“Nurse Witch Komugi-chan” – another old series returns.

Hey folks! Man, I’m not sure what’s happening in Japan, but they are certainly looking to the past to find new stuff to bring forward. We have had announcements for both a new, canon Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki OVA 4 series. We have had the announcement for a new Full Metal Panic! series.  Today, I discovered that the 2002 OVA series Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte has a TV series planned for the Winter 2016 season, called Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R. Color me tentatively interested.

For those who don’t know, the original 5-episode Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte OVA series centered around a teenage cosplay idol named Komugi, who while working for an agency to help with various company’s product promotions, gets drafted to be a nurse witch (a kind of magic girl) to protect the world from the evil King of Viruses. Komugi’s best friend Koyori gets forced to become Magical Maid Koyori, who then spreads viruses for Komugi to defeated. (Koyori has no memories of when she turns into her evil magic girl self).

There were two OVA series. Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte came out in 2002  and the 2-epsidode sequel Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte Z came out the following year. Nurse Witch Komugi-chan was spun off of the SoulTaker anime series and not only did parody of SoulTaker, but did parody of the mahou shoujo genre of that time. I used to own the Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte DVD from ADV (which they shortened to Nurse Witch Komugi, irritating me), so I saw all of those episodes as well as the special “episode 2.5” that ADV included. Unfortunately, I was only able to see the first episode of Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte Z as ADV never licensed it and the only episode fansubbed was the first one.

My understanding is that Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R will not be a continuation of the original OVAs, but will be a remake, taking place with Komugi given a new family name, Koyori given a completely new family and given name (Konoka), and a new “magical sister” will be introduced as well.  Rather than be in high school, the girls will now be in middle school.

I’ll probably give this a try, just to see how it is, even though I don’t feel ultra confident in what I’ve read so far. The original Nurse Witch Komugi-chan worked primarily as a parody title, more so if you were a fan of SoulTaker. But even if you hadn’t seen SoulTaker, the other parody stuff was enough to make it quite funny. When it tried to have plot, it didn’t work so much. We’ll see how the new series handles it all.

Still, it is interesting that three older anime series are getting resurrected, either with sequels or as is the case here, a reboot. I’ve heard some older anime fans complain about how most of the modern day anime has nothing on the stuff from the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s. While I admit that what catches my eye for new anime titles is rather limited, I also attributed the attitude about modern anime to be akin to what happens to us all when we grow up — the stuff we grew up with was awesome and the modern day stuff sucks. 😉

That being said, the fact that Japan is looking to the past to bring back titles that were beloved or had a cult following does seem to suggest that those in charge of anime in Japan may think that most of the modern day anime isn’t much to behold. I’d be curious to read your thoughts on this.