English Dub Review: The Dawn of the Witch: “The Remedial Student and the Witch of the Staff”

Overview: Sable (Travis Mullenix) enters a new phase of his magical learning and goes on a journey to the southern parts of the continent with that of the mage, the Witch of the Dawn, Cristasse Roux (Monica Rial), and skilled mage-in-training, Holt (Kimmie Britt). 

Our Take: The Dawn of The Witch, like any new fantasy series, has the herculean task of setting up the world and characters to its audience all while making it interesting in the process. The sequel to Grimoire of Zero is a fresh beginning for me, as someone with no prior experience with the franchise and from the looks of it, the debut outing seems to focus more on the aforementioned former than the latter. 

The amnesiac and not-so-talented Sable is a good clean slate of a character to begin a journey into this magical world, making for a good mold for discovering new magical skills as well as his past. There is a lot of exposition-y dialogue between him and the headmaster of the school he attends that definitely feels like a new series’ growing pains. The senior mage and student he gets paired up with, to venture out to a witch village in hopes of better progressing his skills, is where things liven up just a tiny bit. 

The real world politics of the world as a whole between the church and witches has prospective story elements with the teetering relations between the two factions teased to be complex and developed. Sable, although simple in his kind protagonist nature, won me over enough with his unprejudiced view of different races, such as his blunt beastman friend, Kudd. His other newfound companion, Holt, makes for a sweet start to their friendship. As for his teacher, Cristasse Roux, she walks a fine line between irritating and adorable with how boisterous yet energetic she can be. The chemistry between the three is stale at first with the lighthearted moments lacking anything of substance that’s genuine. However, there’s more gravitas when they discuss the dangers associated with being involved in the world of magic. Also, there is more heart when we see how Sable and Holt connect in how much he respects and takes a liking to her magical capability and kindness and vice versa, of course minus the magic part in Sable’s case. 

Although Sable is not without his potential. Sable’s uncontrollable magic sounds very much like the millions of crazy haired protagonists with latent potential we have seen in the past and doesn’t do much to excite. However, hopefully, Sable’s mysterious abilities along with his past can be unique enough to diversify and set him apart from those that have come before him. The hunter on Kodd’s trail looks to be of the over-the-top variety, not doing much to develop the church’s forces effectively. With Sable and the gang coming to Kodd’s rescue, this is where things will start to dictate what kind of show we are going to get in how it handles the action, and internal relations associated with the church and the witches.