Ikoku Nikki

Thirty-five-year-old novelist Makio Koudai never had a good relationship with her older sister Minori, who always berated her for being different. Due to this, Makio is not stricken with grief upon hearing the news that Minori and her husband died in a car crash. But when Makio is asked to identify their bodies, she runs into her 15-year-old niece, Asa Takumi, whom she has not seen in years.

As Asa struggles to process her parents' death, Makio reassures her that her complicated feelings are valid and suggests that the teenager start writing in a diary as a way to cope with the loss. Upon learning that no other relatives wanted to take in Asa, Makio decides to become her guardian despite her lack of experience. In a world full of uncertainty, the novelist and teenager must learn to live with each other while figuring themselves out.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Koudai, Makio Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Takumi, Asa Main

Mori, Fuuko Japanese

Kasamachi, Shingo Supporting

Suwabe, Junichi Japanese

Nara, Emiri Supporting

Morohoshi, Sumire Japanese

Daigo, Nana Supporting

Matsui, Eriko Japanese

Sone, Asuka Supporting

Kamijou, Chihiro Japanese

Koudai, Kyouko Supporting

Asano, Mayumi Japanese

Juno, Itsuki Supporting

Kujira Japanese

Oogaki Supporting

Ueda, Kaya Japanese

Takumi, Hajime Supporting

Yoshino, Takahiro Japanese

Matsui, Yuuko Producer

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Miura, Fumito Producer

Cai, Ailian Producer

Reviews

May 9, 2026

Lamisha_Astaria

Recommended

"Journal with Witch" is the Hidden Gem of Winter 2026! 💎

Some stories are just meant to touch you silently without any grand gestures, and "Journal with Witch" did exactly that! I can't remember when was the last time a show touched my soul this much and made me feel this emotional. The journey of 15-year-old Asa and her 35-year-old aunt Makio, recovering from the loss of their family and finding a new sense of family and happiness with each other, was sad yet wholesome. This didn't feel like an anime; instead, it felt like an A24 indie movie where the focus is more on human ... emotions than anything else.

It's been years since we got a good-quality Josei Drama anime, and "Journal with Witch" took me by surprise because it perfectly fits into this category! The way this story chose to show how a girl who lost her parents in an accident goes through stages of depression and recovery was extremely well detailed. Especially, there are scenes where Asa's loneliness and depression take the shape of a desert, where she is walking all alone looking for cool air and water. These scenes were symbolic, yet I could feel how she feels after losing her parents so suddenly. It's like she is left stranded alone to survive. But sometimes she sees her aunt Makio also walking alongside her in this desert, as she realizes how Makio has her own traumas that have led her to learn how to survive alone and find happiness. Asa's silent depression turns from sadness to anger after a while because she feels her parents didn't love her and that's why they left her alone like this. However, we as the audience understand that she is using this anger as a coping mechanism. For me, the episode where Asa finally breaks down crying after accepting that her parents are gone forever was the hardest. That scene broke me into tears as Asa hugged Makio and started to grieve loudly. By the end of the show, Asa learns to accept her reality and finds music as a way to find happiness because, no matter what, life goes on and we sometimes need to water our own plants to help them survive, even if they are growing in a desert. But Asa also realizes an uncomfortable truth that not every question has a clear answer.

People grieve in different ways. For Asa, grieving came in the form of depression and questions about whether she was loved at all. On the other hand, we see Makio's trauma and learn how Asa's mother, Minori, used to be an unkind older sister. Growing up is never easy, but when you have a sibling who constantly raises issues about everything you do, life can become very stressful. This is exactly what happened with Makio while she was growing up. Her elder sister Minori was always tormenting her for being different, which led to lifelong trauma. We even get to see how Makio's future friendships and relationships were affected due to the trauma her sister caused. Even after becoming a successful novelist, Makio still hasn't figured her life out, and that just shows us how adults also struggle in their everyday lives. Makio never tries to become a motherly guide for Asa because she wants Asa to be able to make her own decisions. I really respected this decision of hers because it ultimately led Asa to become a stronger version of herself and make her own decision to pursue music and write songs.

Apart from Makio and Asa, all of Makio's friends and her love interest, Kasamichi-kun, played a great role in this story. I loved Kasamichi-kun's character a lot in this show. He was like a guiding light or a breath of fresh air for both Asa and Makio at times. Asa's best friend, Emiry, also had a small supporting part in this show. All of the characters felt so real that it almost seemed like I was present in the scenes, peeking into their personal lives very closely. All the characters are shown to be going through some sort of struggle in their personal lives, and this makes us realize that dealing with different struggles is what shapes us into different people with distinct personalities.

The storytelling of this show is as perfect as it can get. As I mentioned earlier, the story covers stages of depression and recovery, so the smooth pacing supports the flow of events perfectly. Grief, happiness, individuality, depression, and healing all of these concepts played out beautifully in this story due to its spectacular execution. The dialogues and inner monologues of this show literally pulled at my heartstrings, they were so well written. Every word of advice said by Makio and every question asked by Asa were very thoughtfully written. It felt so naturally deep that the message this story wants to deliver was conveyed in the best possible way. Since the show explores a sensitive emotional topic, it can get dramatic at times, but it is needed for the overall development of the story. This anime demands a mature mindset to be appreciated properly because, at its core, it is not something that will make you feel hyped or excited like action anime shows do. Instead, it will sometimes make you feel numbingly sad and touch you on a human level. But at other times, the little slice of life moments between Asa and Makio will make you smile. This show is extremely conversation heavy, so you have to pay attention to every small detail to properly grasp the tone the story is trying to set. I could feel while watching this show that the direction was handled with great care and that the creators truly wanted to deliver the complex emotional journey that Asa and Makio were going through. The background score and sound design also helped set the emotional tone of grief perfectly.

Altogether, "Journal with Witch" is probably one of the most powerful human stories ever told through anime as a medium, and this one will stay with me forever as the best josei drama anime of this decade! ❤️

📌Personal Rating: 10

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Apr 24, 2026

TinnFoil

Mixed Feelings

Ikoku Nikki feels pretty deep. It feels as though it has many things to say about grief, relationships, and emotions. Does it actually? Your mileage may vary.

This is a pretty art-sy anime, and it does a lot of things right. It has, in my opinion, profound things to say about the human condition. The characters are weird and extreme, but also distinct and enjoyable. The animation is relaxing and satisfying.

Ikoku Nikki struggles most in its storytelling. I found myself enjoying each episode, and the messages each conveys resonated deeply. However, I find that the anime as a whole is less than the sum of ... its parts. I felt that, by the time I had reached the end, there were so many questions that had no answers. So many side-plots were started, and so many of them never got a clear, satisfying ending. What happened to this person? How did this get resolved? When did that happen? These questions kept coming up as I reached the final episodes of the anime, as the anime seemingly swept so many endings under the rug and only showed us the aftermath, or worse, nothing at all. In the end, I felt each episode was individually satisfying, but the anime as a whole was lacking.

I do find the anime enjoyable, just a bit disappointing. I plan on reading the manga, but I do think the anime is worth watching. It tells the story in an interesting way, a way that I doubt is possible in a book format. I recommend this, but just know that by the end you may be left wanting more, like me.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 30, 2026

nishant121

Not Recommended

Preliminary (5/13 eps)

Ikoku Nikki has to be the most mixed-feelings series for me, where its reception and my own view feel way too far apart. I didn’t want to write a review of it, but after seeing that there isn’t a single negative one, I got somewhat annoyed and decided to make one.
At first, when I dropped it, I thought I might give it another try someday. But now that I think about it, there are so many things I just can’t stand about this show.

The first thing is the character design. I don’t have anything against minimalistic styles, but man, the way these characters look is ... just ugly for some reason.
Now the bigger issue: the characters themselves. People love to defend this show by saying “oh, it’s realistic,” “it’s ADHD-coded,” “it’s subtle,” etc. but honestly, I don’t give a shit about that, when both of them feel completely inhuman to me. One has an extreme level of hatred toward her sister that feels way too overblown, and the other is just a cocky teenager who seems more worried about her school life even after her parents died. And yeah, I get it “escapism,” “coping mechanism,” whatever. But there’s a threshold where that stops feeling real and starts feeling forced, and this show crosses that line hard. And then the aunt keeps saying the most obvious shit like "yOuR FeeLings Are YoUrs" at one point I was just like “please just shut the fuck up, you look like a MAN lol” (you can let that slide, it’s just an unfunny joke).

It feels like the entire anime is more interested in sounding deep than actually being deep. Instead of properly exploring grief, relationships, or emotional complexity, it just repeats vague messages about “accepting your feelings” and expects that to carry the whole story. Anyway, idk if it gets better, and honestly I don’t care enough to find out. I’m not going any further with it, at least not right now. Thats why I'm still giving it an average score of 5.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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	Poll: Ikoku Nikki Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Mar 29	111 replies	by Kyou_Ryuu »» May 10, 12:23 PM
	Poll: Ikoku Nikki Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Mar 1	63 replies	by the_strikr »» May 10, 12:16 PM
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	Poll: Ikoku Nikki Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jan 11	81 replies	by Oneiroi234 »» May 8, 3:26 AM
	Poll: Ikoku Nikki Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Feb 8	126 replies	by LunaLov »» May 7, 6:43 PM