Summary
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Witch Watchis one of the best anime airing this season. It is not exactly a hidden gem because the series is available onseveral streaming services, but it is not getting the attention it deserves.
Studio Bibury delivers good animation with a creative direction that blends well with the manga humor. In Episode 3, we may also have just started to get a bit more of the plot of this story, which seems to be using an episodic format to deliver a larger narrative (but maybenot such a large narrative).
Boy, Girl, Magic And Fashion
At the beginning of the episode, we get more of the potentialromance between Nico and Moi. She is stilltrying to impress himin the hopes that they will eventually start dating, but Moi is not your average guy. In fact, we learn that he has a unique fashion sense and is interested in old European clothing.
Anyway, while this is a fun part where we get some romance, it is still not clear if Moi will eventually develop any kind of romantic feelings for Nico, as he just seems too focused on protecting her from danger.
The episode also makes it clearhow much Nico relies on magic for everyday things, from fashion to typical chores, and, of course, that can lead to trouble. To be honest, we mostly learned about spells that would be helpful in routine situations, but the “Pulp Fashion” spell is just a hilarious concept.
We are still getting loads of references to other anime series, likeHunter x Hunter, Golgo 13andKochikame.
Disaster Will Befall Nico, Or Something Like That
This episode also introduced Nico’s mother,Ibuki Wakatsuki, more properly. We still don’t know anything about her father, but the story could just ignore it either way.
Ibuki is now living in the village where Nico was trained, Yuzenkyo. According to her, this place became the new “Holy Land” of witches when they migrated to Japan after several countries started hunting witches.
She is actually trying to gather more details about the prophecy that predicted that disaster would befall her daughter. Ibuki is a witch who specializes in prophetic magic, but she also explains that she needs a vast amount of magic in order to get accurate information from prophecies, and that is one of the reasons she is staying in Yuzenkyo.
While this may seem minor, a couple of scenes and the information provided might suggest that Ibuki is actually not that proficient with prophetic magic. Well, knowing her daughter, we could imagine that she is clumsy on some level. Thus,what we know about the prophecy might be very differentfrom what will actually happen.
Anyway, Ibuki made a new prophecy about dogs and raindrops bringing disaster. There are some events in the episode related to dogs and rain, but we are still not sure if the new prophecy was talking about them (we will probably find out in the next episode).
“Unfinished” Opening Sequence
This week’s opening sequence was alittle different from usual. Instead of showing the regular sequence, what aired was actuallya draft version of the opening sequence, which will delightsakugafans and other people interested in the process of animation.
While some fans found it strange, it seems thatthey wanted it to look like Nico messed up the openingwith her magic.
What’s Next For Witch Watch?
At the end of the episode, we were introduced to Kanshi Kazamatsuri. He is Nico’s crow familiar, and he is there to protect her, just like Morihito.
Kanshi is actually a tengu who lived in Yuzenkyo or the nearby area when Nico was still training to become a witch. We will learn more about him in the next episode, at least according to the preview of Episode 4.
Witch Watchisavailable to stream on Netflix, Crunchyroll and Hulu.
