Witch Watch

Episode 3

Not merely content with making the best anime opening of the season, the fine folks at Bibury Animation Studios have struck again. This time, we get a version of the opening based entirely on its animation storyboards, with the joke here being that Nico seems to have somehow messed with the animation. It's great and shows how well the staff understands this series' sense of humor. I can only pray that we see them commit to the bit like this when it comes to one upcoming segment from the manga, but for now, onto the actual episode.

With how much the first two episodes got out of their wacky hijinks, it's easy to forget that this whole show is predicated on Nico having a prophecy of doom hanging over her head. This week's episode swings things back around in that direction, as Morihito learns a little more about what that prophecy entails, and we already start to see danger looming in on him and Nico. Don't take that as a sign of things getting too serious, though, as we've still got some regularly scheduled comedy to talk about, and even with all that foreshadowing, our failgirl witch can't help but find ways to cause self-inflicted disasters of her own.

The first of these comedy segments comes when Nico tries to seduce Morihito with her pajamas, only for him to be completely stone-faced and claim that she only ever wears the same kinds of outfits. Nico, of course, takes this personally, and rather than go through the effort of learning more about fashion, she decides to use her magic to copy an outfit from a fashion magazine and use it to impress him. This quickly ends up backfiring when the spell turns out to only copy the front of the outfit, and her entire backside is exposed, leading Nico to do everything in her power to keep Morihito from looking at her back. The tension is hilarious, especially since Morihito compliments her on the outfit. While we get the inevitable punchline of Nico exposing herself, it's framed as a silly joke instead of fan service. It makes this scenario feel more wholesome than you'd expect from the setup. We also get a genuinely sweet moment between them where Morihito admits that while things have gotten rowdier ever since she showed up, he likes it, and he's happy to see her take an interest in fashion since he now has someone to talk about it with. Cute as all this is, it's just setup for the actual punchline, as when Morihito comments on liking Nico's usual outfits as well, we learn the true reason he cares so much about what she wears: he's a big vintage fashion nerd himself. With how overly stoic Morohito tends to be, there's something beautiful about learning that he's just as much of a dork as Nico is. Once he starts going over the history behind his outfits, Nico learns more about fashion than she could have ever wanted.

The second segment has Nico receiving a few packages worth of manga from her mother (and with both Kochikame and Golgo 13 clocking in at over 200 volumes, you can bet they're taking up every single one of those boxes), along with a letter addressed to Morihito. In it, Nico's mom asks Morihito to continue looking out for her daughter and to be sure not to spoil her since she relies on him too much. He quickly takes that message to heart and tells Nico she'll have to figure out how to haul in all that manga herself. Once again, rather than doing things the simple way, she tries using magic to make things “easier” on herself, and this time she opts for using a cloning spell. While this seems like the right idea, it ends up being less of a cloning spell and more of a way to divide herself, as both Nicos are pint-sized and it takes the two of them just to carry in a single box. This spell also ends up splitting her intelligence in half, so when Morihito points out how much effort she's wasting, she only ends up doubling down and making more clones, until he gives up and brings the rest in himself. As adorable as all the mini-Nicos were, this bit wasn't as laugh-out-loud funny as the previous one, and I was a bit more drawn to the implication that Morihito sees Nico's mother like his own, than to the comedy. Thankfully, even a weaker segment of this show is still pretty charming, and it does help that we get a few hints of something more dramatic starting to brew.

Alongside asking him to keep looking out for Nico, the letter from Nico's mother also comes with the warning of a new prophecy. In it, she states that disaster will befall Nico due to “dogs and raindrops,” and Morihito spends the rest of the episode trying to suss out exactly what that means. At first, the dog part seems literal when she's nearly attacked by one that comes off its leash, but when it still doesn't trigger the prophecy, Morihito decides to stick even closer to Nico's side than before. Nico relishes in this, even if she doesn't quite get why he's doing it. It doesn't take long for a new threat to show up when the two of them are attacked by a man in a dog mask. Since the series does have a few dips into action, I was worried that the production might not handle that side of the series as well as comedy, but it looks solid enough to ease through concerns, and makes me more confident the series is getting the kind of adaptation it needs.

When Morihito manages to keep up with this mystery man and eventually unmask him, it turns out to be…someone we haven't met before. More accurately, he's a tengu named Kanshi who turns out to be another one of Nico's old friends and claims to be another one of her familiars. Still, to Morihito, he's just some random stranger who attacked them, and the dissonance there is pretty great. Even funnier is how this confusion carries over in the next episode preview as Morihito can't be bothered to remember Kanshi's name. Rather than saying the actual episode title with his name in it, Morihito throws out a reference to the infamous “Jonouchi Dies” episode preview Yu-Gi-Oh! (lovingly translated here as “The Death of Joey Wheeler” which is as sure a sign as any that the translator understood the assignment). This all had me rolling, and it's great to see the show can whip out these kinds of jokes even as it transitions into more serious material. While not every part of this episode hits, it does do a good job of showing a few different sides of this series, and since that's just as vital to its identity as the comedy, I'm glad that it all seems to be here intact.

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Witch Watch is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.