It’s fitting in that it comes from the mangaka of Gakuen Alice, but Champignon Witch feels like a series out of time. The sort of fairy tale it embodies is much older than anime or even manga, of course. But even in context it’s a serious throwback. It reflects a very particular animanga spin on the genre, something that was quite common twenty years ago (when Gakuen Alice was running in both manga and anime form) but much less so now. Shoujo is sort of the natural home for that sort of thing but it’s not traditional shoujo in the modern sense of the word.

There’s no sign or mention of Henri in this episode at all. Whether that was a one-off subplot for the premiere I don’t know, but the focus shifts to another bishounen, the one we saw floating in the river at the end of Episode 2. He’s in a pretty bad way – I  mean, there’s a knife sticking out of his chest and that will turn out to be the least of it. Luna isn’t going to just leave him there obviously, but she’s afraid to touch him and Minos and Merino aren’t much help. Fortunately Claude – who never seems to be far from wherever Luna is – picks that moment to show up and low-key put the moves on her.

Claude is a contentious and cautious sort by nature, and while he does carry the boy back to Luna’s hut he’s cautioning her against getting involved the whole time. The youth looks familiar – Claude later deduces that he’s likely the crown prince, And there’s something seriously off about this whole situation. When Luna removes the blade we see just how off – a cursed mushroom the likes of which no one (except Luna) has ever seen appears, and it’s clear the boy was living under a curse. Luna subdues it but this is too much even for her, and she soon dashes off into the woods, leaving the crow and the chibis worried and confused.

We now get our first look at Luna’s master who is, at least by appearances, a giant mushroom. He immediately guesses what’s happened and absorbs the miasma from Luna’s body. He also issues her a warning that this boy is the bringer of the end of all things, which sounds pretty bad. Claude paints it as a blob of all the world’s evil and suffering, but apparently it starts off as a person. And it seems that Luna was a cursed youngling herself – fascinating in its own right, but also suggestive of the idea that a human can be “cured” of the condition. If indeed she was a human at the time she was cursed.

Claude is none too thrilled when Luna asks him to keep the boy’s presence a secret. But it’s a moot point, as soon the Black Witch Council – astral projections of them anyway – appear and pronounce Luna guilty of a grave transgression. There are some very big names among this group casting-wise, so I’m assuming they’re major players in the story. Claude’s master the Bird Witch is among them (he may be the leader or that may be Claude’s bias). And there and divides of opinion within the group, with the Water Witch arguing for leniency. Even for her, though, it’s contingent on Luna turning over the cursed youngling and allowing him to be executed.

It’s still too early to say exactly what all this adds up to, but a lot of fuss is being made over the cursed boy and he’s the narrator besides, so safe to assume he’s important. He also shrinks (Minos estimates from a 15 to a 6-year old) which would seem to reduce the chances of any romance developing with Luna. In any event the charm of the double-premiere is still very much in evidence, even if this ep isn’t quite as cohesive as those were. We’ll see about coverage, but Champignon no Majo definitely scratches an itch nothing else is, even in this extremely shoujo-heavy season.