By now, we’ve already waxed poetic about how the adaptation of Kamome Shirahama’s manga by animation studio Bug Films proved itself up to the task, animating the magical premiere of the fantasy series that – after initially suffering troubling delays. It’s a series that delves specifically into the dangers of cutting corners with drawing (cough cough, AI), while also serving as a highly recommended option for hitching a ride on HBO’s upcoming. harry potter Trough-help.
But despite all the heavy lifting of its premiere, explaining its magical system as something that isn’t cast but drawn and setting the stage for a story brimming with empathy, the joy of learning a new skill, and a yet-to-be-seen threat, until now, the show had yet to deliver an episode that exemplified all of those killer qualities simultaneously.
While the show certainly passed the tried-and-true anime “three-episode test” with flying colors, it was its fifth (and, coincidentally, its highest-rated on IMDb) episode that acted as a vertical slice, elevating its source material and previewing all the danger, action, and intrigue that manga readers championed the series as a precursor to the year’s anime in one spectacular episode. Let us count the ways.
True to its name, episode five Witch Hat Atelier“The Dragon’s Labyrinth”, sees Coco and her fellow witch apprentices trapped inside an MC Escher-inspired maze with a giant Welsh dragon looming above them. Their task: to find a way out of the magical portal they entered while chasing a witch with a silly hat. Unfortunately, the morale of the quartet of adopted daughters among anime viewers is at an all-time low.
For starters, Agot got mad at Coco for bumping into her while she was doing magic (a big no-no). To make matters worse, Aggot drags Koko away due to the fact that her mother is afraid of a forbidden spell (Hard). Even the normally bubbly, friendly Tetia is terrified of a giant-killer-dragon getting caught up in all this and finds herself shooting Coco, which needless to say how she blames her for being in this situation in the first place. Richie… Okay, that’s weird. As far as the first obstacles go, Witch Hat Atelier Dropped the girls into a real quagmire.
But after some agreeing between Coco and Tetia, the girls begin to put their noggins together to come up with a plan to deal with their dragon problem and erase the spell that pulled them into the maze. After some very cool demonstrations of the drawing process – tracing over paper before drawing a perfect circle, tossing aside scraps, and Goldilocks-testing mantras until they get it exactly right – the girls arrive at their plan of action.
instead of swinging a dragon Dragon Ball Z-In an explosive fighting style, they follow Koko’s unconventional idea: use Tatia’s half-dead cloud spell to make the big guy a giant bed. After all, the purpose of magic is to make people happy. And of course, the girls win most ecstatically, leading the dragon to a vast bed of clouds to wrinkle his nose and rest his weary head after terrorizing them earlier. Never before had a show made drawing this exciting.
Of course, things can’t be that simple for girls who are three apples tall. Removing the spell causes the maze to collapse, troubling the dragon once again. Thankfully, his mentor Qifrae – who was also similar in appearance Jujutsu Kaisen’s Satoru Gojo, not like that (he came first) – gets to work, demonstrating what a witch of her caliber is capable of. We can’t put into words how awesome Kifre is, and by proxy Witch Hat AtelierHere’s how it looks to do it justice, so see for yourself.
Just when the episode seems ready to end, things take a turn for the worse. The brimmed-hat witch’s monologue hints at a larger plot by her to corrupt Coco, and Coco begins to cry, and eventually passes out, terrified at the thought of losing her friends. Kiffrey offers cool praise, telling her she did a great job, citing the tropical, light-hearted ending theme and the credits that appear over the scene. Then, music takes away the cold. Qifrae looks menacingly at a shopkeeper and demands that the origin of the ink filled in the cap that was used to ward off the girls remain a secret. Clearly, there is more to Kifre than just being the coolest man alive. Whatever this means for the anime, it promises to be just as exciting as this episode.
You can tune in and see for yourself Witch Hat Atelier Every Monday on Crunchyroll.
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