Star Detective Precure! is getting a crossover episode with Ojamajo Doremi. The Precure official website announced Friday that the show’s 39th episode, airing October 25, will be a Halloween episode that puts the Star Detectives in witch apprentice costumes.
What the crossover looks like
Along with the episode announcement, the site posted a collaboration visual and character art showing the Star Detectives dressed as Ojamajo Doremi-style witch apprentices. That is the whole tease for now. No guest characters from Doremi have been confirmed, and there is no word on whether any of the original cast will appear.
Why these two shows fit together
This is not a random pairing. Star Detective Precure! is set in 1999, the same year the original Ojamajo Doremi premiered. Anna Akechi is a second-year middle schooler living in Makoto Mirai Town in 2027, and on her birthday a companion fairy named Pochitan drops her back in 1999. There she meets Mikuru Kobayashi, another second-year who dreams of becoming a great detective. The two witness the Phantom Thieves stealing people’s treasured belongings, transform into Precure detectives and start solving cases to protect the town.
So the crossover lands inside the year Doremi actually aired, which is a tidy bit of bookkeeping for a show that already built its premise around time travel. The Halloween framing also gives the costumes a reason to exist in the story instead of being a promo gimmick with no explanation.
The Doremi side of the crossover
Ojamajo Doremi premiered in Japan in 1999, and 4Kids brought a heavily edited version to the United States in 2005 under the title Magical DoReMi. The 20th anniversary film, Looking for Magical DoReMi (Majo Minarai o Sagashite), opened in 2020 after a delay and won the Best Animation Film award at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards in 2021.
That audience is now well into the nostalgia bracket, which is probably the calculation here. A Halloween team-up with a currently running Precure series reaches people who grew up on the Doremi dub without asking them to commit to a new show.
Where to watch both
Star Detective Precure! debuted February 1 on ABC TV, TV Asahi and their affiliate channels at 8:30 a.m. JST. Crunchyroll streams the series across North America, Central America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and CIS. The original Ojamajo Doremi is a different matter. Outside Japan your options are limited, and the edited 4Kids version is not the same show.
Star Detective Precure! is the 23rd main entry in the Precure franchise, and the show is currently sitting behind a strong box office weekend for the brand, which you can read about in our report on the Chiikawa and Precure theatrical numbers.
Episode 39 airs October 25. If you have been waiting for an excuse to check the series, a Halloween crossover episode is a reasonable one, since these episodes are usually built to stand on their own.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: Crossover visual for Star Detective Precure! and Ojamajo Doremi, via Anime News Network.
