Let’s start this review with what readers might take away from it. The story has a solid premise and from my experience reading it, has a focus on found family, fighting against fate, love, etc. Of course the reader should have read the description of what this story is about but if what I took away from the story at all sounds interesting than you should definitely consider reading.
Now for the art, for me personally art style isn’t a necessity for a good manga and it shouldn’t, however Ichi The Witch blesses you with some fantastic art. One thing that I took away was how the artist, Shiro Usazaki, captures facial expressions, he is really good at capturing a wide arrange of emotions but it doesn’t seem to be what he is best at. His highlight to me being, how he drowns you in gorgeous double spreads of the scene at large and usually these spectacles happen back to back. Paneling is something that goes hand in hand with the art, and Ichi The Witch’s paneling usually helps to convey the small details and changes in the characters to help emphasize and enrich character moments. It’s clear and effective at progressing the story and something that is absolutely a strong point of this manga.
Another strong point is the humor, and while this is most definitely the most subjective criteria, even if slightly generic Ichi The Witch is also pretty funny. The chibi art style when used is super cute and really makes it that much more expressive. While there’ll be a section focusing more on the characters later, they are very quirky typically for any major Shonen.
A good power system is what any good Shonen needs and from what I take personally in a story, this is Ichi The Witch’s strongest point. Majiks and the hunts surrounding them, and how Witches themselves are only female, to me these are fantastic ideas and for around half the time I think this stories does a good enough job at executing them. For starters Majiks hunts aren’t based solely on strength they typically require a level of cleverness or trick to obtain them. These hunts are super fun, and truthfully I wish there were more of these to help showcase the creative talents of both the author and writer, though we are unlikely to get one any time soon because of how the plot is progressing.
Now while I am a male, I do believe it is incredibly important to understand why a women dominated witch society is really good. Typically in a lot of stories that I have read so far, they clearly treat women as lesser creatures and it is really upsetting to see, in Ichi The Witch’s there is none of that. It also serves as a critique to how women are treated in the real world, and also serves in general great representation for women who despite loving Shonen, a male dominated demographic, to find a story not seeped in misogyny. So this is definitely the make or break factor for how much you will like the series, because this series is woke and tries to challenge quite a few gender norms, not even just for the women. Obviously that alludes to the mc being a man, but other plot points later in the story.
This does bring about a massive criticism about this series, the writer Osamu Nishi, makes the characters so one dimensional that it is almost bland to read sometimes. Other than being quirky up till now they have shown little nuance that makes me compelled to like them beyond surface level. A big offender of this is Ichi, his whole mindset behind “Death for Death” is cool in concept but other than that there is very little to delve into with his character. But his character is most definitely written like that on purpose and despite at times being inconsistent it makes sense. And in general the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and the writer doesn’t make any attempts to try to question you. Now whether or not that is what you take away from this story or not is up to you, but to me the characters are painfully one dimensional.
This extends to the antagonists who are most definitely the biggest offenders of my one dimensional character critique. At this point of writing the review we have finished 3 major arcs so we have a fair enough idea of what kind of a story the writer wants to make, and if im right im going to be continuously disappointed at the poor antagonists cast. Because this story revolves around witches and their hunts against Majiks at the end of the day they are all evil just for the sake of it, which is fine, however antagonists are a major aspect of what drives a story forward and if you are lacking in that it makes it all kinda fall flat.
The writer also struggles with their build up and their execution of the plot to me. At times she sets up a nice idea and instead of letting it wait just a little bit, she impatiently decides to skip ahead leaving out potential emotional build up. But the problem is how inconsistent this is, I feel like if she was to make everything face paced then that would be fine, I could adjust how I view the story. However she is pretty inconsistent around 70% of the time she follows through on fast pace storylines, the other 30% is a weird kinda slog to get through. The writer needs to sort out and balance when exactly to let things play out and when to give things little breathing room, while this might have been because of fear for the axe, from this point forward I will hold nothing back when it comes to criticisms for this.
Now modern day manga and Shonen has been criticized for being unoriginal and bland, what exactly qualifies this I’m not too sure. Despite that I think Ichi The Witch is a case study of this, because in one of the early paragraphs I mentioned what the themes were of this story. The “problem” is that well… this just seems like any other Shonen series, found family, adventure, love these are some of the earliest ideas that Shonen has to offer, and Ichi The Witch tries to offer nothing more of value to me.
To summarize my thoughts I believe Ichi The Witch to be solid surface level enjoyment. it is something that I absolutely would recommend to someone new to anime/ manga as it has a creative power system, good humor (imo), great art, and a simple premise. However I find it harder to recommend it to someone who is looking for a well developed cast of characters (especially antagonists), worthwhile build up and execution of plot points, and overall something that isn’t just a regurgitation of the standard Shonen formula.
In my opinion to enjoy this series the most just read Ichi The Witch but don’t expect anything mind blowing or thought provoking.
