Manga Thoughts: Witch Hat Atelier 12
Jul. 5th, 2024 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAs time passed I grew a bit conscious I hadn’t jumped into the twelfth volume of Witch Hat Atelier after receiving my copy (the pages of which had an odd “splay” to them, as if the page signatures this paperback might have been glued together from were still sort of sticking together at their other ends rather than losing their identity in a single book). Some sort of familiar “save the best for last” feeling had engaged, perhaps. One thing that might have helped there, however unfortunate from another perspective, was that I’d lost the nerve to see how Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End continued beyond its anime adaptation, and that with no immediate announcement of a continued adaptation as far as I can remember. (I have multiple volumes of Urusei Yatsura and My Dress-Up Darling waiting in a similar fashion, so far as that goes.)
As for Kamome Shirahama’s fantasy, I remembered how the previous volume had ended with an apparent move forward, towards potential good and ill together, being diverted by a plot zig-zag in the appearance of a unsettling framework monster in the night. Just where this had come from had been hinted at by scenes with two witches locked in a castle tower cell, the younger (who I wound up tracking back to a lightweight but still offensive misuse of magic) talked and tricked into doing something foolish and final by the older, who I hadn’t quite been able to find in the previous story. As something dark and gloppy-looking drops onto the hat of the older witch and spreads to form a brim, though, I had a stronger impression of who he ought to be...
The monster turns out to be nasty if comprehensible up close, and witches and normal folk alike leap into action. Coco’s three fellow apprentices wind up shut up in a shelter trying to guard it against infiltration. Coco stays out in the open, and when her master Qifrey happens to ask her why in a way that reveals he knows she’s been troubled she explains things. I had been aware of “mistrust all established authority, however minor” takes suggesting Qifrey might have led Coco on to be an apprentice just to track down whoever revealed the central secret of magic in this story to her; his compassion here might only still be “apparent,” but it could feel positive too.
My assumptions as to who had caused the immediate crisis did get bumped a bit when the story turns to Ininia, the young “Brimmed Cap” whose usual mood as she carries out “shrouded schemes” is unflappable. Now, though, she is quite “flapped,” and complaining to herself how the Brimmed Caps keep getting the blame for things they haven’t done. I supposed the mysterious magic users aren’t altogether a single organized force, but that was interrupted by her bumping back into a different thread of the story. It had happened to establish a same-sex relationship, but only, so it seemed, as a past thing with the memories of one of the people in it erased. That the story was beginning to suggest at how the worst consequences of that might be avoided got my attention, even if I remained a little conscious this manga made efforts to offer more diversity than some casual assumptions of manga might have it but can still seem to keep that to its edges. (Of course, there is that issue of how I sometimes shrug off what others take as “absolute proof” of same-sex relationships until it’s undeniable... The relationship I did find “undeniable” wasn’t a “workplace relationship,” and maybe that makes a difference.)
When Coco’s fellow apprentices showed up in the story again, Tetia is being shown some first aid techniques to treat the monster’s victims. She worries about this being too much like the medicine witches are forbidden to practice, and is given a cheerful suggestion that the denial of knowledge is a method of control. As this just happens to impinge on the central secret of this story, her familiar mood of ebullience vanishes and she starts to worry out loud in a way her friends try to hush at once.
Amid all of this Coco and Qifrey end up near the seashore and the castle the monster erupted from, and the witch who created that monster makes an appearance. Qifrey, though, is able to name him as Lord Engendale, and that got me delving again through the volumes of this plot arc. At last, I was able to find Engendale in the volume that had involved “political interactions,” a high-placed witch removed from that position for pocketing money. I suppose this could be taken as “see, authority is quite fallible,” although he did get caught in the first place. Whether the loose ends of this plot arc (pointed out on the “watch for the next volume” page) will wrap up soon is something I’ll have to wait to see, but the mix of action, character development, and always impressive art in this volume was quite satisfying to read.
As a postscript, in taking a while to read this volume and type this post up I just happened to come across news of the Witch Hat Atelier anime adaptation. A “reaction thread” just happened to be stuffed full of suspicion of the studio producing the adaptation given what happened with its last elaborate production. In this particular case, at least, I’d thought the manga’s art was such a draw that an anime would be hard to make impressive and had therefore not dwelt on the subject too much. This, I suppose, will be a case where waiting for the whole series to be complete will have to be my option, and even then watching that series remains only a theoretical possibility.
As for Kamome Shirahama’s fantasy, I remembered how the previous volume had ended with an apparent move forward, towards potential good and ill together, being diverted by a plot zig-zag in the appearance of a unsettling framework monster in the night. Just where this had come from had been hinted at by scenes with two witches locked in a castle tower cell, the younger (who I wound up tracking back to a lightweight but still offensive misuse of magic) talked and tricked into doing something foolish and final by the older, who I hadn’t quite been able to find in the previous story. As something dark and gloppy-looking drops onto the hat of the older witch and spreads to form a brim, though, I had a stronger impression of who he ought to be...
The monster turns out to be nasty if comprehensible up close, and witches and normal folk alike leap into action. Coco’s three fellow apprentices wind up shut up in a shelter trying to guard it against infiltration. Coco stays out in the open, and when her master Qifrey happens to ask her why in a way that reveals he knows she’s been troubled she explains things. I had been aware of “mistrust all established authority, however minor” takes suggesting Qifrey might have led Coco on to be an apprentice just to track down whoever revealed the central secret of magic in this story to her; his compassion here might only still be “apparent,” but it could feel positive too.
My assumptions as to who had caused the immediate crisis did get bumped a bit when the story turns to Ininia, the young “Brimmed Cap” whose usual mood as she carries out “shrouded schemes” is unflappable. Now, though, she is quite “flapped,” and complaining to herself how the Brimmed Caps keep getting the blame for things they haven’t done. I supposed the mysterious magic users aren’t altogether a single organized force, but that was interrupted by her bumping back into a different thread of the story. It had happened to establish a same-sex relationship, but only, so it seemed, as a past thing with the memories of one of the people in it erased. That the story was beginning to suggest at how the worst consequences of that might be avoided got my attention, even if I remained a little conscious this manga made efforts to offer more diversity than some casual assumptions of manga might have it but can still seem to keep that to its edges. (Of course, there is that issue of how I sometimes shrug off what others take as “absolute proof” of same-sex relationships until it’s undeniable... The relationship I did find “undeniable” wasn’t a “workplace relationship,” and maybe that makes a difference.)
When Coco’s fellow apprentices showed up in the story again, Tetia is being shown some first aid techniques to treat the monster’s victims. She worries about this being too much like the medicine witches are forbidden to practice, and is given a cheerful suggestion that the denial of knowledge is a method of control. As this just happens to impinge on the central secret of this story, her familiar mood of ebullience vanishes and she starts to worry out loud in a way her friends try to hush at once.
Amid all of this Coco and Qifrey end up near the seashore and the castle the monster erupted from, and the witch who created that monster makes an appearance. Qifrey, though, is able to name him as Lord Engendale, and that got me delving again through the volumes of this plot arc. At last, I was able to find Engendale in the volume that had involved “political interactions,” a high-placed witch removed from that position for pocketing money. I suppose this could be taken as “see, authority is quite fallible,” although he did get caught in the first place. Whether the loose ends of this plot arc (pointed out on the “watch for the next volume” page) will wrap up soon is something I’ll have to wait to see, but the mix of action, character development, and always impressive art in this volume was quite satisfying to read.
As a postscript, in taking a while to read this volume and type this post up I just happened to come across news of the Witch Hat Atelier anime adaptation. A “reaction thread” just happened to be stuffed full of suspicion of the studio producing the adaptation given what happened with its last elaborate production. In this particular case, at least, I’d thought the manga’s art was such a draw that an anime would be hard to make impressive and had therefore not dwelt on the subject too much. This, I suppose, will be a case where waiting for the whole series to be complete will have to be my option, and even then watching that series remains only a theoretical possibility.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-06 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-07-06 12:39 pm (UTC)Right now, I'll admit to remembering a certain comment from a while ago (from a light novel/manga fan) that "anime adaptations" might make everyone, or at least certain people, happier if they were just promotional videos a few minutes long... the "days of OVAs" carried to an extreme, I suppose.
Anyway, I can agree with you that the trailer does look nice.