The Witch's Throne VOL. 1

Witch's Throne #1

by Cedric Caballes

The Witch's Throne, based on the hit Tapas webcomic, is a riotous action-packed graphic novel epic that blends fantasy, comedy, manga, and a love of RPG adventure stories.  

A warrior. A rogue. A saint. And an alchemist with skeleton arms?

Every ten years, throne seekers compete to become the four heroes destined to slay the Witch threatening their world. Optimistic young alchemist Agni eagerly sets off to fulfill her dream of being one of these sacred heroes. She expects to save the world...and maybe make some friends along the way. But she soon realizes that nothing is as straightforward as it is in her childhood stories, and becoming a hero may come at a terrible cost.

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Comics, Young Adult, Adventure, Fiction, Magic

320 pages, Paperback

Published October 25, 2022

Reviews

[Celepom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings that mostly stem from the conversion from a scrolling comic to a comic book. There's no traditional composition to the pages, it's just the panels laid out in order. Sometimes laying them out in order isn't done well and it's hard to tell what order the panels should be read in. The scrolling nature also means that the panels are all mostly similar sizes, which makes them lack emphasis and often they feel disconnected. The lack of full cohesion feels like it does a disservice to the story, artwork, and world-building which is compelling enough.

[Alex Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had gotten an arc of this from NetGalley forever ago and didn’t get to it before it was archived. I happened to see a physical copy at the library today and decided to grab it. I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting this to be but I didn’t have as much fun as I thought I was going to. I think there are too many storylines going on, there needs to be one or two less subplots.

The characters were really cool though! I wish we had learned why Agni has skeleton arms lol. I may or may not continue on with the story when the next volume comes out.

[sylwia · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think i liked it. The illustrations were to die for - so cute, gave off these mysterious vibes. It was a really solid book, but I didn’t particularly fall in love with anything. But i recommend!

[Nore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the art despite it being just a little bit inappropriately horny in some places. Absolutely adored the worldbuilding - a unique riff on an old take! a great combat system! hints at a depth behind the witches that I look forward to exploring! - and can't wait to see more. The story so far is fun, even if the pacing was meh and there was little tension.

However, I don't love the conversion from Tapas to ebook; that's not the author's fault, of course, but it really impacted my reading and made it difficult to enjoy the art (which, did I mention the art is great?). Libby get good at comics challenge, tbh.

The biggest issue is that the characters are pretty flat at the moment. I could see that changing, but that, combined with the story issues, are what keep it from being a five star comic; sure, the characters are cute, but I have very little reason to care much about them as of the end of volume 1.

Still gonna read more of it! For real, the way the world is set up is fun.

[arca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The art style is ✨✨✨✨ and the world it takes place in is so captivating. I look forward to Volume 2!!

[Anya Bandekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

DND and goofy little guys <3

[Diana-christie Biancardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love the art!

[Mehsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.


This review may be a bit chaotic. I am superduper tired after a night of barely sleeping, but I do want to read and review this book, so um, I will just write along as I read. XD

😍 The prologue! Oh, that was just kick-ass and it made me want to read so much more!
😍 The MC, what is up with her. What happened to her arms? Why is she so strong? Why does she want to go to the big city? Why is she not impressed by many things?
😍 Awesome world-building.
😍 Everyone’s names. Or well, most of the names. They just sounded epic and so much fun and also perfect for this world. Grom Foster! Ohh!
😍 Btw Grom reminds me of a Nier Automata character, especially later on.
😍 That Weapon Lord Skill? Hello? Unlimited Blade Works? YAS! Bring it!
😍 DAYUM to the fights. Those were wonderfully done and I love the motion and how the author/illustrator just manages to capture it all.
😍 The potions our MC has. LORD, this girl is amazing. She brews some very interesting potions and I would love to see them for real. I mean, something that heals and takes care of the killing instinct? A potion that grows vines and is kick-ass? Hello! Bring it. A potion named Grace of Amadues? Hello? Yes!
😍 The various weapons we see pop by. And the names they have! Bring me a Dainslef!
😍 Even moves have epic names. Well, OK, some are just telling what the attack does, but some actually have some cool names that just makes you want to do them. Sadly, no magic here.
😍 Training montage! Ah this reminds me of the shounen anime/manga I watched/read. Poor Agni, haha. Get those muscles build. It is indeed clear that Grom… well is Grom and doesn’t need that help, look at those muscles. Whoo.
😍 This part: “Mico Dharma, the genius arhat, has disintegrated entire valleys to ensure nothing could disturb her sleep.” Girl, I love my sleep as well, but HOLY HELL. Don’t come between her and a good sleep/nap.
😍 Backstories. YAS YAS. I love it when we get those and we learn more about characters. What makes them tick. How they got to this point.
😍 The characters. We have our good characters, but we also have some amazing yandere/welp she will fuck you over characters. I love it.
😍 Loved seeing Grom and Agni grow and see Reksha have fun with the training. They really got stronger and I loved that Agni found a way to also be able to fight. Not just rely on throwing potions or using magic, but also be able to use magic as a way to make her stronger. To make her fight.
😍 That test made by Reksha. Haha, they thought her training was hard, but oh boy she made one big test for them. I had a laugh that Grom thought his was going to be easy. Oh Grom, you silly little elf man. XD
😍 The Giant! I did NOT expect that one! That explains some things and then some more as he knows about the very first witch!
😍 Love the art, love it so much. It is fun and exciting and just lives! That sounds strange, but I have read some graphic novels or manga or comics that just felt very stilted. This one just POPS and everything feels very alive.

🤣 People can we please talk before initiating into battles? Please?

🙄 But really, can we stop compressing/blurring/whatever. This may sound ungrateful, but I just had such a hard time at times reading this book. The text was blurry and at times just hard to read. Even my husband had questions about it. Like, that he hopes that this isn’t the finished version and that for the real version (both e or normal) it is better quality.

All in all, I need volume 2 now, because they haven’t even gone to the Citadel yet, this one just sets the grounds for an epic saga. A saga I want to keep on reading. Because awesome characters. Fab art. Great magic and weapons. Great lore. And more! I would recommend this one.

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[Artemis Crescent · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his preface, the author Cedric Caballes says that 'The Witch's Throne' is a love letter to all the media he loved in his childhood. And oh, by many a cauldron's bubbly, exploding mixture, it definitely shows.

'The Witch's Throne' is a bright, vibrant, kaleidoscopic, energetic, thrilling, not-too fast paced, demented hodgepodge of all things alluding to shonen anime and manga. Reading it really made me feel like a kid in the 2000s again, watching those types of anime.

It is set in a fantasy world where wannabe heroes, called throne seekers, must compete in a fighting tournament (this is only one of the myriad of lifted shonen conventions), in the Citadel, and only four of them - the mage, the rogue, the warrior, the saint - are chosen to be worthy enough to reach the ultimate goal of going on a witch hunt, which means killing an evil witch - an apocalyptic threat who is up alone in her shadowy, towering mountain-sized throne. Darkness, destruction, and death are the future if heroes are not chosen. So it is said.

This process has been repeated once every ten years, for centuries, and the witch's awakening and ascendance always seems to be random and spontaneous, never happening of her own free will.

Thanks to a famous wizard, in order to "combat the witch", everyone in this world is born bound to the law of numbers, with a power level and status, based on their predetermined (?) jobs. Their level numbers increase or decrease depending on their fighting wins (and kills) and losses. Yeah, it's a nod to its obvious influences, and is as charmingly on the nose as that.

There are goblins, elves, ogres, orcs, giants, dragons, dragon people, owl people, and all sorts of fighters and magic users you'd find in an RPG and a shonen anime.

Heck, I can even see 'Undertale' influences!

'The Witch's Throne' contains a vast cast of colourful, distinct, and unforgettable characters. Best of all, half of them, if not more, are female! This includes the protagonist. There is a subversion of shonen conventions for the contemporary days. Furthermore, not everyone's gender can be immediately known by their appearance! No one is blatantly sexualised, not even the characters, male and female, who show off their chest. Absolutely no romance is in sight, either! Just friendship and companionship.

A list of my favourites are Reksha the female orc/dwarf warrior and fighting master, Flora the psychotic assassin elf, and Mico Dhama the arhat and mage. But surpassing all the others, to me, is the aforementioned protag, Agni Arvelle.

Agni is a spirited, optimistic, altruistic, slightly naïve young human alchemist who has one big blue eye, and skeleton arms... for some reason I'm sure will be explained in later chapters. (This is also where I drew the 'Undertale' comparison). Anyway, having recently lost her beloved mother tragically, Agni, who had lived sheltered and isolated in a forest for ten years, is so pumped to achieve her dream of becoming a hero, alongside her own ragtag band of friends (her first friends!) on her quest, like in the stories she loved to hear from her mother. Her good heart and drive to do the right thing by people is infectious. She's a funny fish out of water, and freaking adorable, and a badass when she needs to be.

It won't be easy for her, but with her potions casting and fighting skills, she is on her way to being very powerful; OP, in fact. Agni is truly like any shonen hero you can think of, only, refreshingly, female.

The art in 'The Witch's Throne' is brilliant, all anime-esque. However, due to the paperback volume being adapted from what was originally a webcomic, its panelling placements (with so much white space) can make it tricky to follow character interactions sometimes. But I just went with the flow, and could follow everything fine as I got more immersed and engaged in the book; in the characters and their progress and development.

In conclusion, for a fun time, for a fun homage, for action, comedy, heart, and a wacky OTT hero's journey comic, read 'The Witch's Throne'. As picky as I am with my reading material, I might pick up the second volume. For Agni more than anything else.

And I'm curious about what the deal is with the as-of-now vague threat of the nameless, characterless witch, who I doubt is actually evil, or she isn't as evil as we are told. She reads like a victim of a spell or evil "destiny" to me; not the true villain the heroes have to defeat. There is definitely more than meets the eye about this world's messed up system, more than what it seems on the surface...

Final Score: 4/5

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coming at you with all the exuberance of the most childish combat mangas, and with the aesthetic of fighting arcade games, this actually starts feeling as if it riffs quite nicely on the beat-'em-up story. It's a world where a lot of people have tried to train themselves, levelling up and gaining bonkers skills, because every now and again a huge contest puts together an ultimate team (never the ultimate one, mind) to best the local witch. Our heroine, Agni, is an ace at potions and life-restoring gunk, and of course of having just the right one on hand at just the right time. Oh and hands that are skeletal. Just because.

There's a kind of slapstick element to her fish-out-of-water story, as seen early on when she has no idea who to help first in a fight she stumbles across. That's part of the visual side of things, too, where no one sentence can have a font size the same as the one before or after, and where all the frames have to be different, and placed differently, leaving copious white page into which so, so much of the speech and thought bubbles can bleed. But if anything this is less slapstick and more Benny Hill chase, for this makes you turn the page at record speed, so sparse and simplistic the action and script.

But it's a pity that so much of it resorts to the lowest denominator – fighting for fighting's sake, training montages chapters long, etc. So much is the training and so much the bickering and fighting that you just know this is going to get nowhere near a conclusion. And in the finish it is too close to its sources. Certainly if you come to this wanting something more that fighty-fighty-smashy-crashy, that's all you're going to get. This isn't a pastiche, it's nothing meta – it just is what it pays homage and obeisance to, and just tries to get away with turning everything up to eleven. That makes it a must-buy for many, I know, but not for the likes of me.

[Tamara · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of D&D references, so fans of Dungeon Critters and The Adventure Zone Vol.1: Here There Be Gerblins would probably like this book.

Every 10 years, a witch is created. They could cause the destruction of the world. To stop her, the world has created a competition for the "throne seekers." Hundreds of wannabe heroes go to the CItadel and only four of them are chosen to go against the witch.

First is Agni, an alchemist with skeletal hands and arms who wants to become one of the throne seekers. We also meet characters such as Reksha, the orc warrior and her brother, who is worried about her becoming a throne seeker and wants to take her place, but he's too docile and weak.

The art is bright and colorful and the characters are all pretty unique and fun. I enjoyed the fights that occurred and how they gained XP and lost HP, which was explained that it was due to the first witch's curse. The worldbuilding was entertaining without being too much of an info dump at once. And I liked most of the characters--both good and "bad."

The ending definitely left questions--both unanswered ones and new ones! Like, how did Agni's arms get the way they are? How does the giant shapeshift and what's his class level? How are they going to make it to the throne challenge and what obstacles will they face along the way? I hope to pick up volume two to see it all unfold.

[Kyle Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Witch's Throne is best described as love letter to video game rpgs and battle action shonen manga/anime. It's the story of a young woman gathers allies to defend her world against an ancient evil. It has a cast of unique characters and an interesting world concepts filled with mystery.

It's also a webtoon published on Tapas Originals and currently on hiatus. I've been yufollowing since it first dropped and got the printed version to see how it translates. The paneling is a bit wonky time to time. But that's expected since it was composed for scrolling and not flipping.

I would recommend this to anyone who has read or still reads shonen action/adventure stories. It's tropey in the very good sense.

[Raven Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set up as if you are playing a D&D like online game. There are multiple stories going along simultaneously and it is not always clear when you move onto them. Several characters and several story-lines can make things a bit muddled, but take it slow and enjoy. There is fantasy adventure and action, some violence, and situations that are not for sensitive readers. While so far nothing has happened that an aged 10 plus reader couldn't handle, there is potential for more mature situations and some of the characters (particularly female) are a bit sexualized. Overall, this is a fun read and looking forward to reading more.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, a fantastic graphic about a group of "heroes" set on destroying an evil witch. I really liked seeing where our main protagonist came from and I can't wait to learn more about our other heroes as well! I really like this art that blends cute with fierce and round with sharp. Even though we only see our fourth hero very briefly, I look forward to learning more about them.

Very much looking forward to book 2!

[Darcy Roar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Witch's Throne tosses the reader head first into a dramatic fantasy world where a supreme evil must be destroyed every 100 years. I quite like the premise and found all the characters to be interesting and so beautifully rendered! The story leans heavily into that Shonen anime style fight cycle which is not my personal favorite, but Caballes handles it well. I'm absolutely interested in reading the second book when it comes in, but I wont be hunting it down before then.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hm. The world building is pretty interesting, at least, and I liked the art. There's an almost slapstick energy to the characters, which makes the inherent darkness of this world even more stark. But I found the extensive, overly long fight scenes more boring than exciting. Just not my taste. I also would have appreciated seeing an explanation for main character Agni's skeleton arms somewhere in the first volume, because it's kind of distracting to just not know for this long.

[Matthew Dauda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked the character growth though this entire read can't wait to see more

My favorite character throughout the storyline has to be Grom. I really liked his character design and ability. Usually when I hear of an elf in an adventure book or movie it's usually bow and arrows which I got tired of seeing glad to see that Grom is a different character and fight in a unique way. Over all book one was good I hope it's the same for book two

[Matt Glaviano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that revels in its manga and RPG influences and succeeds because of it. I loved the art, enjoyed the story, and will gladly read more to see where these characters go next. Some of the panels were too dark to be completely effective; maybe the color choices work better in the web comic format?

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Visually appealing character designs. Story is a bit thin and focused on fighting scenes and the panel layouts feel a bit small, especially in digest format, which might be a process of adapting the comic to print. Perfect for a YA level reader who likes Critical Role, especially with running stats throughout the book.

[Amanda Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the story for this one. The characters were all different in their own and lovely. The art for this was absolutely gorgeous. I would definitely love to keep reading more of this story. I definitely feel like there is a lot more to their story.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Really good graphic novel for video game and manga and TTRPG fans! Lovable cast and a good blend of humor and seriousness. Leans a little hard on tropes so the pace is a little funky. Very disappointing I can’t read the next volume right away!

[ikallam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude - this art alone blows me away. but honestly the story line is a little flimsy but I adore this book. Also i feel like its not just adding random charecters to fill space , and every charecter ends up having a useful role in the story



"Augh, GOD WHY..? Why do people keep starting fights in front of my house?" - Grom

[Elisabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Knowing this is adapted from a web comic, I realize that formatting can be an issue. However, I still struggled with following the panels on each page pretty often, which made reading this a little difficult. I assume it would be a better experience read on a computer or tablet.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is perfect for the D&D-obsessed teens in your life. Art is colourful and the character designs are solid. I do wish they used more of the page, but I understand the challenges of adapting webcomics to print. Story is tried and true Shonen and will appeal to manga fans.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review written and to be published by School Library Journal.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bright, vivid illustrations highlight a fun story.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has an energetic charm. But I’m a PC gamer and not a console gamer so I think I’m not quite the target audience.

[Kelly Teen Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super cute and very DNDesque. Loved it.

[Jessica (ThatDamFangirl) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love all the characters an I hope that we learn more about their past in the next book.