Witch Watch

Episode 7

The first of these shorts sees Nico and Kanshi trying to start a YouTube channel to rake in some big bucks. As anyone who's at least attempted to navigate the unforgiving landscape that is YouTube content creation can tell you, it takes a lot of work to be successful there, and since these two only have one brain cell between the two of them, all they've been able to make so far is badly edited slop. Since Morihito knows a thing or two about YouTube, he can't abide by seeing these two dorks fail so badly at it, and offers to set them up with an “expert” who can teach them how to make better content. This reintroduces us to Keigo, a gloomy-looking guy whom Morihito briefly befriended in the middle of all the romantic escapades we got last week. While he came and went too quickly there to get a good read on what he's actually like, this episode paints a fuller picture of what kind of person he is, and as Morhito so aptly puts it, he's a loser hipster. Essentially he's the kind of guy who's a loner, not strictly because he's bad with other people, but because he's the type who likes to go on about all the cool movies and games he's into, but won't bother to explain any of them to you because he doesn't think you'll “get it” like he does, and wants to maintain the self-delusion of being cool and special for his taste in media. Everyone who's grown up in the age of the internet has known a Keigo or two in their lives, and if you don't think you know a Keigo, you are the Keigo.

As you might expect from that description, this fraudster here isn't much better at finding a YouTube audience than Nico and Kanshi, but he does know how to edit videos and make content, which is all Morihito needs to work with. Since the only reasonably popular video Keigo has made involves showing off a video game he made, Morihito decides to have Nico do a let's play of it with some off-screen commentary from Kanshi so he can take advantage of all their talents. The game itself looks and plays like garbage, but it is the exact kind of trash that would go viral with a Let's Play, and I appreciate the attention to detail on the behalf of the anime staff for giving it the exact look necessary to make that punchline feel as accurate to life as possible. Despite being met with overwhelming success, this entire venture ultimately turns out to have been a waste of time, as while Nico and Kanshi do become genuinely popular, they get bored of the whole YouTube scene after a few videos and wash their hands of it entirely (which does feel like an all too accurate depiction of the average teen trying to do YouTube). It's hard not to feel for Morihito here since he predicted this would happen from the start, but on the bright side, his work here proves that if being a familiar doesn't work out, he could probably have a pretty successful career working as a producer.

The second half of the episode has Nico trying to help out a girl named Suzuha, whom she's always ired for being regal and proper. In reality, she's a total klutz, which has put her in the crosshairs of her grandmother, who has tried to raise her as a proper lady, and will only start cracking the whip harder if Suzuha can't impress her during a tea ceremony. Luckily, Nico has a spell that will allow her to copy whatever Morhito's doing, so he can handle any precise movements the ceremony requires. Since our boy is good at everything, this plan seems foolproof until it isn't. Although Morihito masters all the knowledge he needs for the ceremony and even has Keigo use some tech so they can see what Suzuha is doing, they fail to for all the physical differences between them. This leads to gags like Morihito trying to crouch down for a bow while Suzuha starts hopping around like a frog, or him eating a cookie to imitate the piece of candy she's holding only for her to start choking to death on the candy because it's harder to chew, and all these shenanigans leave Suzuha's grandmother less than impressed. However, when Morihito's quick reflexes help Suzuha save her grandma from a bee, this gesture is enough to impress her and spare Suzuha from any extra etiquette lessons.

Between these two shorts, I'd say the YouTube one was funnier, but neither of these quite hit for me, and this episode felt a little weaker than the last couple we've gotten. As I've said before, even a less funny episode of this show is still pretty charming. Even if I didn't laugh as hard this time around, there was enough creativity here in both the jokes and how they were adapted that I can't accuse this show of getting stale. Speaking of adaptation, if you haven't been able to tell from his level of prominence in the opening, Keigo's relevance extends well past this episode, and he's set to be an important cast member later on. As such, it's very interesting to see part of this episode use a story from later in the manga after a story arc where he's given more focus. I assume the anime is saving that particular arc for the tail end of the show's first cour. While I was hoping to see it get to that material sooner rather than later, it does represent a pretty big shift in the show's overall trajectory, so I can get why the staff would choose to hold off on that for a mid-season closer. In the meantime, I can at least be happy with how well the show's been adapting the rest of what we've seen so far, and even if this wasn't its best outing, there's enough variety in its humor that I'm sure it won't take long to swing back around to something hilarious.

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Witch Watch is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.