Karen's Anime Blog

We seem to be in the middle of a witch boom. We’ve got Witch Watch (great show by the way), Maebashi Witches and Once Upon a Witch’s Death from last season, and Secrets of the Silent Witch for summer. I’m a big fantasy reader, so this is relevant to my interests.

So far, this show struck just the right tone for me. We meet a powerful witch named Monica who suffers with social anxiety, and as someone who suffers from that, I related very strongly to the character. Monica’s shy nature is the butt of quite a few jokes here, so I could see some people with anxiety taking that the wrong way, but honestly, I think you have to be able to laugh at yourself, and it felt to me like the jokes were coming from a place of understanding.

Monica is already one of the strongest mages on the planet, so I don’t think this story is going to be about her getting more powerful. Instead, her quest is to integrate into a school setting, something far more challenging for her than blasting away a few mythic beasts with her staff. For once, the obnoxious rich girl character is actually on her side, so we won’t have to hate someone for about nine episodes only to slowly learn to accept them as they get with the program. As an added bonus, the rich girl has drill-hair and a skinfang! I don’t actually know what the appeal of drill hair is, I’ve been wondering about that since Ladies vs. Butlers, but if you like that, this show has it.

I actually don’t have a lot to say about this one yet. Since it’s a show that takes place in a school, I feel like I won’t really have a feel for the quality of the show until we get to the school environment and meet Monica’s peers. As much as I like Monica so far, there won’t be much for her to do if the other characters fall flat. This episode was dialogue-heavy, with a couple of scenes of fantastic action, and it will be interesting to see if the show maintains that ratio; probably not (them action scenes are expensive), but we can hope. Also, there are a couple of handsome guys featured in the OP, so we may get some reverse-harem action going on.

I feel almost apologetic that I don’t have more to say about this one, but it’s not rocket science: If you like fantasy, and/or witches, and/or anime that take place in a school setting, it’s worth giving Silent Witch a shot.