I can’t believe it never occurred to me before now, but I’m pretty sure Witch Watch is the first Patron Pick that was a multi-cour show. As such it’s theoretically a conundrum about whether to keep it in that slot for summer. In practice though, I almost certainly would have ended up covering it anyway and I’m unlikely to drop it. So I think the best course of action is to slot it in as a regular part of the schedule and elect a new Patron Pick. With 70 series on the schedule it’s not as though we should be hard up for choices.

There can be no doubt that last week represented the cour break, since we got a new OP and ED this week (with a vampire character prominent in both). The first matter at-hand is the acclimatization of Keigo into Otogi’s otherworld boarding house (may as well call a spade a spade). Above and beyond the challenges for a socially awkward teen adapting to this environment, there’s the little matter of the wolf thing. Seems as if Keigo has a bit of a hair trigger in that department – anything and everything crescent-shaped can set him off. Moi-chan declares a house-wide hard target search for anything possibly meeting the description (I’m not sure why the Data Masamune figure counts), but a lone deadly croissant slips through the net.

This is sort of interesting in the way it plays out. Wolf is here whether they like it or not – with Keigo it’s a package deal. He learned to live with it and the others will have to as well. Wolf is a trying individual – voracious in appetite, tactless, and an irresistible draw to females (which Keigo finds especially irksome). But he’s not evil as such, or even necessarily a bad guy – just a pain in the ass. This segues neatly into another visit from Nemu, who’s hopelessly addicted to those sweet, sweet pets from Moi. But she’s rather startled to see Keigo there – and downright alarmed when she finds out he lives there.

Nemu’s overwrought neuroticism is certainly one of the most consistently hilarious elements of Witch Watch. She has no idea of the rules with Keigo and Wolf, and fears Keigo too may know who she is. He doesn’t, but a TV commercial sets him off again and there can be no question Wolf knows. Wolf actually handles this somewhat artfully. He gets the others to leave, then lays it all out there with Nemu in human form. He’ll keep her secret, he says, if she shows up once a month packing a crescent to make sure Keigo transforms and his wolf form doesn’t get rusty.

Finally, Nico decides she wants to cook – something which, in the past, has met with disastrous results. Moi suspects she’s going to try and use magic to mask her incompetence, and he’s right. It’s a powder which makes anyone who’s ingested it (including by breathing it in) fall in love with whatever it’s sprinkled on. Be that sweet and sour pork or Nico. There are a couple of amusing moments here but this is the weakest third of the episode, cementing my suspicion that this is one of those comedies where the supporting cast are where most of the biggest laughs come from.