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Maho to Yajuu
Quick summary:
A man carrying a coffin and a girl with the eyes of a beast appear in a town. The girl was once cursed by a witch and now searches for her in order to undo the curse. Is the witch who appears before them the quarry they've been searching for? And how can the curse be undone?
[From AniList]
Genres: Action - Adventure - Drama - Fantasy
Studio: Yokohama Animation Lab
Season: Winter 2024
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👌 In simple art there is success hidden
I like how simple this anime looks. The characters aren't overdrawn like in Jojo, but they don't look bad. Their design is rather smoot and I would argue that all of them are hot. Even the witches were drawn rather beautifully, given that they were evil in this story.
The gore parts were made good too. The blood looked a bit too thick, sure, but seeing dead bodies, seeing crime scenes and even horror aspect of this show were done the way that sent shivers down your spine. Which means, it was done right.
That includes background too - houses, clouds, surroundings. They were interesting and true to the period this is supposed to be set in. Very good in this art aspect.
Nothing was too overdone - the animation, too, was simple yet effective. Fighting, Guideau's real form, the magic runes/spells.. they looked so good it really made the visual side of the story rather pleasant. As an experience, Maho to Yajuu was a great mix of suspense & calmness.
👌 Interesting approach to witches being bad
From the way they looked, to the limited number and through special "fraction" they belonged. Witches in this story were not the same as magic users, and that was clear. Witches were bad women that had their evil plans and regular looks with which they blended in with humans to execute their evil plans. (Okay, sexist much?? /jk)
I loved this way of thinking. In 21st century with all this content we get everyday, it's hard to be original. It's the spin you put on things that were made a thousand times that you stick out. And this story here managed to do it.
You don't know who the witches are or what they want, you don't know anything about them besides them being evil. Yet it's not that important because you know the main points of their existence.
Each of them is different, and I appreciated that.
But the important thing is - we need to find the witch that cursed Guideau. Curse, huh, again something every story has. But this anime focused on how to break the curse. The third way - kissing a witch mixed the cars. Who would think something like this might be important? A kiss. Because why would you want to kiss a witch, much more the one that cursed you? Kiss, of all things! The most intimate thing, that requires both parties to get 🤏 this close without fighting.
Brilliant!
👌 Suspense in every episode
And it's not only witches. Magic users, the executioners, Order of Magical Resonance, regular police. So many things mix together, as if they were all from different shows. Still, they work together just fine in this show and make up for interesting power dynamic that might be hard to orientate in, but keeps you entertained.
Every witch brought something to the story, and every witch meant fight. Executioners appeared halfway in the story and they brought a whole another dimension, but of course they had to have a beef with everyone.
The police detective Kiera had the most interesting story in my opinion. Her arc was the one, during which I held my breath the most.
And then Helga's arc... Helga is my favorite witch. She is a silly teenager with sad backstory and unhappy fate, but she is... oh how I love her.
👇 Why do they look the same? and ...did I miss something?
Guideau and Ashaf, Phanora and Johan. They looked too similar to me. Sure, the boys have different hairstyles and the girls are "nothing alike". But I just didn't understand why they had to look so alike. Another point is - why is Phanora and Johan on the official poster, when hey are merely supporting characters? (Yes, I know, I am nitpicking again.)
Anyway.
Of course some episodes were confusing. It was hard to follow who are those people, what they want, where in the story we are. For that I took the most points off. I hate when things that are important are not clear or aren't explained properly in time. But I don't think I hated the mix of everything that was happening.
The decision to divide/keep arc divided and put emphasis on them every episode was a good one. That way, the story didn't necessarily need to flow in one peace, and you knew you are focused on a whole different thing than the week before.
There were some misses, of course. And the confusion or rather the mixture of different characters of different statuses made the story more complicated that it needed to be, but I guess the quality really shows if you don't mind it that much...
Conclusion: recommended 👍
All in all, a good show with good soundtrack and interesting plot.
