English Dub Review: The Witch And The Beast “The Witch and the City of Blazing Red”

Overview

Our main duo, Guideau and Ashaf, encounter a witch who regularly protects the city from monsters, allowing her to gain a huge following within the community. The two try to capture her, but only to end up chased away by the civilians. However, their hunch would be proven correct as it’s revealed that the witch has her own ulterior motives.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but I made comparisons to this and Metallic Rouge’s opener episode as things played out. The biggest thing being that the episode didn’t feel like a proper intro, it felt more in-media res; like it was more of an episode 4 or a 5 than an episode 1. Though the show didn’t feel as clinical or heavy-handed with the terms as MR. The setting and premise were quite easy to follow: An Urban Fantasy setting where the fantastical is commonplace, including witches of course– who are ostracized by humanity. 

Knowing that, you can easily assume how this episode plays out. The “good” witch known as lady Iona that has the entire town wrapped around her finger reveals her true colors halfway through the episode. It’s all for the sake of revenge, as she gleefully explains her motive, waking over the corpse of young girls amongst a burning city– it’s a very over the top scenario that’s unfortunately delivered in a very flaccid way, unfortunately. Which is a shame because Ione’s dub VA absolutely kills it with her performance. 

Most of the episode is focused on Iona’s young apprentice Marie, who continues to vehemently defend her master whenever our two main leads try to imply there’s more to her than meets the eye. I understand the point of it– to make the inevitable betrayal all the more crueler once the chaos starts ramping up in the back half. But I feel like that robbed us of valuable time with our main duo. We do get enough to get a reasonable handle on their dynamic: Ashaf the straight man and Guideau the wildcard, but I would’ve appreciated a little more screen time with the both of them. 

In the climax Guideau and Ashaf break in and try to stop Iona, not just for the town but also under the assumption that she was the one who cursed Guideau. As Guideau closes in, seemingly to try and land a hit… She goes in for a kiss instead. As one of the methods for undoing the curse of a witch is by stealing a kiss. This allows Guideau to turn into her true form: a hulking mass of sheer destruction. However, she can only keep this form only for a short time– which is more than enough to take down the witch of the week. 

It was a fun enough premier, and it did raise some questions about the world while watching: “What’s the difference between a mage and a witch?” “What’s up with the body Guideau is currently inhabiting?” And I do have some questions about the format as well, is it more “witch of the week,” or something more serialized? Time will tell of course.