Flying Witch had another fine episode this week, one that set up a nicely specific contrast between the beauty of rural life and the wonder of Makoto’s magic. The show is achieving a good balance so far, where the magic is understated enough to not dominate the production, and the farming and cooking and whatnot are all compelling enough to keep things moving as well. The cast has a great chemistry, the tone is consistently on point, and the humor isn’t always consistent, but still keeps things charming throughout. I would happily watch a slice of life this good every single season.
You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!
Clarifying what terms you want the cat to tell you the year in is a very good gag
“Soon we’ll be able to feel the spring warmth.” Plenty of slow establishing moments
Makoto wants to plant some vegetables
An accent joke, which they didn’t really try to translate
More nice folk guitar tunes
The show is full of offhand bits of tiny humor based on timing and anticlimax. Lots of intentionally flat moments as punchlines, which maintain the general tone
Makoto being terrible at weeding is pretty great
And mostly a joke of voice acting, too
“There’s a weird bird!” The show contrasts learning about magic with learning about life in the country, and through doing so emphasizes the wonder and magic of the everyday. The premise lends itself towards addressing the fundamental conceit of slice of life shows
And Makoto immediately leaps at it, lol
You can really feel the crispness of the air in the color palette and their outfits
And of course her uncle chases the pheasant, lol
“My sister’s very famous in the witch world.” Very subdued opening to this second half
“No, I am not. Yes I am.”
You do get a good grasp on her casual personality very quickly
Makoto hasn’t been using magic
I feel the delivery on this half’s jokes has actually been a little too subtle. They could lean into them just a bit more
“A good place no one goes to? Pretty much everywhere.” A nice line
A spell that burns a girl’s black hair to summon crows. Magic isn’t just waving your wand – it’s gathering ingredients to do small, specific things. Brings it closer to the farming
The slow-building joke of her summoning a million crows
Some of the moments in the second half felt like their pacing was off by a half step
The combination of country stuff + OP sung by Miwa really makes me think of “Silver Spoon” here XD.
Anyway, I especially appreciated how they purposefully left Makoto’s sister teleportation spell happen offscreen. It’s like the director didn’t want to disturb the peaceful atmosphere with such a flashy display of magic. Good choice and I think an insurance that this way of framing magic is very deliberate and won’t change any soon (unless the show surprisingly decides to build up dramatic momentum in the ending, which seems odd to imagine at the moment though).
Yeah, that did seem like a smart, intentional choice. I could definitely see the show using more ostentatious displays of magic for bigger punchlines/emotional beats, though – something more like the mandrake sequence, for example.
I’d forgotten how it played out in the manga, so I was expecting Makoto’s spell to summon the pheasant from the first half, haha. (As an aside, the fansubs I watched did a good job rendering the uncle’s dialect just legibly enough to hit the joke.)