Daily Report About My Witch Senpai – Manga First Impression

I’m going to put the cover of this manga right under this paragraph. Isn’t it cute? I think it’s adorable! And there’s just something about people riding on brooms while wearing business suits that works for me. I can’t explain it, but I like it. Corporate witch should be a more frequent archetype.

Why I Picked up Daily Report About My Witch Senpai

This is probably going to be a surprise to some of you. I chose to read Daily Report About My Witch Senpai because of the cover. Didn’t see that one comin’, did you?

Official Summary

A sweet workplace romance with a touch of magic!

Misono is an office drone with his own ups and downs at work, but thankfully he has an ally–his senpai Shizuka, who happens to be a witch. Shizuka is always ready to lend a hand to those in need, but Misono thinks she should take better care of herself, since zipping around on a broomstick to run errands can be quite stressful. Is Misono’s overprotective concern for Shizuka driven by mere respect for this flustered witch, or could it be more? Let this magical romantic comedy cast its spell on you!

My First Impression

Awwww

What I liked

Daily Report About My Witch Senpai gets right to the heart of things and I really appreciate that. It’s really just a light and sweet romantic comedy and it doesn’t try to be anything else. Moreover, it doesn’t go out of its way to be contrived or to needlessly prolong situations. Which is double surprising for a romantic comedy starring a witch. If any manga had a good excuse for a series of unbelievable coincidences, it’s this one. Witch did it!

For instance, in this first volume the two main leads figured out their feelings for each other, a potential love triangle was formed and then solved and there was a confession. That’s like 3 seasons’ worth of anime in one volume.

And because the story is very easy-going, it never feels rushed. In many respects, Daily Report About My Witch Senpai is more of a Slice of Life than anything else but I think it avoids falling completely in the genre because Shizuka and Misono’s growing relationship is a constant throughout the entire volume and you really need to read it in order to appreciate it. But there are no big explosions, no earth-shattering displays of passion. It’s about a slightly above-average guy and an ordinary girl who happens to be a witch calmly realizing they like each other. That’s it. Doesn’t that sound really nice? It was!

One thing that may be divisive is that we don’t really get an explanation for the witch thing. Shizuka is a witch. She’s the only one in the story but it’s not like there aren’t other witches in the world. They just happen to be rare. And that’s all we know. There’s no witch school where she learned spells, no special restrictions or privileges granted to witches. Aside from the fact that Shizuka can get home on her broom after the last train, and avoid expensive taxi fees, there’s really no discussion of how being a witch affects her daily life at all. At least not in the first volume.

That could be a good thing as it allows the story to really focus on the romance. It also avoids all sorts of potential plot holes that tend to form whenever magic is introduced to a story. But it could also be a bit disappointing to those that chose the manga specifically for the witch aspect. Because without it, it’s really a pretty normal romance.

This said if pretty normal romance is what you are looking for I found Daily Report About My Witch Senpai to be generally sweet and well-paced. I’m happy I bought it.

Any drawbacks?

This is an odd complaint to have but remember how I said I liked that Daily Report About My Witch Senpai didn’t dwell on anything. I really do like how efficiently it managed to tie up story threads in the first volume. But the thing is, it sort of tied everything up for me and now I don’t really feel the need to read any further volumes.

Not because it was bad in any way. It wasn’t at all. But I just sort of feel like I got everything I needed just from the first volume. Now, if I didn’t already have a pretty excessive list of manga I wanted, I would definitely continue Witch Senpai, as it is I just have other priorities. I might see if I can find digital versions.

Conclusion

Even with all that said, I still recommend the first volume. It is a fairly charming romance anime that gives you a nice sense of closure in just one volume. And that’s already a good thing. And who knows, if you are more of a romance fan than me, you might decide you want to continue it.