English Dub Review: Witch Watch “Summer Monsters”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nico gets a new prophecy from her mother to “visit the ancient retainer that exorcises evil” and meet Miharu, a vampire who drains energy.

OUR TAKE

Hey, would you look at that, another week of Crunchyroll messing up the title and episode descriptions with one that comes three weeks later, making anyone watching these episodes blind likely be completely confused on if they’re watching the right episode or even the right show! The anime dubbing industry is in great hands, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, about Witch Watch itself, this week we welcome yet another new main character who, by the end of the episode, is now another resident at the Morihito household. And since we’ve already got a werewolf, we might as well get a vampire, Miharu. Though much like how Keigo is only TECHNICALLY a werewolf in that a moon shaped symbol can turn him into an alternate personality named “Wolf”, Miharu is really only a vampire in the sense that he drains things out of people who he has physical contact with, in this case being energy. It’s certainly a different take on a vampire than ones you might think of when you hear that word, though it’s not exactly the most imaginative reinvention of the concept. But hey, now we’ve got another magical creature person to mix in with the group dynamic, so how does that work out? Who is Miharu?

Well, it seems the main personality trait that Miharu displays pretty much immediately is that he has no filter. He just says how he views a situation with virtually no tact or self awareness, leading to someone to be the straight man to his blunt statements. In terms of how that kind of personality and recurring gag slides into this group, it works pretty well. Having someone whose whole schtick is just stirring the pot can be good for getting the ball rolling on the next comedic bit, so it’s a pretty easy way of keeping the jokes going at an even clip. Additionally, it also helps highlight how all of these personalities bounce off each other pretty well. A theory I’ve had about spotting well written group dynamics is that, if you take any random pair of characters out of the group, you should be able to instantly imagine what their specific dynamic would be like. If you get Morihito and Keigo, they’re both stoic but Morihito is the more responsible one. Take Kanshi and Nico, they’re two goofballs. Morihito and Nico, will they won’t they rom-com antics, and so on. We’ll see how Miharu meshes as we continue with the story, though I hope we’re done adding main cast members for awhile.