Necessary Darkness

A friend recently asked me what anime I’ve been watching this season. It’s a long list, as always—right now hovering around seven or so series. I’m still planning on writing up the season after it concludes, but I wanted to write a bit about one of the biggest, most interesting shows this season: Tongari Boushi no Atelier.

Tongari Boushi no Atelier (called “Witch Hat Atelier” in English translation) is a fantasy series about a young girl learning magic alongside fellow witches, as she hopes to save her mother, whom she accidentally cast a spell on right at the dawn of her powers. By now, this is not a very unique concept, but that’s not to say Tongari Boushi no Atelier offers nothing new. The world of Tongari Boushi is big and beautiful, the magic system is unique, and everything is just beautifully done. It’s been one of the most-hyped anime on the horizon for years now, with the entire production scrapped at one point so the animators could deliver a series they felt the manga deserved. Feels easy to say it’s the marquee debut this season, and one I was eagerly awaiting for.

So far, it’s been a delightful little romp, as protagonist Coco goes through the familiar beats of improving her magical ability, becoming closer with her peers, and taking steps towards saving her mother. Yet I can’t help but feel like so far, Tongari Boushi has been slightly less than the sum of its parts.

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It’s a bit weak, I’ll grant, but “sum-of-its-parts-ness,” or emergence , is one of the highest values I can bestow on a work of art. There’s some kind of quality to these works, something that seems to elevate them, allow them to continue on beyond the constraints of their medium and form, and reverberate into my thoughts, the way I look at the world, my life. Yet what this quality is I can’t describe. I know it when I see it, and certainly, it’s something that’s unique to an individual—what does it for me, might not do it for you (and vice-versa). And it’s not one-size-fits-all, either; what gives this quality in one work might not help another (though nailing down what that is remains elusive).

While it’s tough to say what that is in a given work, often I think it feels like depth , or nuance. Somehow, you can feel something lingering beneath the surface. It’s this quality that makes Kawakami Mieko’s Heaven such a beautiful book, and same as when Ben Lerner’s at his best like in 10:04 or Transcription. For anime, I felt this acutely in Sonny Boy , or even in fellow fantasy Dungeon Meshi. But for whatever reason, Tongari Boushi seems to be missing it.

It’s sort of weird in Tongari Boushi ’s case, because there are a lot of things beneath the surface. There are different organizations, like the antagonist “brimmed hats” who seek to spread forbidden magic, and the Knights Moralis who aim to reign magic in. But both of them seem to exist mostly as foils to Coco and her friends, rather than complete groups with their own motives. The series has shown us glimpses of a vast continent, from the cozy atelier she studies at to the sprawling city of magic, Kalhn, but neither of these places feel alive to me—at least, not yet.

If I had to put my finger on it so far, I would say the biggest thing Tongari Boushi is missing for me is darkness. There’s really nothing that sinister here, despite warnings of forbidden magic. In the first episode, we’re told that witches (everyone is a “witch” in Tongari Boushi , despite the use of the Japanese 魔法使い, literally “magic-user”) never show their magic in front of civilians. That’s cool! That’s evocative! Immediately I was wondering why; is there some dark secret, some hidden, grave cost for magic? The reveal is hardly a “spoiler,” but still I won’t mention it here; suffice to say, I might’ve assumed the worst.

Humans kill a god to destroy its forest in Mononoke Hime!

Tongari Boushi seems to model itself on Studio Ghibli films quite a bit, but no one would doubt there’s darkness in Ghibli. Death, grief, gluttony, and many other sides of the darkest parts of humanity make frequent appearances in Ghibli films. Not only does this darkness impart a sense of maturity on the narratives, it helps convey some of the stakes.

It’s not quite fair to judge a work by something it’s not (though I do feel like Tongari Boushi has suggested darker elements that it’s failed to materialize); maybe I’m just looking for it in the wrong place. It might just want to be a fairytale, and if so, it’s doing a fine job of it. Or perhaps it’s easing us in, with the stakes to ratchet up now that the world has been established.

So far, Tongari Boushi no Atelier hasn’t cemented itself as a future classic, must-watch series for me, but it’s still a lot of fun. And in thinking about some of the ways the narrative doesn’t quite succeed for me, I find myself moving towards the narratives I want to write.

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