“Witch’s Return”
What They Say:
Morihito Otogi, a high school student who comes from a lineage of ogres, enjoys a peaceful, ordinary life until his childhood friend, Nico, moves in with him. Nico is a witch-in-training and chooses Morihito to be her familiar.
While Nico is thrilled to reunite with her old friend and crush, Morihito is tasked with the perilous duty to protect her from a foretold calamity. Between the unpredictable chaos caused by Nico’s magic, and the awkwardness of sharing a home, their lives become a whirlwind of supernatural hijinks and threats.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga of the same name that launched in 2021, Witch Watch has been one of those series that has felt like it is powered by the sun in terms of its presence ahead of its launch. The original manga from Kenta Shinohara has powered through a ton of volumes since its debut, released in English through Viz Media, and having loved their Sket Dance series it made me curious as to how this would work. The anime has a solid team behind it with Hiroshi Ikehata directing it from the scripts overseen by Deko Akao and Bibury Animation has worked on some really interesting projects. The series is also seeing streaming through a couple of services which definitely helps expands its reach as well and will likely create a push toward the manga – which is the goal of every adaptation.
Childhood friends stories are a dime a dozen but sometimes you can bring an interesting angle to it. While Morihito and Nico were friends as kids, she left early on because she was going to witch training and promised to put her all into it since it meant leaving her best friend. Life goes on and things eventually change when we get to the high school era as Nico has come back to town at long last. While you get a sense that Morihito was a nice kid, the reality is that he’s got ogre lineage in his family so he’s something of a tough in a lot of ways as we see quickly. He doesn’t fight back when other students give him grief because he knows he could really hurt them. But he manages the situation in a way that lets it come to a close but to still set things right. The cold open covers a lot of this and other basics to the “mythology” of the world so that it can just jump right into things. When they make clear within two minutes that those of ogre lineage tend to be familiars to witches, well, you know what’s coming. And that’s fine to get out of the way in a “tell, don’t show” kind of way.
Morihito learning from his father that Nico is moving in and he’s to be her familiar is something which certainly surprises Morihito, however. It is, as expected, an awkward reunion though Nico is clearly excited by it even if she too was surprised about being roommates and his becoming her bodyguard as she frames it. Morihito falling to a kind of frustrated yet resigned approach to this situation lets him kind of deadpan his way through parts of it and as the two get reacquainted, we get to see the dynamic play out well and understand a bit about how her magic works. The relationship dynamic between the two is certainly changing a bit from when they were kids for obvious reasons, but you get the idea pretty quickly that Nico may have a pretty serious praise kink with how Morihito treats her at times. But she makes it hard for those moments to happen since she can be a bit of trouble and sometimes not great at her magic – such as when she makes herself paper thin and floats away.
The adjustment period for the two is what dominates here as it mostly takes place within the same day and just shows them getting used to each other. And every time that Nico does something right or useful with her magic, even the smallest of compliments just sends her over the moon. He does try to get her to realize that she shouldn’t be so public with the use of herm agic, but it’s the push and pull of his naturally wanting to protect her from threats and the rule of witches about having to help people, especially during this phase of her training. It’s a familiar dynamic but it’s given some room to breathe here in discussion and you can see how over time they’ll try to figure out a good balance. But for now, her impulsive nature is what’s driving her use of magic combined with doing right, such as the main big “action” sequence toward the end when they both help with a building on fire. It’s straightforward but it speaks well for both of them and how much growth they both still have in a lot of ways.
In Summary:
It’s easy to see from this first episode why the manga has done well, why it has so many volumes, and why it got the fast-track to an anime adaptation. It’s got an easy and accessible premise that’s mainstream friendly, enjoyable characters, and room to grow in so many ways both serious and silly. And it’s really no surprise considering how strongly received Sket Dance was in both manga and anime form and lasted as long as it did. There’s a strong confidence to the execution that the anime translates well and it makes you want to see more of these two and curious to see how it expands the cast over time and if it manages to really keep it about these two. Definitely a lot more fun than I expected it to be and delivers on the premise in a really good way while lightly seeding the long-term storytelling goals.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
