Flying Witch airs late on Saturday night from where I live, so I’ve gotten in the habit of watching in on Sunday morning, which is rather fitting considering the show’s relaxed mood and tempo. Episode eight has Makoto and her cousins Kei and Chinatsu visit a cafe run by witches, where they meet and talk to some of its regular customers and finally learn what the fox says. And that’s the plot. Nothing happens, but it happens so charmingly. It’s the perfect anime series to watch curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and a cat.
One of the pleasures of watching a good adaptation of a manga you’ve read. is seeing favourite scenes animated. The best joke of the episode was something that was both incredibly cringe worthy and incredibly funny in the manga, but was taking up to eleven here. Timing is the keyword here, as I’ve said before. The anime extends and lengthens the build-up to the joke in a way that the manga couldn’t, then does the same for Makoto’s reaction as she finally processes what she sees. Even if you see the joke coming from the setup earlier in the episode, it still works because it’s so well done. The same goes for the post-ending credits scene, which in the manga was only a couple pages long and here got extended for the better.
Now the witches world is supposed to be hidden from that of normal people, but in practise they seem to be very relaxed about letting people like Kei and Chinatsu hang around all those semi-hidden places like the cafe. Hang around long enough and you become part of the scene, so it seems, even if you’re not quite supernatural yourself. Witches are mellow by nature it seems. It’s also weirdly realistic: with so many people in on the secret it’s only natural that some of their friends and relatives would be in on it as well. Having Chinatsu there, a few years younger than Kei and Makoto and naturally curious, helps a lot. She breaks the ice naturally and always is the first to talk to new supernatural beings; she’s also one of the best realised little girl/younger sister characters in anime.
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