Brief First Impressions – Flying Wtch

Flying Witch - 01 -5 Flying Witch - 01 -13 Flying Witch - 01 -26

It’s not like I needed to add more stuff to the watch pile, but enough folk praised this premiere that I thought I should at least check out and check in.

In short (which is all I have time for), I liked it.  A good, happy slice-of-life with an interesting visual style and tone.  The representation of life in Hirosaki, Aomori (one of the snowiest places in Japan) is achingly true to my experience (I grew to love those station buildings with bus circles and small-city mini malls).  I thought there were a couple of genuinely funny moments which showed off Flying Witch as a bit quirky, like Kei introducing Makoto to Chinatsu as her mother, and the whole mandrake root bit at the end was agreeably absurdist.  But if there’s a tradition of boys doing karaoke with “We’re in high school” written on the bodies in Sharpie I’ve never heard of it – must be an Aomori thing…

On balance – pleasant, fun, and dangerously close to the moe pandering cliff but so far not quite over the edge.  Also, I liked that J.C. Staff used mostly first-timers and unknowns here.  Also, Sakurabi Katsushi directed a show I think is very underrated, Asatte no Houkou, which gives me some optimism.

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2 comments

  1. H

    I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. Truthfully I had no intention of checking it out originally because I thought it would be like all the other shows centered around witches which usually is not my cup of tea. The art caught my eye though, and I decided to give it a shot. I’m glad I did. I love slice-of-life shows and this seems like it will be quite a nice one. I appreciated the humor as well (the mandrake scene made me laugh out loud) 🙂 I’ve long since learned that there is no such thing as “I will never watch such and such show” when it comes to anime since I’m always getting pleasantly surprised by little gems such as this.

  2. This show is awesome. Having seen the 1st 2 episodes I was shocked at how much I liked it. Never even heard of this series before it started.

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