#188: Nurse Witch Komugi (2002-4)

 

Director: Masato Tamagawa, Masatsugu Arakawa, Yasuhiro Takemoto and Yoshitomo Yonetani

Screenplay: Armstrong Takizawa and Tsuyoshi Tamai

Voice Cast: Halko Momoi as Komugi Nakahara; Ikue Ōtani as Koyori Kokubunji; Yūji Ueda as Mugimaru; Ai Shimizu as Posokichi; Akiko Hiramatsu as Yui Kirihara; Atsuko Enomoto as Megumi Akiba; Ikue Ōtani as Goddess Maya; Masaya Onosaka as Shiro Mibu; Michiko Neya as Runa Tokisaka; Mitsuki Saiga as Kyousuke Date; Yukari Tamura as Asuka Sakurai

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

The immediate detail about Nurse Witch Komugi, a five episode OVA release, is that it is a spin-off to a 2001 television series called The SoulTaker, a very early directorial effort from Akiyuki Shinbo, before he became more famous, which was a dark supernatural story and an attempt by the legendary studio Tatsunoko Production to create a more adult work. Ironically, the humorous tie-in following a side character, recognisable in her nurse's outfit and was a smaller character in the cast, has completely obscured the original work entirely in history. The main lead character, a bland male named Kyosuke, becomes the male love interest for the titular Komugi to become more known as a protagonist, a girl blessed with the power to become a bunny nurse themes magical girl to fight humanised viruses. If ever there was an argument that female characters are usually more interesting as leads for your show, a character that stood out in visual design, allowed to become a bumbling if lovable protagonist is a good example, more so the case as, whilst The SoulTaker vanished, Kumogi got two further straight to video episodes in 2004, and a 2016 reboot in the form of a television series.

The resulting title, which was released without context by itself in the United Kingdom by ADV Films, itself requires no previous knowledge of the original series, another in a line of madcap comedies from the time I saw a lot. This one, following Komugi with her cute bunny mascot Mugi-maru, both the poor subject of abuse but also an undefeatable pervert in certain contexts, is definitely a title that borders on a guilty pleasure, as well being a title that you need to get onto its wavelength to fully appreciate. I will say now, what was once an average OVA when I first saw it has grown on me both in nostalgia from seeing titles like this, affectively a nostalgia for an ADV Vision/Manga Entertainment world of my first anime years, but also because the world and the characters have the virtue that you could elaborate on them in a longer format and, if you kept the same absurdities and colourfulness in look, it would have been great.

It is notable a remake came a decade later, although alongside a clear sense of the character being one with fondness for, or at least the potential to return to as a magical girl parody, they have changed the character designs over time. This is a shame in a way, without wanting to dismiss the 2016 remake in case it proved great in itself, but the premise of the original if funny and open enough to work with. An evil virus has escaped an alternative world, called Vaccine World, and invades ours, using a stand-in called Magical Maid Koyori, an evil representation of maid cafe staff member with magical abilities, to find hotspots that can generate monsters, whether the tensions of a tech convention or distilling a highway's worth of road rage. Komugi is not a perfect heroine, a cosplay idol part of a talent agency called Kiri Pro that is scrapping by, with her own career kneecapped by her continually having to go in her secret persona to fight the monsters. At times greedy and egotistical, Komugi is nonetheless likable, but an added joke (and potential bit of tension) is that Magical Maid Koyori is actually her best friend Koyori Kokubunji, a likable young girl her age who however has a split personality, one she is completely unaware of, which is evil and takes over at unexpected times.

Definitely one of the factors to bear in mind with the original OVA is that, for what I enjoyed about the show, some of the humour has aged considerably. Openly, just to give you a perspective of what some of the humour is, and why the short show can be a title some readers will struggle, can be shown in how one of the most prominent changes I can glace at is that Koyori's character design is significantly less busty. There is no way to move around this, but a lot of Komugi's humour, alongside slapstick and being a Tatsunoko that can parody their back catalogue, is sex comedy, from Mugi-maru being a pervert who keeps making the mistake of being in the bathroom when Komugi bathes, but also about characters obsessing about their lack of a bust or vast amounts of on others. Again this is a title that causes me to wonder whether there is a cultural issue in Japan about the status of a woman's bust, or whether this is just a trope male writers have repeated as a gag in their expense. Particularly with Komgui and her follow Kiri Pro co-member Megumi, who derides Komugi as being as flat as an ironing board whilst she is more physically round in areas, you are going to have to put up with a lot of this humour throughout, just like the skimpy outfits, or the scenes (without actual nudity) of bathing, or a final episode villain, an alien schoolteacher who brainwashes most of Japan and has been comically over-provided in anatomy. Worse and more lasciviousness examples exist in anime I have seen from this period, but the sex humour definitely makes the OVA have some guilt to its enjoyment. More so because it is not subtle, nor really inspired, more an excuse to gander at drawn busts like young boys, which gets repetitive for ever other joke that lands.

You have to bear in mind as well many obscurer (by a Western eyepiece) anime references too, specifically among many Komugi's tendency befitting a cosplayer to suddenly appear in costume as a character from another show for a minute. It is, as a result, meant for a fan base that gets the references. It gets to the point "Nabeshin", the animated persona of anime director Shinichi Watanabe, makes a cameo a character that came to the West thanks to ADV Vision releases, especially Excel Saga (1999-2000), where his animated persona, synonymous for his red jacket with yellow tie and an afro, has an entire running side plot by himself. Merely a cameo here as a disgruntled anime director, he even name checks Puni Puni Poemy (2001), an OVA from this era which is a far more notorious work for its lewd humour and weirdness that managed to be banned in New Zealand. Some of the jokes here even had to be censored, in the Japanese dub and visually on a sign, likely because of crossing Japanese copyright, and in the first, probably referencing a real life case of an otaku who committed a horrible crime for a very sick joke.

Thankfully, within mentality of throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks, you get many which work. This mentality also makes Komugi unpredictable and, with an interest set of characters to work with, it manages to hit the mark a lot between its scattershot of jokes. You may not know about Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the original version of the Tatsunoko animated series nor its Westernised Battle of the Planets version, but the joke where Komugi suddenly turns into a five person team and their elderly male mentor on a screen, duplicating herself, to ride in a super combat plane is still potentially funny because a) she is fighting a building, which was once for a comics convention, turned into a giant robot, b) because Mugi-maru spends the scenario completely baffled what the hell is going on, and c) with missiles on the plane too dangerous to use, this boils down to the tactic of blowing up one's plane and smashing it into one's opponent for a final move. The show is deeply silly, and for every joke which you do not get the reference for, or has not aged well, a lot are ridiculous and run for the strangest idea.

Surprisingly for an early 2000s title, it is still unfortunately relevant when the first virus monster turns people into internet forum members arguing over fetishes and getting into spats, only with less toxicity. You get a Speed Racer joke, but also a piss take of early computer animated anime where even Mugi-maru comments the frame rate has become broken mid-shot. Episode 3 devotes itself to Komugi being dead for most of it, due to truck, left to languish haunting her colleagues when they are grateful she is gone, and even having a new life become many new lives when she keeps dying. Scattershot is definitely the right choice of term for the show, among many with their manic tones I have seen over the years, but many of these titles as well have their own deliciously surreal mentalities you can easily gloss over if you watch a lot of anime. The show is aware of this as, for its end credit song, you have a bright female sung pop song but with nonsensical lyrics whose strangeness are part of its theme.

This awareness even comes with the way the show had to work around delays per episodes releasing, promising they will get the show out at a certain date or having a seventies giant robot parody with that aforementioned building-robot for an ending preview gag. There is even an Episode 2.5, which is effectively padding and its own special, an excuse for two music videos with their own distinct looks, but also in itself lovable. For what is a tangent, in terms of the show settling down and, set during Komugi and her colleagues working in a festival cafe, allowing for some character building, it adds to the unpredictable nature in its own sedateness. Eventually this is a show where every Japanese monument, set to a licensed Toho studios orchestral march, transforming into a robot or self defence weapon from a kaiju film to defeat a villain, including a scathing critique (even if fictional) of a building which collapses and is merely called a waste of tax payers' money. For ever joke which caused me to roll my eyes, so much revisiting Nurse Witch Komugi was funnier for me. Whilst as much of this is, again as mentioned, nostalgia, as much of that fondness in itself comes from this type of work, specifically as well these early 2000s OVAs, where in little time they do have their own quirks and idiosyncrasies if you were lucky to have had a good one licensed in the United Kingdom. It is with criticisms, but especially with interest in the 2016 television series, there was enough to appreciate on this return too.