A Late-Night Anime I’ll Always Remember: Majipoka

※This is a repost of an article originally published on Sep 8, 2023.

　These days, even when loneliness hits out of nowhere in the middle of the night, you can just open a streaming site and there’ll always be some big-name streamer live. It really is a good era for that—an easy way to patch the hole, just a little.

　Anyone who streams at those hours, keeping company with the lonely people awake in the dark, deserves credit. Even if they’re just nocturnal by nature, they’re still supporting the otaku who can’t sleep and end up drifting around the internet at 3 a.m.

　Come to think of it, I already remember staying up late into the night when I was in the upper grades of elementary school. But how did I dull the loneliness back then?

　I was probably playing games most of the time, but there’s a particular kind of creepiness that creeps in when you’re alone with PlayStation polygons at midnight. Even in the PS2 era I was obsessively playing Monster Rancher 2—basically pulling all-nighters. No matter how many times I played it, I couldn’t get bored.

　But then there’s the darkness of the loading screens in between. The silence when a disc is spinning. That dull, echoing sound of the drive reading. And the PlayStation boot screen is weirdly terrifying, too.

　Plus Monster Rancher 2 has basically no human voices at all. If you keep playing it deep into the night, your senses start slipping sideways and you get this strange, chemical kind of exhilaration. Looking back, it’s a quiet game in general.

　And when it gets that quiet, you start wanting to hear a human voice.

　From elementary school through my first year of high school, I lived with my mom in a one-room apartment. Most nights, she’d be sleeping right next to me while I played games or watched anime. I was possessed by Monster Rancher 2, and she was possessed by Torneko’s Great Adventure 2. But when she got tired of dungeon crawling and fell asleep, suddenly the one-room apartment became my midnight.

　And because PlayStation games don’t exactly shower you with character voice acting, the only answer was anime.

　Maybe because of that, my mom had us subscribed to Kids Station. A channel that aired anime 24/7—basically a god to kids like us, born in Okinawa where late-night anime didn’t air at all. Around 2 or 3 a.m., when the plants are asleep, my mom is asleep, and even terrestrial TV has turned into static—that narrow gap between night and morning was when I’d put on Kids Station.

　And the show that felt like a jackpot back then was “Majipoka,” aka Magical Pokaan (Renkin 3-kyuu Magical? Pokaan).

　Even as a kid, I could tell: this was a Real Late-Night Anime, and it was glorious. Over-the-top, pandering moe-girl designs. A story that’s basically harmless but still weirdly cozy. A grand, gap-whiplash opening by Yousei Teikoku. Soft, laid-back visuals and an equally mellow ending theme.

　And because of the era it came from—regardless of it being “moe”—it also had a lot of surprisingly adult, erotic flavor. Not just fanservice or nudity. It’s more like: there are just… a lot of conversations and jokes that are explicitly about sex.

　For an elementary school kid, that was strong stuff. Even now, when I see Pakira (voiced by Aya Hirano), I get that little jolt in my chest. Nice design!

　Cute. And thinking back, that was still a time when bishoujo characters could actually end up in romance plots with random background guys. Even Galaxy Angel—Ranpha would shamelessly flirt with men like it was nothing.

　A little later, once we entered the light-novel-anime era, it became rare for anyone except the protagonist to be the one characters fell for. Seeing girls who are greedy about sex and money and actively aiming to marry a good man—honestly, it makes me nostalgic. That rough, searching feeling of early “moe” culture was wonderful.

　When you watch Majipoka’s loose, airy ending—its languid visuals and lyrics—you start to feel: “Ah. Today’s over.” It’s hard to explain.

　But it’s exactly because it’s late-night: the anime is over, so you should go on to the next day. It gives you that kind of sensation.

　Kids Station also used to heavy-rotate Gag Manga Biyori late at night—but hearing that show fire off rapid nonsense in the dead silence of a one-room apartment is genuinely scary. When your brain isn’t ready for high-tension gag comedy, and you’re forced to process nonstop mismatched dialogue, fear arrives before laughter does.

　I felt the same thing when The Crayon Kingdom of Dreams came on. My mom would be asleep under the futon beside me, and I’d be trying my best not to look at the dim kitchen (because the deep-night darkness would swallow it up). Then the absurd brightness of the N’Paka March would hit, and it felt like it was scrambling the balance of my mind.

　But Princess Silver was cute. She’s cute, so I watched anyway. Still—watching children’s anime in the middle of the night makes you feel like you’ve wandered into an upside-down world. Maybe it’s because I had this rule in my head: kids’ anime is something you’re only supposed to watch in the morning.

　That taboo feeling was delicious.

　Petopeto-san. Stratos 4. Popee the Performer. Yumeria. Ground Defence Force Mao-chan. Hell Girl.

　I’ve had a lot of late-night companions.

　But in the end, it’s still Majipoka.

　Majipoka is the one that’s stuck in my brain as the anime that only truly belongs in the deep of the night.

　Apparently, one of the newer HoloEN girls mentioned Majipoka as an anime she likes. So even overseas, bishoujo characters love Majipoka, huh. Maybe she watched it the same way I did—late at night, drifting through some stream or another.

　You know how it is. There are certain anime that just soak into you on sentimental late nights.

　I want to remember that feeling again someday—somewhere, somehow.