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“Hoi!”
-Yoyo, too many times to count.
Just off the cuff, there are a number of interesting things about 2013’s Majokko Shimai no Yoyo to Nene. It was directed by Takayuki Hirao. If that name sounds familiar, it may be because he also directed the last film I was commissioned to review. This was during his time at ufotable, a powerhouse of a studio both then and now. Also notably, Yoyo to Nene is an isekai, dating from the period when the genre was just in the process of resurging and conquering the anime landscape. But conversely, it’s miles away from the modern isekai zeitgeist, being more reminiscent of the fantasy fairy tales that birthed the genre in the first place. (Or much more distantly, 90s iterations like The Vision of Escaflowne.)
You could also argue that it’s a magical girl story (the term is, in fact, used here.) Though if so, it’s based on a much older version of the “mahou shoujo” idea than what we usually see today, which tends to directly stem from the “magical warrior” archetype that was also seeing a resurgence around this time. All this, contrasted with its distinctly modern look and feel, makes Yoyo to Nene seem like a film unstuck in time. A fact that, along with its general defiance of easy genre labels, may contribute to its relative obscurity in the Anglosphere. But if so, it’s a shame, because while the film falls short of being truly essential, it is quite good, and it’s definitely worth watching.
But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Before delving into goods and bads it’s helpful to know what the film actually is. The very short version of the plot is thus; after a routine day on the job of battling giant monsters, our titular protagonist Yoyo (Sumire Morohoshi, who has kept busy in the years since. In 2020 she was Michiru in Brand New Animal.) and her sister Nene (Ai Kakuma, also still in the industry. She’s even worked with Hirao again since, playing Mystia in Pompo: The Cinéphile.) are called upon to investigate the sudden emergence of a curious structure in the magical forest where they make their home. (To our eyes, it’s quite obviously a modern high-rise apartment building.) Inside, Yoyo becomes stuck in an elevator, which as it turns out, is secretly a portal to other worlds. As such, she’s promptly spirited away to another universe. Namely, our own. Also tagging along is her adorable….cat? Bihaku (Shouko Nakagawa, an idol and second-generation celebrity who seems to occasionally do roles like this. She’d later play Diana in Sailor Moon Crystal.)
In this apartment building, she meets Takahiro (Miyuki Sawashiro, who we’ve met in this column before. You may know her as the modern Fujiko Mine.), his largely unimportant-to-the-plot brother Takeo (Takahiro Sakurai, who this very season is playing Despa in Ousama Ranking and the protagonist, Burton, in Ninjala. And that’s just shows I’ve personally seen!), and their young cousin, the downright adorable–and much more plot-relevant, she gets a nice turn near the finale–Aki (Rio Sasaki, whose brief seiyuu career started here and never got much farther. As of last year, she’s only ever played two other named roles, with Emery Almond in Fafner Exodus being the more prominent of them.) She learns that Takahiro and Takeo’s parents are under the effects of a curse that’s turned them into grotesque slime monsters. Yoyo, as a proud curse-breaker and general magic problem-solver, is determined to uncover what’s hexed the Tak Twins’ parents, and in the process, free them from perpetual oozedom.
We eventually learn it’s because of a magic gacha game that grants wishes, of all things, but the real meat of Yoyo to Nene comes mostly from Yoyo herself. She’s an enrapturing little ball of pixie dust who brightens up the screen every second she’s on it. Making her the focal point of the film was a very wise choice indeed. (I’m not sure if she’s equally important in the manga that Yoyo to Nene is loosely based on, it’s never been available in English in any capacity.) Yoyo’s magic translates directly to movie magic; she’s the source, directly or indirectly, of many of the film’s visual highlights, and has a cute habit of capping her spells with a small exclamation of “Hoi!”
Much of the film’s emotional thrust comes from her interactions with other characters. She and Takahiro eventually develop a close bond (which the movie is smart enough to never explicitly frame as romantic) but getting there is another story entirely. She’s initially quite dismissive of him, and it’s only through the power of Anime Bonding Moments such as learning how to make instant yakisoba with no magic allowed that they come to understand each other.
She gets along more readily with Aki, who she charms with the film’s sole musical number about a third of the way through its runtime.
But in addition to these bonds, Yoyo has a more flawed and slightly darker side, which intuitively fits with her “witch” characterization and makes her more compelling than if she were wholly innocent.
Later in the film, the curse begins affecting more than just individual people, and assaults whole buildings and even whole parts of cities. When it bears down on a festival the three are attending, Yoyo is shown to be a bit callous toward the idea of Aki possibly being injured. There is an idea here that Yoyo–and perhaps residents of her native Magic Kingdom in general–do not truly understand the value of life and death. When Takahiro gets angry with her for not protecting Aki–noting that she got hurt, and far worse could’ve happened–Yoyo doesn’t really seem to get why he’s mad, suggesting that as long as the body’s intact, even raising her from the dead wouldn’t be a big deal. Indeed, earlier on, we’re shown a scene where exactly that happens to minor character Nils back in the Magic Kingdom, establishing this as being as much a societal flaw as a personal one.
Yoyo changes her tune when Bihaku is injured later that same night, and in easily the scene’s darkest film it seems like he might pass away entirely. Thankfully he eventually turns out to be fine, but the shock is enough to impart the lesson to Yoyo.
There is a question that’s natural to raise here, though. What, exactly, is Yoyo to Nene trying to say with scenes like this? There are a few in the film, although that’s the most prominent. The whole magic gacha game plot raises similar questions. Its resolution is fairly convoluted and involves both Aki’s father, the game’s lead developer, and her departed mother, who turns out to also have been an isekai’d transplant from the Magic Kingdom. On this level, Yoyo to Nene does break down; it seems to reach for a universal applicability, but doesn’t properly grasp it, leaving it feeling thematically confused.
There’s a sliver of light commentary in near the film’s very end, about how Aki’s mother wanted to use her magic for the good of the world, but people are selfish, so it’s become corrupt. There’s enough of a coherent thought there that when Yoyo finishes out the movie by absorbing magic from people making selfless wishes, it makes some internal logical sense, but all in all, the film, especially in the latter half, only just stays on the right side of “coherent.” Most of this is fairly broad “power of human connection” stuff, a thing many other anime have done better and more compellingly. But of course, many others have done it far worse as well. (You could also read some environmentalist messaging in here somewhere, perhaps, but you’d really have to squint.)
So, thematically it’s a bit broad and wishy-washy. And the film convolves and convolutes its own rules often enough to only just barely make sense. This is enough to raise the question of if it’s even a “good movie” at all, but I’d argue it still very much is. For whatever else it may misfire on, Yoyo to Nene succeeds on an emotional gut-check level, arguably the most important facet for any anime to nail, especially one that’s not even two hours long. It is, of course, also quite the spectacle, which certainly helps. It’s possible that if the movie looked and sounded worse, I’d be less forgiving, but–and I rarely mention this in positive reviews, though it’s true here as well–you review the art you have in front of you, not one that you can imagine existing.
On its own terms, Yoyo to Nene is an entirely worthy film. Most involved have gone on to do more notable things, but I do think the movie’s comparative obscurity in the West is a shame. By the end, in spite of any issues, I found myself happily grinning. More than any of its actual stabs at a theme, the film’s real strength is the sheer warmth it radiates. And in that sense, I think its closest cousins may less be any other isekai, and more work that centers on that same feeling of simple joy. Little Witch Academia and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! spring to mind as somewhat more recent examples.
At the end of the day, the “sell” on Yoyo to Nene is very simple. If magic makes people smile, well, that’s all that really matters, isn’t it? Yoyo to Nene brings smiles by the dozen, what else can you ask for?
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