Witch Watch Impressions: Witchy Good Times

Since Toho, one of the biggest film studios in Japan (behind franchises and films like Godzilla Minus One among many others, like the filmography of Akira Kurosawa) bought GKIDS, the famed animation distribution label bringing over multiple acclaimed animated features from around the world like Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning The Boy and the Heron,  it has been weird to see them dive into anime distribution with the titles Toho has a hand in. It is not that it is out of the blue because of GKIDS’ relationship with multiple studios in Japan’s animation scene, such as Khara, Science Saru, Studio Ghibli, and Studio Chizu. I mean, Toho has also either bought those studios or has ties/investments in them. A deal between Toho and GKIDS was bound to happen, and with the announcement that they would be distributing stuff like Evangelion and last year’s smash hit Dandadan, it was the beginning of them bringing over anime directly. If Toho has a hand in it, they will probably distribute it. 

It works out well, since there has been some dire need to give companies like Crunchyroll competition. They are way too big to be the only distributor in anime around, while everyone else gets scraps or struggles to get some hit titles. The deal was also possibly done after Sony, which owns Crunchyroll, bought distribution rights to Mamoru Hosoda and Studio Chizu’s upcoming film Scarlet. Toho wanted a way to bring their anime to the US without having to deal with Crunchyroll, and we are seeing the results of that now with GKIDS bringing not only Dandadan over, but Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing, and now Witch Watch. 

Witch Watch is based on the manga of the same name by Kenta Shinohara, the author behind Sket Dance and Astra Lost in Space. This anime adaptation, which introduces people to the series via the three-episode compilation film Witch Watch: Watch Party, is directed by the series director Hiroshi Ikehata, written by Deko Akao, and the animation was done by Bibury Animation Studios. 

We follow the life of Nico Wakatsuki, voiced by Rina Kawaguchi, and dubbed by Lily Ki. After training as a witch for years as a child, she returns home as a teenager and ends up living with her childhood friend Morihito Otogi, voiced by Ryota Suzuki, and dubbed by Stephen Fu, who happens to be a human-looking ogre. The two try to live together as a witch and familiar while dealing with everyday life and the shenanigans that ensue because of Nico’s magic. 

Once again, we have a three-episode compilation film that pretty much ends on a cliffhanger for the 4th episode. Unlike Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginnings, this one feels more cohesive, since it’s not hiding the fact that it’s the first three episodes of a 20-or-so-episode series. It still ends unsatisfyingly, and if you walked into this thinking it was a movie, the animation would feel underwhelming. It tries to make up for that with an interview with the two leads and the director. Nothing too in-depth, but this is only 70 or so minutes. If you ever went to the screenings for Look Back, you will know that they also took the same approach, talking with the director and the two leads of that film due to Look Back’s paltry 60-minute runtime. Either because the 4th episode for Witch Watch is not done yet or they wanted to just keep it at the three-episode rule: most viewers will decide to stay with the show by that time, or go and watch a different show that will interest them. 

With all that said, if you are a fan of slice-of-life romcoms with a magical element that’s more subdued than outrageous or are just curious, then this does a great job at selling you what kind of show this is going to be. In some anime like the winter season’s I Got Married to the Girl I Hate in Class, the comedy wholly relies on the characters yelling from the top of their lungs to make the punchlines happen, and the characters are wholly unlikable on top of the fact that the jokes weren’t funny. It was a show skating on the fact that it had some possibly cute anime girls for male audience-goers to ogle over instead of noticing that the story and writing were bad. Witch Watch does a much better job at having its mix of character development and comedy woven into the romance. The characters grow throughout the three episodes shown. Otogi, for example, goes from wanting to hide his and Nico’s history and powers to being more open about it. The humor also has layers in a lot of their biggest punchlines, like Nico’s use of the duplication spell, the lightweight/heavy spell, and the flat-as-paper spell. Even a spell to duplicate a fashionable outfit has genuinely funny consequences. It’s a smart move to have a comedy director work on a comedy show, and while that is usually obvious, sometimes anime directors get stuck on projects they are woefully ill-equipped to handle, like the Berserk 2016 series where an anime director known for comedies was given the task to adapt the quintessential dark fantasy anime series. It fell flat due to bad CGI animation and writing. 

What’s also nice is that so far, the show doesn’t come off as horny on main as other shows do. Witch Watch will probably have fanservice, and fanservice in itself is not the core issue, but it’s refreshing to see the show do its best to not try to be 100% perverse with its portrayal of its female characters. Fan service can be effective like in the smash hit The 100 Girlfriends, but that’s because that show focuses mostly on someone having to deal with the fact he will have 100 consecutive girlfriends and builds the girls up as characters with real personalities. Witch Watch is more cute and funny, and the focus is put more on the antics of the comedy or scenario than how many times can the camera see up a female character’s dress. It lets the characters breathe and be who they are instead of being blank templates for the audience to latch onto. 

The designs are all very charming, and while I know some folks are annoyed by the fact that a lot of media visualizes beastly individuals to look mostly human, this is meant to be more of a comedy than something like that NBC show Grimm or the recent Wicked adaptation. Plus, you can still identify most characters by their beastly inspiration: for example, they keep pointing out the pointed spike of hair on Otogi’s head that could easily translate to an ogre horn in folklore. It doesn’t quite hit that goal so far with another character that shows up in the third act who is supposed to be a Tengu. The only discernible detail that gives it away is his fan weapon and the footwear, but I wasn’t bothered by the fact that we aren’t getting ugly monstrous individuals. If this was meant to be something like Good Bye Earth or a more serious fantastical setting, then I would be more annoyed by the hot monster trope. This is anime, and you know they want you to find the characters cute/attractive to sell merchandise. 

So, like last time, does this work as a movie? No. Does it work as a piece of marketing for an upcoming Spring 2025 anime seasonal drop? Yes! It’s a show with a lot of witty charm and silly antics to make anyone who likes cute anime witches do witch shenanigans. GKIDS will have the US distribution rights for the show, and it will be streaming on a couple of different services like Netflix and Crunchyroll.