{"id":297237,"date":"2025-06-16T15:06:28","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/anime\/patron-pick-spring-2025-witch-watch-11\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T15:06:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T15:06:28","slug":"patron-pick-spring-2025-witch-watch-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=297237","title":{"rendered":"Patron Pick Spring 2025: Witch Watch \u2013 11"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It\u2019s been a wolfy weekend for anime. I knew based on the conclusion of last week\u2019s ep that Witch Watch<\/em> was going into serious mode. And you know it\u2019s serious when it skips the OP. My instinctive reaction was strongly negative, because so far WW<\/em> has worked by far the best when embracing humor like a bear hug. But this is Shinohara Kenta, and it\u2019s not like he doesn\u2019t know how to do battle shounen. My favorite of his works by far is Kanata no Astra<\/em>, and that certainly has its share of serious passages.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll say this at least, there was no gradual transformation. This was pretty much a light switch \u2013 from a run of episodes that could hardly have been less<\/em> serious to one which had almost no comedy at all. Maybe that\u2019s better in the end \u2013 the whole \u201crip off the band-aid\u201d thing. And it was good \u2013 Shinohara is<\/em> good at this. I did miss the laughs I was getting every week, but a solid premise and execution makes up for a lot. The first clue that something is amiss comes when Keigo is being bullied by a kid for his sneakers, and when Kanchi interferes it\u2019s revealed that some sort of aggression drug called \u201cDrops<\/a>\u201d is responsible.<\/p>\n

Nemu enters the fray here, the urgency of the situation giving her the courage to ring Moi\u2019s doorbell (no double entendre at all) in human form. She doesn\u2019t reveal that she\u2019s been there twice already, but that\u2019s not strictly relevant. Turns out that bad vibe I talked about last week was the \u201cAlert\u201d spell \u2013 one that\u2019s cast on every witch to warn them if there\u2019s a warlock nearby. Nemu tells Moi and Nico of a long-ago war between witches and warlocks, won by \u201cgood\u201d witches, and the safeguards put in place in its aftermath. She also informs Moi that Nico is an extremely powerful witch \u2013 \u201cThe Witch of Thousands\u201d (1000 spells, 1000, people helped, born every 1000 years), and that her mother probably didn\u2019t tell her all this because stress and anxiety can make witches turn to the dark side.<\/p>\n

So, bottom line, this turn establishes both the power system and the fact that Nico is a scary proposition that has witchworld on high alert. Also, trainee witches are forbidden from using offensive spells (again to prevent possible temptation from the dark side) so it\u2019s no wonder they use beings like ogres and tengu as familiars. Nemu promises to try and find the creepy cabin again but can\u2019t \u2013 until she realizes it\u2019s likely on the other side of a portal in a pocket magic world. She switches to neko-mode on the grounds that she must have stumbled upon it before<\/a>, and now does find it again. But the warlock senses her presence<\/a>, orders its assistant (who we now know is Wolf<\/a>, the leader of the Drops gang) to kill her.<\/p>\n

There are any number of questions I could raise here, but one of them would certainly be whether witches and warlocks are definitionally female, or it\u2019s just that we haven\u2019t met any male ones yet. In any case Moi hatches a plan to fight back against this prophesied treat to Nico, with an attack looming according to Keigo (who\u2019s put himself on the Drops mailing list to gather intelligence, he says). In truth Keigo is actually Wolf (as in \u201cwere<\/a>\u201c), and he\u2019s signed on as the warlock\u2019s familiar in exchange for a promise of a cure for the injury which robbed him of his figure skating here. He\u2019s gotten close to Moi and Nico as part of his duties, which now including oni-napping Moi to the magic world<\/a> so his \u201cdogs<\/a>\u201d can attack and capture Nico unhindered.<\/p>\n

Well, that was certainly quite the twist. Hell, Keigo being a figure skating prodigy is a weird twist in and of itself. I\u2019m not sure how I feel about it to be honest, but I\u2019ll be shocked if he doesn\u2019t get turned back to the good guys before it\u2019s all said and done. This is obviously a pretty major series of events and it doesn\u2019t feel as if it\u2019s going to be wrapped up in one episode, which is all well and good but honestly compels me to say I hope it doesn\u2019t go on too<\/em> long. As smartly as this was pulled off, it\u2019s Witch Watch\u2019s<\/em> sense of humor that really makes it stand out.<\/p>\n

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