Many years ago, I used to get frustrated when books would compare themselves to Harry Potter for marketing purposes. I understood comp titles, but claiming to be “even better than Harry Potter” seemed at once arrogant and unoriginal. If you were better than Harry Potter, I thought, then you would be outselling Harry Potter; and your story should have its own identity anyways.
Eleven-year old Phil didn’t understand that story quality only sometimes correlates with success, nor that comparing your work to bestselling contemporaries is practically a requirement in publishing. Like so many of us, I grew up loving Harry Potter, so I was very protective of it. The movies, the video games, but especially the books felt almost sacred to me.
Well, things have changed. I would now be more likely to describe Harry Potter broadly as profane, and I will certainly never give another cent to its author if I can help it. I won’t pretend that I could see the flaws in the storytelling as a child. I couldn’t. I loved it. But with the benefit of hindsight, I’ve been saying for years that I would really love to have a new property of some kind, set in a magic school, which has the potential to usurp Harry Potter—if not culturally, at least in my own heart.
What I didn’t expect is that it would happen with an anime.
Witch Hat Atelier is the name of a new show from Japanese animation studio Bug Films, which just finished premiering its first season. It focuses on a young girl learning to be a witch, in a world where magic is a secret from those without it. I won’t spoil anything here, even from the first episode, but suffice to say the central worldbuilding principle behind the secrecy of magic is both much more compelling and handled much better than in Harry Potter.
The anime is, of course, an adaptation of a manga series that has been releasing since 2016, written and illustrated by Kamome Shirahama, a woman author who doesn’t hide behind initials in order to preserve a plausible ambiguity of gender (lots to unpack there), and who, importantly, treats her main cast of young girls with due respect, both in visual design and narrative weight.
Conversely, some of the adult men in the series are…how can I say this…really hot. In a medium where objectification of women and girls is sometimes a given, having the focus remain exclusively on the bodies of men—and in a style that I would still consider tasteful—is refreshing. What’s more, queerness is depicted unambiguously in multiple forms, rather than being sloppily retrofitted in a ploy for public acclaim.
But Witch Hat Atelier has plenty to offer besides that. The magic system is extremely cool, impressively concrete and detailed, and gorgeous to look at. The setting is decidedly enchanting and full of secrets, equal parts delightful and sinister, and the overall tone switches deftly between cosy and intense. In other words, all the things I loved about that other series are here in spades, and the biggest pitfalls are nowhere to be seen. Especially evident to me is the difference in the moral undercurrents of the two series. Far from being “ethically rather mean-spirited,” Witch Hat seems to grapple earnestly with questions of autonomy, privilege, and power, all through a group of nevertheless unfailingly whimsical protagonists who try really hard to be nice to one another.
The medium of anime also adds some extra features that help enhance the experience: in addition to being in full color, the animation is often stunning when the moment calls for it, and the voice actors bring the characters to life like it’s their job, because it is. In the past I’ve tended towards being a sub purist, but I would highly recommend the English dub in this case. If all that wasn’t enough, there’s also a catchy-as-hell theme song that plays every episode.
Personally, after about episode seven I picked up the ongoing manga, the entirety of which I churned through on pure momentum in barely more than a day, it was that good. If, like me, you completely catch up and you still need more, there are already five volumes of a spinoff series that exclusively depicts the main cast making meals and living domestically, complete with legitimate recipes you can try for yourself.
It’s true that Witch Hat Atelier doesn’t have a John Williams soundtrack or decades of AO3 fanfic to bolster its cultural presence (yet). It doesn’t have video games or an entire godforsaken theme park about it. It’s a big task to measure up, especially wading through an ocean of complicated nostalgia.
But give it time. It’s got potential. The first season finished airing in late June, and season two is already in production. Having read ahead, I can say with certainty that we’re in for some incredible moments, and with any luck it’ll ultimately deliver on its own promise more than…well, more than other stories. My inner child certainly hopes so.
Phil Rienstra (they/he) (’21) studied writing and music, and since graduating has developed an interest in labor rights and coffee. They’re an amateur chef, a perennial bandana wearer, a fledgling dungeon master, and an Enneagram 4. He lives in St. Paul with his spouse, Heidi.
