I gotta say, this ep of Witch Watch has to be one of the all-time “If you know you know” moments in anime history. Any Japanese person under 50 certainly will get the joke in the second chapter. But almost no foreigners will. The thing is this, though – if you’re one of the .1% or whatever who do, you were absolutely on the floor. Like, in tears. Rarely has a subject ever been more ripe for satire, and yet (as far as I know) never been satirized in mainstream animanga. Not in Weekly Shounen Jump, anyway.
It’s also funny that the first chapter was a total outlier, and one that did nothing for me. Nothing, that is, except confirm my conviction that Witch Watch is a series that’s far better off not trying to be serious. The situation with the girl and her parents was real enough, but with no context it’s hard to expect it to have much emotional impact. I mean, who the heck are these people? I get the point of it, but it felt like I was watching a totally different show.
But then… OMFG, I plotzed when I saw where Shinohara was going with this. If you’re part of the tiny minority of gaijin (though undoubtedly less tiny in an anime audience) that have taught English in Japan, you know all about those English textbooks – especially the junior high ones. New Horizon is the most popular, but New Crown is another prominent one (Sunshine is the third – between them those three cover maybe 95% of the country). The gist of it is, the language in JHS English textbooks (both English and Japanese) is hilariously stilted and totally unrealistic. Nobody – nobody – in the real world talks like the characters in those books. Much less kids and teenagers.
Nobody, that is, except Hourai Jun (Yamashita Daiki). Moi, Nico, and Keigo can tell from his character design that something is off. Then he starts speaking, and the wheels really come off. Jun talks exactly like one of the kids from the New Horizon JHS textbook. Turns out his dad is a middle school English teacher, and Jun started talking like that from reading the textbooks in the house. But he doesn’t want help with that – he wants help talking to the girl he’s crushing on. Nico demurs, opining that he should show her who he really is. A nice idea in principle but in this case, seriously – no.
What follows is satiric genius on an Olympian level*. This whole situation with the pen and is right out of the 7th-grade book, practically. And gilding the lily the girl, Nikura Ann (Miyamoto Yume) also has a textbook character design and talks like someone from New Crown (their surname Kanji even mean “Hourai” and “Nii Kura”). Their conversation had me rolling on the floor start to finish. But the absolute peak was when Jun announced that Ann was now his girlfriend and Moi said “You’ll have to tell your pen pal in Canada about this.” IYKYK…
The last chapter was fine and cute, but that was a tough act to follow. I did like Mini-Moi, though – TBH I was kinda hoping he would stick around. There was a nice, easy warmth to this bit – Moi is who he is, but his difficulty in expressing emotions doesn’t reflect his true feelings. It was nice that Nico could realize that, though it was more a reminder than new information. It even got sort of moving at times, like Moi and Mini being exactly the same only when he was laughing and when he was explaining things. Intellectually I know dispelling that magic was the right thing to do, but Mini Moi will be missed…
*Edit: After posting I read the manga version and incredibly, that’s even more hilarious. It gets more specific and detailed and even has the line “At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if a rival from Sunshine shows up.”
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