Witch Watch

Episode 9

We've seen before that Witch Watch can do other things besides comedy, and this week brings us yet another episode that dials back the laughs in favor of doing something different. This time is drama, as one of this week's shorts sees Nico helping one of her friends deal with some family issues, while another focuses on Morihito's trouble with expressing his emotions. All of that makes for an episode that feels a bit more serious than usual, and while it does make for some tonal whiplash in regards to what comedy we do get, this shift in focus otherwise succeeds. 

Nico is helping her friend, Kara, restore a letter that her dad shredded. This letter was addressed to Kara from her recently deceased mother. Kara believes her dad is trying to hide the truth that he and Kara aren't related by blood, and that he's worried she won't look at him the same way if she knows the details. When Nico uses her magic to fix the letter, Kara instead finds out that she wasn't related to her mother, and her dad was worried she wouldn't be able to take it since she looked up to her. None of that matters to Kara, as she still sees her as her mother despite their lack of blood ties, and resolving this situation inspires Nico to start offering her services as actual consultation. A lot of this was fairly straightforward melodrama, but sometimes simple is best. I also appreciate that the jokes were dialed back significantly for this part of the episode. While there are a couple here and there, both the tone and the visual direction did a good job of leaning into the family drama. It left me feeling pretty emotional.

However, the first short might have been too strong for its own good. The second short sees Nico helping a boy named Jun ask out his crush. The only problem is that his character design is incredibly oversimplified compared to everyone else, and he talks like a language learning app. Luckily for him, his crush also happens to talk the same way, it turns out that Nico's services weren't required this time. This isn't an inherently unfunny setup, but the language app speak is a joke that doesn't translate particularly well (I can only imagine how nightmarish it will be for the dub staff to try and make this one work.) It only took a couple of minutes for the voice to start grating on me. Thankfully, this whole segment is only about five minutes long, which saves it from wearing out its welcome. It didn't do much for me, and it felt a little too tonally dissonant after such an emotional opener. To the anime's credit, I didn't gel with this one in manga either, and I can't say they didn't commit to the bit by having Jun or his lady love sound like AI. This short doesn't add to the episode beyond setting up the third one, and I otherwise found it to be the weakest of the comedy shorts we've gotten so far.

Fortunately, the final short manages to pick up the slack, as Jun thanks Nico and Morihito for their help by offering them a pair of tickets for a movie date. While Nico is excited about all this, she also gets caught up in the fact that she still can't get a read on how Morihito feels about anything, much less her. This also turns out to be a bit of a sore spot for Morihito himself, as he dislikes how his inability to be expressive makes him easily misunderstood. That makes an offer from Nico pretty tempting, as she suggests using a spell that will make his emotions easier to read, but as always, there's a bit of a catch. Rather than making Morihito more emotive, we instead see a tiny version of him that pops up on his head and displays whatever it is he's feeling. With how this show's gags usually go, it's not too hard to imagine a scenario in which this was all played for laughs, or otherwise used to further drive home how apathetic Morihito tends to act, so it was a nice surprise that the show plays this mostly straight. Although there's a few gags here and there like Mini-Morihito whistling after seeing Nico dress up for their date, or beating some drums in excitement after coming out of the movie, everything here is largely used to highlight that beneath his stoic exterior, Morihito is a just a regular guy, and just because he doesn't display his emotions openly doesn't mean he doesn't have them. We see this in action towards the end, as Morihito its that he had more fun on this outing than he expected and that life in general has gotten a lot more lively for him with Nico around. It makes for a cute way to cap off the episode, and while it doesn't provide much in the way of romantic progress, it was good to see the show dive a bit more into what makes Morihito tick without needing to default to jokes at his expense. Witch Watch's bread and butter is still comedy. Episodes like this show that the series has a lot more range to it than just jokes, and its ability to be so flexible is part of what makes this series such a joy every week.

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Witch Watch is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.