A bond built on hate.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Asahi Sakano
What They Say
In a world full of Evils, humanity’s only hope is the inhuman power of the witches.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Shonen Jump kicked off a new weekly series at the beginning of this month with Guardian of the Witch, which comes from writer/artist Asahi Sakano. Their first work was back in 2018 with the three-chapter Kuro no Shinobi for Shonen Jump GIGA and they came back in 2019 for another three-chapter work in the same magazine with First Beast Alan. This one got a plum spot in Weekly shonen Jump and a pickup in English which means it’s likely going to bring out enough to at least produce one volume depending on how well it goes over. Sakano’s work in this opening chapter, which clocks in at fifty-seven pages, is pretty solid as it feels like a mesh of a few other notable works that can find time to become its own thing. So many works spawn from the ideas of others that it’s easy to see the connections.
The story introduces us to the city-state of Berne in a fairly standard feudal fantasy world. It’s a walled city with massive corridors that take you to other city-states, though that’s not really touched upon here. The city is walled to protect people from the Evils that exist outside, kind of frothing at the mouth man-beasts that rage against people and try to kill and consume them. What protects each city is a Witch that’s able to use their abilities to wipe out large attacks by these creatures and keep the people safe. It does take a lot of energy so refueling is key. In addition to the Witch that each city has there’s also an armed force known as Guardians that protect the Witch as well. It’s a tradition that goes back some time by all appearances and there’s a good flow and rhythm that everyone operates under because they all know that it’s the Witch that does the real work.
Within this framework we’re introduced to Fafner, a young Guardian who has been assigned recently to protect the Witch personally. Fafner’s a bit unusual compared to the other Guardians in that he wants to make it so that the world doesn’t need Witches since they failed to protect his family some time ago, resulting in the death of his parents and sister. Unbeknownst to him, the Witch, Manasfa, feels the same way and doesn’t want any of this. Through the usual opening events of a series like this, Fafner discovers that the government secretly creates the Witches by putting elements of the Evils into them that allows them to have the powers that they have. But eventually, those safeguards that exist within them will break down and the Evil inside will overwhelm. It’s at this point that it’s made clear to Fafner that the role of the bodyguard Guardian is to kill the Witch eventually, not to protect her. That alters his view completely.
It takes a little bit to get them both on the same page since they’re not really talking to each other but past each other and there are a few other characters in the mix, such as the maid/servant that helps Manasfa around the Rectory she resides in as the Witch. Sakano’s storytelling brings a lot of things to the forefront quickly in order to put in the right trappings but even with it covering fifty-seven pages it feels a bit rushed with some of the reveals coming too quickly. But at the same time they’re all fairly standard and largely predictable pieces. Especially since it riffs on Attack on Titan so much, which isn’t a surprise because it’s a good foundation to work with. What we’ll need to see if is Sakano can take the core concept further to something more unique.
In Summary:
Asahi Sakano hits their third project on the ground running and you can feel that they have a lot of things defined and ready to move forward with. There is a lot of familiar here but that’s part and parcel of manga in general as it’s reworking the parts and finding new things to expand with. We get a decent feeling for Fafner overall but it’s more of checking the boxes at the moment and doing largely the same with Manasfa. There’s a lot more room to expand with her at this point and dig into but we do get some good stuff in showing just how little she cares for her current situation. I can envision several ways to shake this up and do something interesting with it so I’m curious to see if Sakano will take the risks or go with the familiar.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: February 2nd, 2020
