English Dub Review: The Witch and the Beast “The Witch’s Pastime: Opening Act”

Overview

Guideau struggles to adjust to the month-long period of downtime since their last witch encounter. As Ashaf relishes in it, Guideau becomes increasingly more frustrated due to her desire of wanting to be free from her curse. That all changes once they hear about a witch committing gruesome acts of murder in a far-off city…

This episode was more of a 180 in tone than I was expecting– and honestly I welcomed it. I wanted more interactions with our main duo, and seeing them handle more mundane tasks, with “mundane” by their standards being fighting giant monsters, made for a fun watch. Personally, the appeal of these types of urban fantasy settings is seeing the fantastical made mundane. Makes me wish we could’ve spent a little more time on it, but we gotta keep the plot rolling. 

The back half of the episode is more inline with the tone from the pilot. Which is a bit of a shame since I was more interested in them going on their little magical errands. We learn about Kiera Haines, a private detective who wants revenge against the witch of the week for the murder of her husband and kids. She’s a gumshoe archetype played straight; broody and moody. This is a rare case where I don’t mind the straightforwardness of her character because it’s rare to see a broody type female character to begin with. Not that it makes her a better or more interesting character because of it– we only just met her after all– but it was somewhat refreshing. 

Of course Guideau and Ashaf meet up with Kiera and realize that they share the same target. After awkwardly making a deal with each other the episode ends. I was caught off guard considering I was expecting every ep to be a standalone adventure– but it seems this one was just set up. Not a lot to chew on, but it was still an enjoyable time.