English Dub Review: Witch Watch “Kara and Shiki; Mega Marble Mania Madness; Scramble Scrap Squad”

Losing your marbles to commit to the bit

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kara accidentally makes a magic friend, Kanashi makes Keigo start a viral trend, and the gang ends up turning into Morihito’s bad kid drawings.

OUR TAKE

It’s another really good Witch Watch episode this week, with knee slapper gags across all three segments. The first is probably the most genuine and serious, involving supporting character Kara, who works as a shrine maiden, accidentally having one of Nico’s bursts of magic make a tiny Shikigami paper servant that becomes her familiar. It can’t talk, but it very quickly shows a personality and befriends her right away, giving us a fun little short film about her bonding with her new little floating paper pet. The only bit of tension is when it gets a bit jealous about a hair pin she has and accidentally tosses it in the river, only to find out that said pin was given by Kara’s mother, but they get it back and everything is reconciled. I get the sense that this is probably going to be important again when another kinda serious story arc happens, but for now it’s just a cute little side thing about a lesser focused on character. After that, we have a middle segment where Kanshi’s prank on Keigo goes a bit too far, as he convinces him that regular ass individual marbles are actually super rare and collectable, which turns into a jab at how meme culture and trends seem to flare up out of nowhere and then flame out all at once. Funny stuff, and could potentially feel dated in a few years, but actually is kinda clever at the moment.

Lastly, we have the third segment, where once again Nico’s magic gets everyone roped into some chaotic hijinks. In this case, they house finds Morihito’s old drawings he made when he wanted to be a manga writer, and when he mentions he wished he could be in this world he created, Nico tries to make that happen…by turning everyone into the style of art that he drew when he was like ten or something. Things started out wacky and weird, but while they go to try and get back the pages that flew away, they see a home invasion happen and thwart it with their cartoony powers they got, giving Morihito a chance to live out the fun teamwork he wished he could as a kid but couldn’t because he was bullied all the time. So far, being two thirds done with this season, I’m noticing the high points for this show are when they can balance the comedy with the wholesomeness, and this episode is a great example of that. Hopefully there’s more to come in the remaining nine episodes.