Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a brand-spanking new production, as we explore what sources tell me is the first essential series of 2026. Its premise alone certainly sets it apart; based on a manga by Tomoko Yamashita, Journal with Witch catalogues the relationship of antisocial novelist Makio Kōdai and her fifteen-year-old niece Asa Takumi, who Makio takes in after the death of Asa’s parents. So yeah, a down-to-earth narrative about ordinary people attempting to navigate grief, socializing, and the idiosyncrasies of everyday life? Sign me the fuck up!

Beyond its refreshingly grounded concept, I’ve also been hearing excellent things about this adaptation’s take on the material. Director Miyuki Oshiro appears to have a balanced background in both animation and boarding, with significant experience in particular on Natsume’s Book of Friends, which seems just the right sort of education for a reserved, intimately human narrative. Meanwhile, series composer/scriptwriter Kohei Kiyasu apparently composed the entirety of Run with the Wind, an overlooked yet utterly fantastic 2019 sports drama. It seems we might have something truly special here, so let’s not waste any more time bloviating, and get right to the story!

Episode 1

We open on a moment of light and peace, as our presumed younger heroine sings to herself somewhere off-screen while we pan across a sunlit living room

“I found myself alone, standing on an empty page.” The lyrics of her song immediately equate the loneliness and grief of her situation to the isolation of beginning some literary project, stranded alone on a sheer white page

Consistent leaf imagery, from the initial potted plant to these paintings of leaves in different colors. Leaves speak of growth and change, death and renewal, their journey through the seasons echoing our journeys through our lives

We see she is cooking while texting a friend. Her song, close personal connections, and dedication to cooking all speak to a youthful vitality and engagement with life

The lighting and staging makes a deliberate contrast between her bright world and the shadowed, hunched-over form of Makio, who is physically separated from Asa by the walls and doorframes of this apartment

Makio requests a Justin Bieber song. Again, the lighting and staging makes for a clear delineation between their two worlds

I like their relaxed, sorta androgynous character designs. Too many modern designs feel like exaggerated costumes rather than fashion choices – these two aren’t performing for an audience, they’re just living their lives

“Go answer it like a real adult.” Asa already seems like the more collected member of the duo, while Makio has constructed her life so as to validate her lack of desire to interact with others. I sorta expected Makio to be painfully relatable, and we’re already getting there

“I’ve been healthier ever since you came.” “Then hire me.” Already a strong, natural dynamic between these two, facilitated by the confident decision to begin this narrative with Asa already living here. And as expected, Makio likely didn’t cook much for herself when she was alone

Asa reflects on the tactile sounds of Makio’s work as she lies in bed. She seems to have a bit of the writer’s eye as well, finding magic in observing the quiet rhythms of life

“Here I am, alone. Sleeping next to the throne of a queen from a strange land.”

Ooh, love the watercolors of this OP. Everything about this show feels delicate yet comfortable

The OP’s imagery echoes Asa’s reflections on incidental moments and memories – a drink with friends, a shared meal, a glance across the sea

“Overflow”

The episode proper returns us to before Asa joined the house, a fact made clear through the darkness and disorder of Makio’s apartment. Left to her own devices, she lets every surface become cluttered with loose books

As a news announcer impartially recites the facts of Makio’s sister’s death, she is confronted by her specter, reminded again of the coldness with which she greeted and was received by the world

And then she is left alone with her own reflection, her only companion. I’m eager to see how this story contrasts the chosen and forced isolation of its leads

The degree of Makio’s chosen isolation is emphasized again through Asa’s inability to recognize her. Apparently they haven’t met since Asa was a small child

Asa is foisted on Makio without a chance of argument. And apparently Makio doesn’t even remember her name!

Makio clearly doesn’t know how to deal with children, or it seems people in general. She struggles for words or ideas before awkwardly suggesting they get a meal

It seems this episode’s title likely refers to two forms of overflow – the grief Asa is presumably suppressing (or simply not feeling yet, as these things often happen), and the nature of Asa herself as a rounding error in the tragedy of her parents’ death

The cool, sterile colors and lack of sound emphasize how early in the day it is. It seems they were called in to the hospital just before dawn, making this tragedy feel all the more surreal, like they still haven’t woken up

Excellent, naturalistic portrayal of Makio’s awkwardness – with no idea what to do, she just keeps offering Asa more food and drinks

“Not sure how to feel? That doesn’t make you weird. You can be sad if the time ever comes.” The strange truth about grief, a feeling the body never quite learns how to process. And I’m sure Makio is an expert on feeling weird for not expressing the same emotions as her peers, for failing whatever test of normalcy her sister apparently aced

This sound design is so good! As minimalist as the show’s visual direction, and just as effective, letting silences hang between these two, offering only the lightest ornamentation of melancholy piano keys

“Unfortunately, I don’t feel sad at all. I hated my sister. I feel sorry for your sake.” Makio’s reflections on herself are precise and unsparing. She is indeed used to her own reflection

“It might help to start keeping a journal.” All she can offer is her own method of processing her feelings

“About whatever you feel or don’t feel.” A fundamental truth there, in that what we fail to feel often dominates or defines our psyche as much as our actual feelings

Asa replies that she’d only previously kept a journal about the daily progress of morning glories. Again, the rapid life cycles of plants are used as a metaphor for our own lives, which begin to feel similarly rushed the more we slip into adulthood. If we don’t pin down our feelings as they pass, they’ll swiftly slip away forever

As she begins to reflect back on the truth of the preceding day, the first wave finally hits, and she finds herself alone in a desert. “Knocking the wind out of you” is a phrase we often use to describe impossible news, but it fails to describe the true emptiness of grief

Makio’s advice is given texture by the funeral, where the vast hanging absences and absurd admissions of Asa’s relatives paint a stark picture of indifference, pettiness, and cruelty

Asa begins to drown out their cruel indifference with nonsense words, a buffer emphasized through her relatives’ visual abstraction into greyscale blocks. But she thinks “I can’t journal like this,” feeling guilty even for her coping mechanisms. A curse of writers; the more they look away, the more they fail to endure the truths necessary to relay honest humanity through their words. You have to listen, you have to watch, and you have to avoid letting that dedication numb you

The cactus on Makio’s bedroom window is a nice touch, emphasizing how little coexistence she’s heretofore been capable of

More fallen leaves as we see her houseplant in the next room over. They tell an expanding story of her indifference to time’s passage, how long it’s been since she actively looked at her own apartment. This show keeps skewering me and I don’t like it

“We… should eat.” Once again, Makio defaults to “eating is a thing humans do, right?” when asked to interact with her niece

Makio sets the toaster and then just dully stares at it, before assembling a meal of toast and hot dogs. Incredible life skills

“Are you actually, like, super shy?” “No! I mean, yes.” We learn to live with our idiosyncrasies, and find our own ways to accept that we’ve “failed” in some way by society’s standards of adulthood. That was likely part of the rift between Makio and her sister, but Asa is an innocent; Makio can’t simply distance herself again, as she’s actually the guardian and alleged shepherd here. A wonderfully mismatched dynamic, forcing Makio to reexamine herself in the gentlest way possible

“I was completely overlooking the fact that I’m not the kind of person who can share their space with another human being.” I like how we continue to navigate around the theoretical heavy beats – the crash, Makio’s outburst. We’re not here for those moments; this is a story about navigating the countless challenges of the everyday

“I’m just surprised adults get hurt feelings too.” It’s almost more painful to be challenged by someone matching her level of blunt sincerity

“I doubt my sister ever showed flaws like that.” Her performance of adulthood was perfect

“You’re really going to keep one?” “You said it would help.” The fifteen-year-old obviously has more faith in Makio’s words than Makio herself

“I started living with someone weird today. And that’s because…” It’s still too enormous, too impossible to face directly. Once again, she is isolated on the empty page

I can still remember the moment I got the call, and learned my father had been in an accident. I was actually doing exactly this, writing up an episode of Scorching Ping Pong Girls, of all things. It didn’t feel real for a very long time after that

Lovely transition from these lined yellow pages to the dunes of the desert

“Oh, dinner?” Lost that deeply in the desert, you often do measure the time in the necessity of consuming another meal, of opening your mouth and placing food inside and chewing until you can swallow it

“You don’t have to write anything you don’t want to.” A freeing proposition. We can choose our obligations to the page; it is always in our hands

Makio’s sharp angles, the precise cut of her eyes and brows, feel like a knife slowly whittling at Asa’s rounded shell. The contrast feels painfully deliberate as we return to the wake

“Do you know the kanji for ‘basin?’” A basin of water is the metaphor that at last allows her to reach her feelings. A basin about to overflow

“I’m sick to find that my hatred for her still persists even after her passing.” The cruelty of our feelings, these unsociable wrappings we cannot discard

“You’re deserving of much more beautiful things in life.” Makio cannot relate to her as anything more than any other fifteen-year-old in a moment of tragedy, but that is enough

“I promise you, I will never trample on your feelings.” She’s so earnest, so sharp-edged. I imagine she’d have embraced the tools of polite, evasive adulthood if she’d ever had a knack for them, but we all have to live with the gifts we’ve been provided

“With eyes like a wolf astray from its path.” Asa indeed shares the knack

“This dried-up sushi isn’t worth eating. We’re getting real sushi.” You gotta grab your share of the beautiful things in life. We really don’t have that much time

In this new home, they each find someone to share the loneliness with

And Done

Welp, I’m crying on the first episode, so I think we’re in good hands. That was indeed a marvelous realization of an inherently rich premise, finding in the meeting of these two lonely souls an articulation of what it means to coexist, to soldier on through the desert, to seek love and understanding in this cold and frightful world. There’s nothing this episode touched on that didn’t feel considered and true, whether it be the gentle, placid aesthetic realization of living through the styrofoam padding of grief, or the acutely well-observed details of surviving as an adult who never learned to be one. I already feel like I know Makio intimately, because so many of her observations and quirks felt like home to me, and I’m looking forward to getting to know Asa as well. For all that grief takes from us, there is still beauty in this world.

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