Manga Thoughts: Witch Hat Atelier 10
Dec. 15th, 2022 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen it came to the latest volume of Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier manga, I didn’t quite let “the manga that’s been waiting the longest should be picked out of the pile next” altogether determine when I got around to it. I did, though, read the sixteenth volume of a different “magical” manga, Kore Yamazaki’s The Ancient Magus’ Bride, right before Witch Hat Atelier. Continuing the “magical academy arc” of The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I have to admit to an initial uncertain thought or two as to whether I was losing track of all of the new characters. In the end, though, I did find that latest instalment interesting, even if I remained eager to move on to a still more fantastic world.
Witch Hat Atelier picked up again with Coco’s fellow apprentices tracing their own and less harrowing paths through the Silver Eve festival. Continuing from the secondary cliffhanger of the cheerful Tetia running into a runaway prince, I got to thinking the art was that much more appealing than usual (which didn’t just have to do with the exchange of outer cloaks for a temporary disguise); there was a final note of ominousness to it, though.
As for Coco herself, she’s struggling to think of a spell amazing enough to gain an audience with the king on orders from the Brimmed Caps when, wandering too close to the lowest fringe of the city (and some magical water purification), she runs into a character I’d had trouble recognizing just from his name in the back-cover blurb. Once I had recognized Dagda as the adult guardian of Custas, the crippled youth willingly entangled with the Brimmed Caps, there’s a revelation of “forbidden magic accomplishing one of the most grandiose and desperate wishes there is in more than one story,” but also a reminder of a previously established fact in this story that even the Brimmed Caps aren’t all-powerful. (I did, though, have to go back two volumes to realise what had happened before had been established outright in the story.) Consequences escalate, trading off “Coco and Tartah take action they shouldn’t” for an intimation the memory-wiping magic that’s forever being threatened has that much more ominousness than might have been thought. The cliffhanger this time around backs away from immediate peril but does leave me wondering how the story might spin along further or begin to approach a conclusion after ten volumes; I just hope I’ll be able to pick up all the threads again when the next volume does show up.
Witch Hat Atelier picked up again with Coco’s fellow apprentices tracing their own and less harrowing paths through the Silver Eve festival. Continuing from the secondary cliffhanger of the cheerful Tetia running into a runaway prince, I got to thinking the art was that much more appealing than usual (which didn’t just have to do with the exchange of outer cloaks for a temporary disguise); there was a final note of ominousness to it, though.
As for Coco herself, she’s struggling to think of a spell amazing enough to gain an audience with the king on orders from the Brimmed Caps when, wandering too close to the lowest fringe of the city (and some magical water purification), she runs into a character I’d had trouble recognizing just from his name in the back-cover blurb. Once I had recognized Dagda as the adult guardian of Custas, the crippled youth willingly entangled with the Brimmed Caps, there’s a revelation of “forbidden magic accomplishing one of the most grandiose and desperate wishes there is in more than one story,” but also a reminder of a previously established fact in this story that even the Brimmed Caps aren’t all-powerful. (I did, though, have to go back two volumes to realise what had happened before had been established outright in the story.) Consequences escalate, trading off “Coco and Tartah take action they shouldn’t” for an intimation the memory-wiping magic that’s forever being threatened has that much more ominousness than might have been thought. The cliffhanger this time around backs away from immediate peril but does leave me wondering how the story might spin along further or begin to approach a conclusion after ten volumes; I just hope I’ll be able to pick up all the threads again when the next volume does show up.