Just look at this adorable OP

This show is just so precious. It's a lot like one of those older MG shows where the main character uses a magical item, but doesn't transform into a costume. 

This young girl, who goes by the nickname Potpourri, dreams of being a witch. So when she finds out that the owner of a local pharmacy IS a witch, she convinces the owner to make her her apprentice.

Each episode typically involves Potpourri traveling around her humble town, using her magic to solve problems around her.

Each episode is only around eleven minutes long, and there's fourty in total.

The show is being subbed by a group called Naisho, and up to episode 16 is subbed.

This sounds interesting! Seems like another Ojamjo Doremi!

Now that Naishosubs has finished with (and dropped) all of their other shows, they should focus on this one a bit more. Which is fine because this show is still adorable and fun.

It's pretty obvious that Chiaki Konaka worked on this thing, since some of the episodes tend to be a  bit.......... out there. One in particular falls directly into mindscrew territory and gets pretty emotional. 

For those of you who don't know who Chiaki Konaka is, he's a huge fan of lovecraftian horror media, psychological mindscrew things. He worked on Serial Experiments Lain, Narutaru, Digimon Tamers and surprising yet somehow not-surprising, Princess Tutu.

If there's one thing I'm disappointed about with this series, it's this.



This cutie right here. This is Amane the witch. You can see her in the Opening video. I had been waiting for her to show up since about the beginning of the show. I had hoped she would be a reoccurring rival for the main character. Instead she has only appeared once, and it took until episode 27 for that to happen.

And now Naisho strikes back with a vengeance! In the last seven days they've made three releases, each with at least two episodes a piece.

I'm on episode 40 now, only 8 more to go. I'm kinda gonna miss this show, but most of all I'm bummed that Amane has only appeared in two episodes since then.

I feel like Fan Fan Pharmacy was some sort of experiment for Toei

after Sailor Moon ended in the mid-90s, there was a big gap in their market that wanted magical girl shows and all this left over money to try and satisfy it

and between SM and Ojamajo Doremi (their next big cash cow) there was:

Cutey Honey Flash (Feb. 1997)
Dream Crayon Kingdom (Sept. 1997)
FanFan Pharmacy (Feb. 1998) (also paired with 2 other cutesy short shows)
Himitsu no Akko-chan 3 (Apr. 1998)

my guess is that they were just going through their resources and trying to find something that stuck that they knew had worked before. Maybe Amane's episodes didn't get as high ratings as they hoped? But then again, Ojamajo Doremi took over FanFan Pharmacy's timeslot, and they both have a similar vibe. so maybe we have this cute little show to thank for Ojamajo Doremi's existence

I don't ship it...



...Maybe a little.

"Experimental" is definitely a good word to describe this show. Once in a while it gets...... weird. 

With Chiaki Konaka on the staff you know you can expect things to get strange. There's at least one episode that goes into a Utena level symbolism type thing, and a few of them that use CG in some very strange places.

I think I figured out why Amane's in the opening even though her appearances are limited.

Because the opening (and ending) was made exclusively for the DVD release in 2003, 5 years after the fact

so forget what I said, Amane must've been pretty popular to include her in the opening sequence XD

That news actually makes me less curious about another thing I've been curious about... why the OP has no lyrics.

It does have a cute title though.

"Poppuri wa NikoNiko Genki" or "Poppuri's Energetic Smile"

I've seen about 19 episodes of this. But when does it get good? Honestly, it has good elements in it, but it's kinda boring so far. Does it get any better?

I wouldn't say so. It stays largely the same most of its run. There's no point where the writing gets darker or shocking plot twists are revealed or anything like that.

I don't really mind some things staying the same most of the time, and I don't expect dark or shocking stuff in everything. I just wish there'd be some variety sometimes, and if you stick to status quo too much, it'll get stale.