Witch Craft Works - First Impressions

Studio: J.C. Staff

Genre(s): Action, Fantasy, Supernatural, Seinen

OP: "divine intervention" by fhána

ED: "Witch☆Activity (ウィッチ☆アクティビティ)" by KMM Dan (KMM団)
Tanpopo Kuraishi (CV: Shiori Izawa), Tsurupeta (CV: Momo Asakura),
Twintail (CV: Shiina Natsukawa), Gantai (CV: Yuuko Iida), and Deko
(CV: Natsumi Hioka)

Summary: Living a normal school life, Takamiya Honoka's only excitement was the fact that he sat next to the school idol Kagari Ayaka. He never really got a chance to talk to her because a large group of people in the school would always be around Kagari. However, with a small drop of Takamiya's eraser, his normal life took a turn for the worse as Kagari's fan club beat him up for interacting with her. To top is off a random falling building was about to crush him, but Kagari swiftly came to his rescue dressed as a witch. Kagari then tell Takamiya it is her mission to protect him, and now she is forced to do it openly after keeping it a secret from him for so long.

A new year, and another season is here; so what do we have going into 2014? Well a big breasted, magical, high school girl who is flaunted over by the whole school, yet has a kuudere personality and is protecting a high school boy from other magically people. Why? Cause Anime!

I honestly didn't have much expectation going into Witch Craft Works; I basically bracing myself for some crazy amount of fanservice, and surprisingly got none of that. Witch Craft Works ended up being more action than anything -- probably front loading the more intense animation to bring people into the series. Either way we have some kind of tactic used to drive viewership.

As far as the story goes, it is a pretty simple one. It is a "Mr. Damsel in Distress", if you will, which I have to problem with; however, every time it is depicted, it feels more like a comedy act than anything. And Witch Craft Works is no different, the main male character Takamiya Honoka pretty much stumbles into trouble as soon as he is separated from Kagari Ayaka. Not only that but a small group of Kagari's fans is out to get him because Takamiya dared to make Kagari pick up an eraser for him. Even for a setting like high school, it felt far too petty and exaggerated in the attempt for comedy.

And why is everyone out to get Takamiya you might ask? Hell if I know. The students are the more obvious case, which is jealously, but the witches set out to kill him is a mystery. All the first episode established was Kagari was secretly protecting Takamiya for some time and now she is switching to a more upfront approach. Of course now that it is more public, Kagari being a revered person at school, Takamiya will have even more problems in his school life other than people attempting to kill him.

Right now there isn't much excitement to pull from this first episode, besides all the lovely ladies. Nearly every element of the series so far is going to annoy me and that makes me less confident in actually continuing to watch this anime, but I'm going to stick to the three episode test at least. So as of right now, Witch Craft Work isn't catching my eye, but it might change in the next few episodes. And with the appearance of five different witches out to get Takamiya, there might be something exciting in the pipeline.

Orginally posted to the now shutdown sekijitsu.com: Archived Page