Gravity makes wonders / But on us it doesn't seem to weigh / Float like clouds on water / We're waves across an open plain (Cave Me In – Gallant, TABLO & Eric Nam).
Hey there, I know you’re thinking, “man, this guy literally gives everything a four star rating!” and to that I say… yeah, I do. I’d like to say it’s because I have so much love in my heart, but that’s not it, I think I’ve just gotten pretty good at choosing things I know I’ll like. It took a while, but now I know myself, and one thing’s for sure, you’ll never catch me purposefully hate reading something! It’s funny because a lot of the times whenever I recognize something as being hyped to the moon before I get to it, my brain goes into devil’s advocate overdrive and starts to find reasons to call it over hyped. It’s like how everyone calls the opening dance number to James Gunn’s show Peacemaker one of the best title screens of all time, but when I finally started watching season 2… it’s literally just a bunch of people barely staying on beat, dancing around like the lost members of the D.K. crew? I just don’t get it, but don’t worry, I also hate this contrarian side of me! One thing I do to counteract the hating side of my brain is that I choose something to dive into and then tell myself over and over again like a mantra that I will enjoy it. I know talking about a “positive mental attitude” often seems like an empty platitude, but you’d be surprised at how many new favorite things I’ve found by just telling myself that I’ll probably like a book or a song or a movie if I just give it a chance. I remember thinking I only liked a select few of the songs on Found Heaven by Conan Gray because he was doing a weird voice on most of the songs, but I very recently gave the album another listen, and it’s actually been on repeat for several days now. Yeah well, that’s what happened with this manga, Witch Hat Atelier, because even though there are a lot of common manga tropes that I usually find annoying like the Sasuke rival character, a overly forgiving and kind hearted main character, and several characters who act on misunderstandings rather than just taking a second to listen, I somehow found myself just getting lost in the fantasy world rather than letting an endless amount of nitpicks sour my mood. Besides, the more I read through this manga the more I realize that it’s basically catered to my specific interests with fantasy; the fashion aesthetic is really unique while also evoking the drip from Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, they’ve got a villain who looks like Zant from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a symmetrical style to the story-telling not dissimilar to Glenn Powell’s face, systemic issues involving corrupt officials who go around and Men in Black memory erase people whenever they show the tiniest amount of suspicion, a magic system that has limits, and finally, a beautiful storybook art style so full of imagination that I can imagine a soundtrack to go along with it. And let me tell you, I heard the beautiful music whenever I turned the page!
As for this specific volume though, we continue the misadventures of Coco as she’s still deep in learning to become a witch powerful enough to unfreeze her mom from that pesky block of ice back home, which kind of begs the question, is there a time limit here, or is her mom trapped in time as well like when you enter the underwater Hyrule Castle at the end of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and all the monsters are frozen in place until Link takes the Master Sword? Sorry, I’m probably being that annoying guy who asks pertinent questions about the movie during the movie, only for said questions to be answered if I just keep watching. You’d best believe I was really annoying at the Pulp Fiction watch party! Ugh, this is why I try not to review volumes when I'm right in the middle of the series, because I always end up making grand statements that are either answered differently or debunked all together throughout the story. Like, right now I think the teacher, that twink on the cover, is sus, but he'll probably be revealed to have been a good guy all along. Well, I guess I’ll just keep reading to find out, and I’ll let you know about my findings when I rate the next volume four stars! Anyway, back to the story! Even though magic is secretly easily accessible to the masses as long as they clear the hurtle of learning how to draw good, it turns out that…. learning how to draw good is hard! As hard as learning how to do anything, really. Which I feel is a nice allegory, because even though I spoke too soon while reviewing the first volume when I talked about how there are no contrived “Chosen One” archetypes to be found in this manga, seeing as Coco is revealed by the villains to have been such a hero, it’s still cool in my book because her status isn’t well-known and doesn’t give her any inherent advantages within the narrative. She still has to work hard as anyone else to be a competent artist! Oops, I mean witch. Fun fact, I often talk about how the only social media that I used other than Goodreads is Tumblr (because I just think that’s a very funny sentence to say to people), but the original reason I even made a Tumblr is because I wanted to look at beautiful art! Fan art or whatever, and my real favorite kind to look at was super detailed art of fantasy worlds, you know, castles and dragons and whatnot. But the lines have blurred since then, and now when I say I like art, I have to specify that I mean real art done by real people, with pen and paper! That’s why I find Witch Hat Atelier’s message that “practice makes perfect” especially profound considering the fact that I’ve had to become an art sleuth just to discern whether or not art posted online is actual art... or just another disgusting A.I. generated slop-fest. Reading a story that basically says that even if a person’s art isn’t the best of all time, just the very fact that it’s done with their own hands makes it as wonderful as anybody else's art is a really powerful sentiment to leave off on. I guess what I’m basically saying that Witch Hat Atelier is a beautifully artistic story and the kind that I'm always looking for; whimsical, fantastical, and most importantly… real!
These flies on my window are winners in a losing game / Dip, duck, roll, and hover / They barely see a season change.