Burn the Witch

Burn the Witch is a joke. A sad, overhyped joke.

I personally have not seen Bleach, so I would not understand the connections between this miniseries and Bleach, but I feel like I don't have to to be critical of this pure waste of time. While Burn the Witch is incredibly well-animated, it's so devoid of substance that I couldn't feel any emotion towards this whatsoever. All I could think was that I was glad it only lasts an hour so I wouldn't waste any more of my time on it.

There are so many pieces introduced that don't end up playing any role in the show's ... outcome, and the pieces that do play a role are really stupid. For example, Balgo is one of the worst characters I have ever seen in an anime. His only purpose in the story is to be protected for reasons that are far beyond me, there is no indication as to what his relationships to Noel or Ninny are, and he somehow ends up as a Mary Sue in the very end. What hurts the most is that far more interesting characters get no development whatsoever. Ninny is a protagonist that simply exists, without getting nearly enough of the backstory or development she could have used to become a good protagonist. And yet somehow, Noel gets even LESS development. The show just leaves you with so many more questions than answers because it's so dedicated to the idea of doing nothing with its characters.

Burn the Witch also has perhaps one of the worst climaxes I've seen in an anime. In retrospect I'm glad I felt nothing towards it because if I had somehow become invested in these characters I'm sure the final battle would have been even MORE insulting. There's no story, no satisfying combat, no genuine attempts at comedy (seriously it's almost exclusively the "panzu" jokes"), no good characters, and overall just nothing positive going for it aside from the animation. I wanted to enjoy Burn the Witch, everyone told me I would, but that's just not the way it goes sometimes.

I am going to start with the positives first. The animation is amazing, to the point that I feel bad the it going to be associated with this show's everything else. Also, it had some interesting worldbuilding ideas but it didn't explore that nearly enough.


Ok that's the positives, now the negatives. The story feels both rushed and stalled at all times, I'm not even sure how that's possible. Things will just happen as if it was an already established, meaning there is little no explanation why things happen, but then there will be a 10 minutes of talking about nothing with characters we never met.

This ... entire show feels as if you started a long-running Shonen on episode 50, which just so happened to be halfway into the arc where they introduce the over-arcing villain of the story. It just tries to gaslight the viewer into believing that the characters and the world have already been set up and that there was an actual story being told.

I had to check many times to see if this was a sequel or prequel or a part of a franchise or that there was some thing that tied everything together, but no there wasn't. I am just hoping that this adaption was adapting something further into the manga's story, I have to believe that this made sense in the context of the manga.

Burn the Witch is the definition of a cashgrab that relies purely on the fame of a previous work of its autor in order to sell and it otherwise offers nothing of value. It’s supposed to be some sort of spin off that takes place in the same setting as Bleach but it has absolutely nothing in common with it.

I didn’t make a review of Bleach because there is no point in doing that, since everyone and their mothers already talked about it both positively and negatively, but I will make comparisons between the two.

First thing to notice is how it takes place in ... a different country, nothing wrong in that, and it goes for a urban/contemporary fantasy and magic realism type of story, meaning the normal people is more or less aware of everything that happens (in one side), unlike in Bleach where neither the Hollows nor the Shinigami could be seen by people with weak spiritual energy…at first, something that changed completely later on.

This would be pretty interesting if said normal people would get a role in the story but as of yet they don’t do nothing of importance, heck, they are not even allowed to interact with the monsters, which here are presented in different form than they had in Bleach, as dragons. Another thing where is weaker than Bleach is having a much lighthearted tone.

Although Bleach has lots of silly comedic moments from beginning to end, the first episodes have a creepy atmosphere with a haunting soundtrack at times, something which was completely lost here.

For something positive, the Soul Society here works completely different, it no longer follows a military logic with clear borders that separates the japanese elite from the poor and miserable foreigners (cough) but instead works as some kind of company where the Soul Reapers are some kind of employees that hunts the hollows in pairs for credits.

Believe or not, this is a good thing, in Bleach, the Reapers sent on a mission could be a single soldier or both the captain and lieutenant of a squad which was kind of sily if you think about it. Why would you send a single person on a mission, or why would you do that with the two biggest authorities of a squad, leaving it behind without leadership and boy was the Gotei 13 lucky that they never received an attack at the same time. Also, I never understood why the captains have only one lieutenant and only one squad under their supervision. And the ranks were complete bullshit, with stronger people serving under weaker people at times. None of that nonsense is present here, as everyone has the chance to get a higher rank just by working a lot.

Also, the Gotei 13 is presented much sooner and they already began moving in order to capture some sort of legendary weapons/creatures which are seemingly going to be important later on. What I didn’t like is how the place feels like a school, is there really a need to have a school in everything, especially if it involves magic?

Anyways, the premise is more or less the same as in Bleach only less interesting because of the lack of a creepy atmosphere as I already said but also because the characters here are complete shit. The black haired girl is the only one who is completely serious about what she does and does not take bullshit from anyone, but she’s also so serious she’s just boring to watch. The blonde one is just Hiyori from the Vizards in steroids and man is she annoying.

And still not as much as the guy, he’s so stupid, he ruins any attempt at seriousness. And there’s also a yandere type of antagonist who has a crush on the blonde girl and just like with the guy, I was expecting for the moment both of them die on screen, which obviously didn’t happen because they are going to be main characters later on.

Another problem in the show is how the spells are totally boring, they are just light beams of different colors and that’s it, nothing like in Bleach where they had all sorts of shapes and functions and I need to point out how the characters keep pulling powers out of nowhere, in fact that is how the anime ends, leaving any sort of closure completely open for it is just a prologue which exists only to promote the manga.

That is another issue it has, it’s too short and silly to make anything feel important, and on top of that, since it clearly wanted to promote the manga, it skipped the pilot chapter which shows how the main characters get together and are connected, none of that is present here, which could have worked as a bit of their backgrounds.

It also feels uninspired, with the dragons flying around it just feels like you are watching something made by Hiro Mashima, and the two sides from the same city, which seem to work as some sort of parallel dimensions connected to each other (I’m only guessing, it’s never explained), is basically taken from Harry Potter, with the only difference being that the “muggles” know what happens here and can move from one side to another under certain circumstances.

I like how the legendary weapons/creatures are based on classic fairy tales, I’ll give it that, but even then it’s nothing I hadn’t seen done already in Read or Die, in a much more creative and fun way.

Ultimately, what everyone who watched this really cared for was the action and the visuals, and I have to admit that they are not bad, but when they are praised beyond the point they deserve, I have to point out how neither of these elements are that great either.

By comparison, in the same season, Majo no Tabitabi and Akudama Drive came out and Burn the Witch just pails before them. And in the same year we got the likes of Tower of God, Deca-Dence and Fog Hill of Five Elements, all of which are also far better and more spectacular than this show in these aspects.

Another thing that was praised about it are the character designs and I don’t understand why, Kubo knows how to draw his stuff but he also tends to repeat the faces of his characters a lot, in Burn the Witch, the black haired girl is basically a mix between Orihime and Bambietta from Bleach and as I said the blonde is an aged up Hiyori. The same thing can be said about every other character, they resemble the characters from Bleach a lot and the artwork lacking in details does not help them either. There is a character with a somewhat original design, but he has the same problem as Mirio from My Hero Academia, he resembles a famous character (Luigi) a lot and the chances of liking his design are gonna be divisive because of that.

The special effects are not bad but for a show where they throw magic left and right, they could and arguably should be better, the best things in the visuals are the backgrounds, the city looks really good. The motions are fine but nothing really surprising, again I feel like they could have been better and at times they felt kinda sloppy. They feel consistently fluent and fast paced but it’s mostly because of the camera work, which follows every movement the girls make with and without their brooms. And as I said, Majo no Tabitabi did it better.

I have nothing to say about the sound, the sound effects lack impact, the voice acting is one of the same you can hear everywhere, the music is alright but nothing really memorable.

And that’s it, there isn’t really much else to comment about it, it’s short, it’s just a prologue, it’s mostly silly and nonsensical, poorly written, it has trashy characters, it feels disjoined from the series it’s supposed to be related to, it feels derivative in some elements, everything it does has been done before (for better or worse) and it’s not amazingly animated, it also had the bad luck of airing in 2020, the anti hype year, and thus it didn’t caused as much impact as expected, but I guess it served to remind the audience that Bleach will get a sequel soon, let’s see if this one still retains its audience and manages to sell once that adaptation of a somewhat hated arc is over.

For the viewer: don't watch this now. Wait for more. I watched three episodes and was surprised to find that I had seen... a movie, apparently.

Right now, while Burn the Witch is quite aesthetically appealing, it is a merchandising story so caught up in placing all the bells and whistles that it fails to be believable or likable.

It contains the usual forms: girls with 'personality', throwaway cute characters, stereotype sandwiches, a quelle-meaningful MC catchphrase, thighs, and more thighs. The setting does raises interesting questions - what are dragons?, what is this new society? how does this magic work? - but it's neither well explained ... nor believable. In three episodes, half the city of London perishes under flames and explosions. That raises some follow-up questions: how is this city still standing? Why do people live here?

The characters are also enjoyably frustrating. There is Ninny, our lovely MC, whose response to 'you destroyed half the city and killed thousands!' is 'where's my money!?', Balgo, the village idiot, stereotype gangster 1, stereotype cop 32, quirky anime council members 49-117, et cetera. The only persona who doesn't come with perennial facepalms is Noel; probably because her motives and personality are nil.

Burn the Witch failed to be likable. I can't respect it; neither as a viewer expecting excitement nor as an author expecting craft. That said, the future may bring backstory and believability.

The ratings speak for itself. It has been a few minutes I finished the "movie" and I am still to figure out what happened, or why it happened, or why should people care?

Unless there is a follow-up anime planned, or they want you to follow the manga (which at the time of writing this is exactly at the same place), this whole clearly no-a-movie does not make any sense.

There is no time to connect to any of the characters, the plot is...difficult to find.

And without any kind of follow up, the ending is just anti-climatic. Nothing actually encouraging you to start following the mange or ... wait for any anime.

By the end of the third episode, you are left wanting your hour or something back.

Skip this unless they announce something that would need you to watch it for context sake.

Okay so the short 3 episode animation of Burn the Witch had so much potential from a perspective of someone who's never read the manga. However it's falling so flat that it hurts. The animation and character design? Amazing. But I can't get past the fact that the story is as dry as a saltine cracker, it's not long enough for me to feel connected to the characters but it's also not short enough that I'm not loosing focus on the show. The action scenes don't make me lurch with excitement and the lack of character development that the show gives is rather disappointing. Overall ... I'd give it a 4.5/10. I'd recommend it but there is so much lost potential.
[9:14 PM]
Also the way the world building is just there? Gross. I hate everything about it. It feels like I'm reading a Wiki article.

I give it essentially a 3 for art, 1 for Balgo, and .5 for potential...

Such an oddly put together anime, I believe I should've read the manga before having this been my introduction to Burn the Witch.

The anime starts you off in what feels like the middle of the series in an extremely vague setting and only gets more comboggled; with vague implications of these character's relationships, their power systems, and their motivations.

At the very least, Kubos character design is more than amazing. There were so many instances where I found myself pausing to admire the design of certain character's outfits ie, Sullivan Squire. And some where I began to question how boring and odd some of the ... choices for these character's designs were ie. Bruno and Balgo. It doesn't help that backgrounds/scenery of the anime, like a lot of modern animes, looks so artificial.

Really scratching my head after this one. A lot of squandered potential here.

This review is spoiler-free.

First off, this isn't what I'd call a movie, but rather a mini-series or something of the sort. It consists of 3 poorly-linked Anime episodes of 20ish minutes (standard, if you will).

Story - 3
There's barely any introduction to the MCs (only a little bit of backstory that's mostly left out to the viewers' interpretation rather than being expanded on or explained). There isn't much to the story honestly, besides meaningless encounters and fight scenes that escalate too quickly and weirdly to be taken seriously. Trying to fit all of it in 3 20-minutes episodes was probably a mistake, since the many roughly ... touched-on parts of the story couldn't be explained or further explored and developed. To the viewer, it's like the story is simply filled with holes and appears to make no sense (at least to me, that's what it felt like). Also, the transitions between the 3 episodes don't make sense at all to me. That's probably the main reason it didn't feel like a movie when watching them back to back.

Art - 6
The Art itself isn't that bad, but it really isn't movie quality (if you compare it to popular and well-ranked movies like Your Name, Weathering with You and such). It's also not a complete and utter dreadful experience for the viewer since there's a consistency - the characters, the environments, the colors used, etc. are always the same and keep the flow steady and natural for the viewer.

Sound - 6
I found that one of the supporting characters was truly bugging me and part of it was because of its voice. I simply found it annoying and it sort of ruined the experience for me. Everytime that character was involved in a situation and talked, I'd just roll my eyes in exasperation (yes, it was that bad for me). Otherwise, the music and sound effects were okay, nothing worthy of mention or anything very powerful or too emotional. Just plain decent and basic sounds/music that help the viewer understand what's happening.

Characters - 3
As I said in the Story part, there's barely any introduction to the MCs. Whilst watching, I felt like they had no depth since there wasn't any backstory shown or explained. There were little pieces of information left here and there, stuff that the viewer could deduce or interpret their way, but no real background story or anything of the sort. This resulted in pretty bland/generic and boring/annoying characters. I couldn't care less if any of them were to get into a relationship, lose something valuable or whatever. I couldn't find anything to relate to or get attached to. They felt empty to me, void of any substance.

Enjoyment - 2
Pretty dull. I didn't really enjoy watching this "movie". It kinda felt like a chore to me, just to add it to my Completed Animes list. After seeing it advertised and looking up this Anime, I had high expectations but sadly, they weren't met at all. Most of the action was pointless and provided no character development, if any at all. The show brought up so many unanswered questions in my mind (and didn't answer them) that I didn't understand the point of watching it. Nothing joyful happened, nothing saddening nor heartbreaking happened, it's just the same-old bland and boring meaningless story of stuff happening to the MCs for absolutely no reason other than to make something happen to fill the 60ish total minutes of the show ("movie").

Overall - 4
Yeah, that's just the average of the scores I've given this show. I've got nothing more to say about this so-called "movie", except go watch it if you want, but lower your expectations for it first. It's not deserving of a score as high as it is right now. As the score of 4 indicates, it is in my opinion a "Decent" show, no more, no less.