A specter is haunting the pages of Witch Watch. You won’t notice unless you pay attention, but the pitter-patter of its tiny feet is unmistakable. Like a monstrous parasite, it has managed to take over the entire series in almost no time at all, infecting every nook and cranny. Be afraid, for its true identity is none other than little Nico.
Contains spoilers for Witch Watch up to chapter 170.
When Kenta Shinohara first launched Witch Watch in Weekly Shonen Jump back in 2021, it quickly proved effective for two key reasons. First of all, although the bulk of its chapters were dedicated to character-based comedy, it also interspersed this with serious drama as Nico and her familiars battled evil warlocks: this variety in tone ensured that the series remained fresh week after week. Secondly, the overall narrative also had a strong sense of forward momentum as the clock ticked down on the prophecy that Nico would meet disaster in a year and her relationship with Morihito progressed in various ways.
Both of these overall storylines eventually came to a head in the Day of Disaster arc, where Nico was beset by a group of evil warlocks. Rather ingeniously, Shinohara initially dressed this up as yet another part in the ongoing romance saga as Morihito was on the way to confess to Nico, before revealing that this was the fateful day that the prophecy had predicted. It took pretty much everyone off guard as these two storylines, once thought to be separate, actually turned out to be interlinked and were about to come to a grand conclusion.
And then they stopped.
Following an intense series of battles, the end of the Day of Disaster arc saw the teenage Nico turn back into an elementary schooler. This ushered in the second part of the story, known as “Adventures of a Little Witch.” While it would be an over exaggeration to say that this has ruined the series, it does mark a sharp departure from what made the manga so engaging at the beginning, presenting a problem that Shinohara will have to overcome in the future.
First of all, all progress in Nico and Morihito’s relationship has been halted for the time being. This is understandable considering that Nico is now a small child, but it doesn’t make the sudden stop any less frustrating - especially when things left off at such a vital juncture. While Shinohara has arguably attempted to fill this void in the two main characters’ relationship by making Morihito into a father figure for little Nico, this is only temporary and surely complicates matters whenever Nico does eventually turn back into a teenager… talk about daddy issues.
Similarly, the conclusion of the Nico’s prophecy storyline has effectively removed the threat of enemy warlocks from the series. This has caused almost every single chapter since the start of part two to revolve almost entirely around comedy, shifting the tone of the series dramatically away from a more mixed palette. It is worth noting that there have been some more serious stories here and there, but the ratio is still a lot different from part one. Shinohara even decided to do a multi-chapter story on Morihito trying to convince Nico that Santa exists!
While it would be inaccurate to say that Witch Watch has lost any sense of forward momentum, the kind of momentum it has now is also very different from what came before. If part one was all about moving forward together to overcome the threat of impending doom, then part two is all about gathering the pieces to get back to how things were before. The core objective of Nico and her familiars is now to reverse her transformation: they do this by reobtaining the spells that the teenage Nico once knew, now flying around in the form of glowing butterflies. Although this does provide the series with an end goal, it feels slightly regressive as our characters are simply working to restore the status quo.
All of this naturally begs the question: why would Shinohara even do this? Why would he make the decision to turn Nico back into a child? Cynical readers may argue that it’s all a question of artificially extending the series’ lifespan in the name of sales, but it arguably goes deeper than that. As creators get older and their circumstances change, the kind of stories they want to tell change too: Kenta Shinohara is 50 years old now, he’s married and may even have kids of his own, so he may simply sympathize more with Morihito as a dad than as a loved-up adolescent.
Even so, this doesn’t excuse the fact that reverting Nico back to a child has destroyed the variety the series once enjoyed and put the stops on one of its biggest storylines. There was a way that Kenta Shinohara could have had his cake and eaten it too: Mission: Yozakura Family proves that you can shift the dynamic of a main duo from adolescents to parents partway through, but the key is remaining true to what made your story engaging in the first place. While Shinohara threw out such things as variety and romance, Hitsuji Gondaira maintained the sense of family and character development that made Yozakura so engaging by simply transferring those dynamics onto the twins in turn.
In any case, Witch Watch has a problem. While it’s not big enough to warrant dropping the series just now, it’s definitely noticeable. You may find yourself laughing at many of the latest chapters, but if you also can’t help but feel like something is missing… try looking for the culprit, however small it may be.
You can read Witch Watch for free via VIZ Media’s Shonen Jump.
