There are a lot of great shows this season. Not just a lot of great shows but a lot of shows that I have been anxiously waiting for. And The Witch and the Beast is definitely at the forefront. For those who do not know I have been enjoying the manga (I am up to date) and even reviewed it once. It’s not necessarily a story I would wholeheartedly recommend to everyone out there. I would say it is a bit of an acquired taste but it works for me big time! So I was just counting the days until the anime aired as soon as it was announced.
Despite my personal enthusiasm for this anime, I will admit I was taken a bit by surprise when I heard about the adaptation. Not completely by surprise. It’s a rather popular manga and the story is visually impressive. Perfect for a screen adaptation in some ways. But well, it’s also one of the more gruesome entries in my manga library and I do have a lot of horror. To me, it was on par with Berserk but things get heavy right away. It’s not as desperate but there’s definitely something suffocating, a cloying atmosphere that never cesses and tons of blood. Oh and our protagonists sort of push the line from anti-heroes to straight-up unrepentant villains more often than not.
Basically, I thought the story would probably need an R rating to be done right and I wasn’t sure how they were going to pull it off.
Don’t get me wrong, there are tons of disturbing anime out there. More disturbing than The Witch and the Beast by a long shot. But they don’t tend to be as showy about it. In some ways, The Witch and the Beast can be rather lighthearted, there are funny moments, and the relationship between Ashaf and Guideau makes it so that the tone never gets too serious or dramatic. And yet it remains unrelenting in its assault. People, good people, innocent people or characters you would think have plot armor, get brutally killed and often dismembered on the page so often that I ended up with this low-grade subconscious anxiety every time I picked up a new volume. The anime didn’t do that…
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I experienced something similar with the Chainsaw Man anime and I thought it was a brilliant adaptation. Besides we’re just at episode 1. But my very first impression is, it hits differently. It’s the same story but what I read as a moody action-horror hybrid is more of an urban fantasy action anime.
Again, let me say that this is just episode 1. And beyond that, it’s an episode completely aimed at teaching us abut the characters and rules of this new universe. It’s really just an introduction and honestly, none of the events in this first episode play much of a part going forward. But it sure was a great way to get a huge amount of information across without endless expodumps, wasn’t it? Like we already have a pretty good handle on Ashaf and Guideau even though they are both complex, very unusual and trope-defying. That’s pretty impressive, isn’t it?
And we kind of know the story. Ashaf is a mage and Guideau is a something, cursed by a witch. They have temporarily joined forces to find a way to break the curse while keeping witches under control. One thing I’m not sure got across really well in this episode is what witches are. They are immensely powerful. The one we saw was a small fry, you don’t usually walk away from a witch even if you are something like Guideau. And they aren’t really human, their nature and power makes them something rather incomprehensible. More like a force of nature. As you can imagine, policing them can be a bit of a challenge!
So after this one intro episode, this is what I have to say. I’m thorn. I’m not disappointed, not at all in fact. But I’m not yet completely sold either. The Witch and the Beast is a wild ride and although I have no reason to think the adaptation won’t be up to the task, I haven’t seen proof it can handle it either. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to keep watching. Avidly. The second it comes out!
I guess Guideau wants their body back. I really don’t see anything wrong with the one they’ve got…
Can’t speak for the manga, but for me this felt… cheesy, mostly. As an example: that apprentice near the end? How did she act? You’d think she’d not be missing her legs? Either in pain or in shock? Doozy from blood loss? Nah, betrayed and scared, right? Because that’s what you have to show in a story. It’s not a deal breaker, but it means story beats over character, and it makes the situation feel less real. It keeps me at arms length, and thus I’m not really affected. It doesn’t feel gruesome; it feels like an edgy fantasy. That scene was really just an example. (But horror in anime usually doesn’t work for me; with the recent Dark Gathering being mostly an exception.)
However I do really like the production. The flock of crows used as a projectile, for example, looked just gorgeous.