It hasn’t escaped my notice that there’s an odd symmetry between the two Patron Pick winners, past and present, occupying Sunday nights on my schedule. Shoushimin Series (like Kusuriya no Hitorigogo, as I’ve noted more than once) is better when it’s about something. But Witch Watch is very much in the opposite camp. I find this series to be most winning when it’s abjectly silly and satirical, embracing the irreverent and observational side of Shinohara Kenta’s style. I like the characters, don’t get me wrong. But serious character drama here just doesn’t seem to soar. Just be funny and I think this show can continue to succeed.
We got two stories this week rather than three, but they were both fully comical so that was no problem. The first involves Kan & Nico deciding (thanks to the advice of an apparently homeless man in the park named “Sergeant Punch“) to become YouTubers. This setup is right up Shinohara’s street, and he doesn’t disappoint. He manages to thoroughly mock both successful YouTubers and the even-more mockable feebs who try and copy them. And teenagers of course, his favorite satirical target. Nico and Kan are predictably useless at creating context (that unboxing one had me on the floor) and Moi is predictably majime about the whole thing.
Things really blossom when Moi brings Keigo in as an instructor. I saw great comic potential in him as soon as he was introduced last week, and this bit doesn’t disappoint. Moi introduces him as the class loser hipster and he does everything in his power to live up to that. His tortured teen intellectual act (both on and off-camera) hits the target like a laser-guided missile. He is at least nominally more competent at this than the dummy pair though, and between his tech know-how and Morihito’s earnest dedication Nico (& Kanshi) Channel manages to generate a minor viral hit (Nico playing Keigo’s hilarious and unintentionally self-parodying game). Then they get tired of it just as Moi predicted, and that’s that.
Next up we meet Kiyomiya Suzuka, an ojou-sama Nico idolizes as the perfect nadeshiko type she figures Moi goes for. Except she can’t actually do anything well, which is a great trial to the stern grandmother who’s been forcing her to take lessons in all the stereotypical cultural activities ojou-samas do. Kiyomiya begs Nico to fix her with a spell, which even I know isn’t how it works. The best Moi can do is “Synclone”, which ties her movements to Moi’s – on the grounds that this might help her pass the tea ceremony test Grandma is insisting she pass or go back to training square one. So ever-helpful and capable Moi agrees to learn the tea ceremony and help her fake it with the aid of Keigo’s camera glasses.
This is every bit the slapstick disaster you’d expect it to be. Perfectly middlebrow at best, which is a butter zone for this show. For starters Morihito uses the strength he’d use for his own oni body to move Suzuka’s wispy frame around. Then when Kan uses a Country Ma’am (IYKYK) cookie as a stand-in for the dry sweet Grandma places in front of Kiyomiya, almost chokes her. Only a fortuitous appearance by an osuzumebachi saves the day, giving Moi a chance to impress the old lady with a skillset that comes naturally to him. It all closes with a pun, when Suzuka asks him to learn the koto for her next trial and Moi responds with a firm “O-kotowari”.
Yeah, this ain’t exactly Noel Coward here. So the hell what, though – Shinohara can do this sort of winning idiocy as well as anybody. And it all just works so much better in anime form – this anime form anyway, with the superb treatment Bibury Animation Studio is giving Witch Watch. Every anime season is better with a good comedy or two that asks nothing more of an audience than to laugh, and has the chops to make it easy to do so. So far Witch Watch is absolutely fitting the bill for Spring 2025.
The post Patron Pick Spring 2025: Witch Watch – 07 appeared first on Lost in Anime.
