Manga Adaptation by J.C.Staff
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Makoto Kowata moves in with some relatives that live in the countryside in order to finish her witch training. The people around her slowly get a glimpse of what the witching world is like, broomsticks, black cats and all.

Euri’s verdict: I Know Witch Show You Should Watch

If you wanted to watch a show this season that dials it down a notch from the in-your-face action of JoJo part four or My Hero Academia, look no further than this; Flying Witch is a gorgeous, slow-paced show that packs in a lot of charm. If you’re familiar with the Natsume’s Book of Friends series, you’ll likely be fully on-board already, as both shows are similar in their pacing. That in mind, this show is not going to work for you if you’re looking for a comedy with joke after joke, and I won’t be surprised to hear people saying this show is boring because of that.

As we’ll be spending most of our time around Makoto, our titular flying witch, it’s important that both she and the people around her are interesting enough to push the show along. Fortunately, the early signs are good. Makoto is a bit of an air-head, but not to the point where she become irritating. In fact, while the people around her will be getting used to having a witch around, it seems Makoto is learning a little about the ‘real world’ as well. It’s not explicit about that, and it’s not like she doesn’t know how to function as a human, but she has a childlike curiosity that compliments her character. It’s subtle, but it sets her apart from the regular folk. We’ll have to wait and see about the other characters, but the opening showed off a few oddballs and plenty of dancing, so it can’t be that bad. A show to keep an eye on, that’s for sure.

Artemis’ verdict: Harmlessly Cute

While not quite as taken with the show as Euri (I adore Natsume Yuujinchou, but Flying Witch just isn’t going to fill that particular void), I was still pleasantly surprised by this first episode. Knowing that the manga has a definite male audience I had gone in expecting a lot of saccharine-sweet, moe-style fanservice desperately pretending not to be fanservice, but Flying Witch feels refreshingly non-pandering so far. Not only are there no lingering thigh shots but the characters themselves are lovely as well – our MC, while she certainly has her moments, is no airheaded moeblob incapable of making it through life on her own, and the guy she coincidentally ends up living with is neither an asshole nor a creep. Heck, this anime might shock me even further by not having any romance or sexual tension of any kind between the two, and won’t that be something else? In fact, general witchery aside, everyone and everything in Flying Witch comes across as nice and perfectly natural – a blander and slightly less charming but entirely adequate teen version of Kiki’s Delivery Service, complete with broom and black cat. This season is already plenty rich in the fluffy slice-of-life/lighthearted comedy department, but if you’re not already burnt out then I suggest giving Flying Witch a fair shot.