RogerBW's Blog

Flying Witch 21 May 2017

2016 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Makoto the trainee witch moves to a rural town in Aomori prefecture to live with her (non-magical) relatives.

This is thoroughgoing pastoral slice-of-life stuff: it's not even that challenges are resolved by the end of the episode, it's that they barely exist at all. Kei, the member of the host family closest to Makoto's age, may be beginning to think about a relationship with his schoolfriend Nao, but after some initial suspicion of this newcomer sharing Kei's house Nao doesn't get jealous, or cut Makoto dead, or do any of the sillinesses that usually happen in these things. Is the ghost who works at the local supernatural creatures' café painfully shy? Being friendly to her will deal with that.

Two cats get their own voice actors. Even though all they say is variations on "maow".

Mostly this is a praise of slow, small-town living, and the beauty of nature. While things happen, they're not plot-type things: they're more likely to be "oh, let's go and visit the sky-whale that's flying by today". There's little story progress beyond the introduction of a few extra characters, and the relationships are basically static, which I thought was a bit of a shame.

I certainly can't say this is great anime, but it's one of the more enjoyable series I've seen lately. "Nothing Happens" appears to be an anime genre of its own (see also the various Aria series), and this is a fine example of it.

No sequel has been announced.

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