Hey all, Sam here.
It has been quite a while since I last had a manga review post. Honestly it’s been a bit since I’ve read a volume of manga. I probably need to catch up on some of my series at this point, which is at least something nice to look forward to. So maybe I’ll work on reading a few more volumes and try to bring back a semi-regular Manga Monday series of posts.
Anyway, for the past couple months I have been seeing more and more posts and comments about the anime “Witch Hat Atelier” and I’m always a sucker for magical stories, so when I saw that the first volume of the manga was available on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to try it out…because I’d rather read before I watch, although now that I’ve read the first volume, I will watch the first episode or two and then decide if I’m reading, watching, or both going forward.
That’s probably enough rambling. Let’s just go ahead and jump into the review. Sound good?
A TOUCH OF MAGIC
In a world where everyone takes wonders like magic spells and dragons for granted, Coco is a girl with a simple dream: She wants to be a witch. But everybody knows magicians are born, not made, and Coco was not born with a gift for magic. Resigned to her un-magical life, Coco is about to give up on her dream to become a witch…until the day she meets Qifrey, a mysterious, traveling magician. After secretly seeing Qifrey perform magic in a way she’s never seen before, Coco soon learns what everybody “knows” might not be the truth, and discovers that her magical dream may not be as far away as it may seem…
My Thoughts
Rating: 4 stars
Overall, I think this was a solid start to a series, and I do love a story of someone learning the ways of magic. So I was definitely intrigued by the premise of this one, but I’m going to have to be careful or else I’m going to run out of volumes quickly. After all, Volume 15 will be released in December, so I don’t have that many more to read.
Still, the art style of the story was very cute. I enjoyed Coco’s dreams of becoming a witch, and seeing the life and family that made her who she is. It was also nice to see that Coco’s curiosity and mischievousness led to her learning things that changed what she thought was possible, like that you don’t have to be born with a gift of magic; you just need to know how to write the spells. This also leads to the mistakes of someone who has discovered something without knowing the dangers of playing around with it. I’m not going to say what those mistakes are, because I think you should experience that yourself, if you choose to read or watch this series.
It is the mistaken playing around with writing/drawing spell that leads to Coco being taken by Qifrey to start the process of learning about magic properly, and working to fix the mistakes that she made in the beginning. Personally I want to know more about how magic functions in this world, because it sounds like an interesting setup, and I’m increasingly fascinated by the idea of worldbuilding and how all the pieces are placed to make the world work.
I think it’s going to be a pretty long journey with a whole lot to learn along the way, and that’s pretty darn exciting. I look forward to learning more about Coco, Qifrey, and Qifrey’s other apprentices. Maybe Coco will have some friends or some magic rivals; it’s going to be really fun to see how it all plays out. So far this seems like a semi-cozy story, but since it’s just getting started, who knows how intense, exciting, or dark it could get.
All right, that’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 