Who’s Your Jakarta Magic?

This one article wasn’t even fully written until September 2022. 

Gue Sihir Lu is more than being a short lived weekly MockBuster Sinetron (aka Indonesian Soap Opera); it is a super strange take on Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s own legendary classics Sally (or Sunny) the Witch and Princess Comet, as well as of all Toei Animation Originals, Takashi Ijima’s unremarkable Chappy the Witch. Unfortunately, the rather decent actress Nia Ramadhani is otherwise so guilty of being addicted to a deadly illegal drug like meth, which means she’s currently in prison for the rest of her own life. 

Behaviour and fashion wise, the character Sofie only superficially resembles her other inspirations, Melissa Joan Hart’s iconic portrayal of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch and Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s manga version of Princess Comet. Otherwise, she is most obviously a physical Chappy expy in all but name and age, including the goddamn hair buns.

In other words, despite being created and written by the outspoken Instagram celebrity Tisa TS for both MD Entertainment and SCTV, the live action story is cliche as hell. This means a superior trilogy of animated remake films (albeit set in Newcastle in NSW, Australia instead of Jakarta in Java, Indonesia) will lead to another work in the form of a future animated series focusing on blending East European Romani folklore with contemporary Australian surroundings. 

As it is, said animated film trilogy and its tv sequel will feature bits and pieces of Romani culture such as; the Butyakengo (a kind of soul-type spirit living inside one’s body, usually a human one) and countless others. 

The end.