. Even with that, it is still a good anime for its time, and I can’t wait to see the reboot of this in the future.

Well, here’s the thing about this anime right here. This is a spinoff OVA to their sister series SoulTaker and yet I’m going in without watching the original series. From what I heard about the show, people absolutely hated it, mostly because they found the character Komugi was so annoying in SoulTaker, a whole OVA series that revolves around her would spell anger into a lot of fans, non-fans and even anime reviewers, especially a certain wolf/angel-based reviewer I know. *wink wink*. Ungrar, the King of Viruses, has escaped from his prison cell in Vaccine World. Maya, the Goddess of Vaccine World sends Mugimaru downto Earth to find a human to accept the powers of Vaccine World and become the Magical Nurse. He finds the best (and the only willing) person for the job when he meets Komugi Nakahara. “Komugi is a playful, lazy, and easily distracted (typical) teenager whose dream is to become a cosplay idol and balancing her career with the Kiri-Pro Promotion Company and her new job battling Ungrar's loyal henchman and the Magical Maid Koyori.” – That’s what part of the plot synopsis said when I read it on ANN, I swear. Well, Komugi is all those things but sometimes she gets very cringe worthy to deal with and it’s not just her. I really can’t stand the constant bickering between Komugi and Megumi, who mostly tease each other’s breast size and they do it every time and it gets real old real fast……in other words, I can’t just both of these girls. Then came Koyori, who is Komugi’s friend that works as a model and cosplayer and yet she’s also her rival when it comes to them being magical girls. But how does she turn into that? She loses consciousness………yeah. There is also Runa, a child star who also works for Kiri Pro with Komugi and also teases her about her being flat-chested but yet she seems to be the one that annoys her the least but not a favorite of mine. Matter of fact, nobody on this show is a favorite character of mine. There are either too bland or too annoying to give a shit about. I’m sure some of the characters from the original series have more character than they do here. They scream, yell too much, overact, and try to overexcite one too many times. Now for the animation department, Tatsunoko Pro, being the original animation company for SoulTaker but in here, they are around with the help of Kyoto Animation……yes, that Kyoto Animation and for what it is, the animation is fine with what it is and there is some hiccups especially in some of the magical girl and fight sequences in between the series, thankfully it lasted 5 episodes or 6 if you count episode 2.5 or the other OVAs that I didn’t know of. The music does have that very cutesy J-Popish sound that many people know and the music is about as bland as the rest of the series. The first time I listened to these songs I just wanted to skip the whole music sequence together and for you either liked these songs, then all the power to you. As for the English dub, some of the original SoulTaker cast from The Ocean Group/Geneon dub does appear in here, although NWK was distributed by ADV Films but yet it was such a chore to go through. The voice actress for Komugi, Jocelyne Loewen, is really grating on the ears and feels like her motivation in the script is to annoy you. Luci Christian does play the role of Mugi-maru and yet it’s sad to see her doing this part considering she really is a great voice-actress and they got her sounding like Webby from Ducktales smoking up menthols. FINAL VERDICT: As it all comes down to this, this OVA is really so damn annoying but it’s nothing to rage about and the simple fact that it’s too dull to rage this series. It’s something nobody really wanted or needed but either way you watched it and regret it but not really care for it.

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