A while back, Yusei Matsui was in the spotlight for setting a Jump-author first: his three works, Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro, Assassination Classroom, and The Elusive Samurai, all ran for over ten volumes from his debut serialization onward and were all adapted into anime (and I have absolutely no objection to Matsui being a genius). But in the sense of having one's first three serializations adapted into anime, doesn't Kenta Shinohara fit the bill too? His second work, "Astra Lost in Space," was a relatively short, intensive serialization, and ran on Jump+ rather than the main Jump magazine, but every one of his serialized works, starting with his debut "SKET DANCE," has been a hit and gotten an anime. And so, "Witch Watch," a work that became a steady hit in the main Jump magazine and had people asking "isn't it getting an anime yet?", has at last achieved its long-awaited anime adaptation, so I watched it right away.
It made us wait, and sure enough, it's extremely well done!
Sorry for the section title that comes across as a bit high-and-mighty. But I'm sure that's exactly how readers who'd been waiting for it felt. Looking at the reaction on social media, you can see the vast majority of opinions about this anime are favorable. And the all-important soundtrack is handled by Yukari Hashimoto. She's a composer who's also done the soundtracks for Osomatsu-san and, more recently, Zenshu, and I really felt she's especially skilled at turning the characters' way of perceiving everyday life into sound in the "slice-of-life" scenes. In scenes mainly featuring Morihito Otogi, who strives to live a mindful, considered life, there's a bossa-nova-based soundtrack that evokes a leisurely, elegant morning. Perhaps the bossa nova base was chosen because he's drinking coffee (he's a coffee lover) and it evokes Brazil. The way the music leaves room for you to think like this is, as expected, masterful. It's also wonderful how richly the soundtrack is used, with cues changing in a brisk, pleasant rhythm throughout. Given that this anime is basically slice-of-life with the story occasionally moving forward, you can never have too much soundtrack coloring the everyday scenes, and it's a lot of fun to listen to. The anime's own pacing is good too, so the way it doesn't get pulled around too much by the soundtrack, in the best sense, strikes an exquisite balance.
I think the appeal of Kenta Shinohara's works lies in this distinctive sense of pacing. SKET DANCE especially centered on the kind of unusual incidents that arise within everyday scenes, while Astra, conversely, sold itself on slice-of-life scenes that kept the tension from staying too high, somehow brightly powering through abnormal situations. In both stories, I think he's incredibly skilled at making the reader feel, at that very moment, as if they're in the same space, or rather, making you feel as if you're sharing the emotions and circumstances of the characters. That becomes even more apparent in Witch Watch, taking various forms: the will-they-won't-they romance so common in shonen manga, the atmosphere unique to a shared house, the tension of suddenly weaving in a serious scene now and then. And as you watch on, you grow attached to the characters. More than that, they start to feel like friends. When a manga's strengths like these are boosted even further in the anime through the power of the soundtrack, there's no way it could be anything but fun. Why not follow this work, which you can watch like you're heading out to have fun each week, in real time, everyone?
Quoted from the official site https://witchwatch-anime.com/
