You always hope an anime season is going to have one series that comes more or less out of nowhere and lifts the overall tide. Sometimes in the event it turns out that it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, like Dekin no Mogura for example. Champignon no Majo certainly checks that box. Not knowing the manga was Higuchi Tachibana was a serious flub on my part, no denying it. If I had my expectations would have been much higher, given how highly I regard Gakuen Alice. But as with Dekin, the upside there is it does give me the pleasure of being surprised.

“Transportive” is a word that keeps springing to mind with this one. To the time and please in the setting, and to a different time in anime when stories like this were common. We do get self-styled storybook fantasies, to be sure. But there’s an element of self-awareness and snark to almost all of them. Everything happens with a wink and a clumsy sense of irony, and the marketing calculations behind narrative decisions are inescapable. Champignon Witch just embraces the aesthetic as-is, with no modern embellishments. The humor is shamelessly goofy and the sharp contrast with the general tone makes the dark moments stand out in stark relief.

The gaggle of big-name seiyuu that is the Black Witches’ Council is obsessed with the cursed youngling Luna has taken under her care. The faultlines are pretty clearly laid out here. The hawks are led by the Flame Magician, with the Fiore Magician and the Crystal Witch in his camp. The Bird Magician (Claude’s master) leads the doves (appropriately) with the Water Witch and Beast Magician (the Insect Magician seems to go along with whatever he says) in his camp. The outliers are the Eastern Magician, who never speaks and shows no indication that she understands what’s happening, and the Wind Magician – as flighty as his name, who Flame insists has given him his proxy in all matters of council vote.

One is conditioned to never accept at face value that all characters like this are what they seem. But Flame certainly seems to be a bastard – he tries to burn the boy alive without waiting for the council’s approval, forcing Luna to escape through the floor (and sprout a “murder mushroom” on his head). Eventually Bird is able to force the issue of whether to allow Luna to raise the cursed youngling – in whom she detects magical ability – to a vote. That ends in a four-four tie if you include Wind’s proxy, and the Eastern Magician abstains (for lack of a better word). So, impasse.

Or so  it seems. But it’s broken by a very much unexpected intruder – the Cat Witch. Or rather, her spirit – as she fell victim to the witch hunts. She and Luna clearly had a friendship – to the extent that it seems odd that it was never addressed on-screen. Flame doesn’t want to count her posthumous wish as a vote, but it turns the tide in Bird’s favor. He’s eventually able to broker a deal – Luna will get three years to train the boy up as a magic user. If there’s any indication that he’s not developing magical ability or tries to escape, they’ll execute him. And they’ll be performing spot inspections in turn to make sure everything is on the up and up.

The politics of this mythology are a fascinating subplot for sure. It seems that the black witches have inherited the responsibility for dealing with the toxins (of all types) of the world, while the white witches revel in the glories of power and authority. That would be bad enough even if they weren’t at constant risk of violence and persecution. But is is a subplot, for now at least (and the manga is ongoing). The story of Luna and the cursed youngling seems to be at center stage. Given that she herself was once a cursed youngling and escaped that fate, it’s no wonder she feels duty-bound to help the boy.