Burn the Witch #0.8

Tite Kubo is very smart for immediately incorporating BURN THE WITCH into the BLEACH universe—through a shrewd plot-twist in the writing—to straight off the bat invest its core target demographic—Bleach fans—into his spin-off series. This, alongside making the protagonists two (attractive) female characters in order to automatically make for a more interesting shounen premise considering the nigh-novelty. Thus, through the premise alone is the thoughtfulness of Kubo's work shown here.

Ultimately and in reality, Burn the Witch is supplemental content for fans of the main series. It intends to capture the stylistic essence of Bleach as an excuse for Kubo to draw aesthetic art pieces that ... service the fans. Regarding this, Burn the Witch is a great series. Studio Colorido and team Yamahitsuji knew this as well, which is why all presentation for the anime—from the promotional campaign, to the website, to the key visuals and to the product—a stylishly striking identity can be seen. The art direction and animation are gorgeous—fine-tuned to the whimsical setting; the sound design is sharp and works in tandem with the youthful vibe; and cinematic direction and storyboards are properly realized here because the pacing isn't at haste like in the 2020 ONA sequel. While the narrative elements are serviceable and never actively detriment the beautiful production design that is doing most of the legwork. Exceptional and inspired character designs (including the Dragons and their body horror that help form a sinister undercurrent) with strong characterization and character dynamics as well as firm theming, as expected from Kubo. The subtle references to Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon accentuate the charm of this title and Colorido's passion for it.

To go back to an aforementioned point about the thoughtful constructions here, Ninny and Noel in juxtaposition perfectly complement each other in both design and personality without being exaggerated. Balgo Twain's parallels to Sir Ywain of Arthurian legend serve as part of the greater incorporation of fairy tales in Burn the Witch. The worldbuilding displays knowledge of English culture by Kubo and believably assimilates into the greater Bleach world because of it and the characters' isomorphic but distinguishable framing, and by extension allows for a lot of potential in the future.

All in all, this is a short but sweet audiovisual treat to pleasantly cap off the calendar year.

Burn the Witch #0.8, a prequel to the original series, upholds its high standards of visual and animation quality while subtly expanding its fantastical world. The character designs remain visually appealing, and the animation is skillfully executed, though some assets occasionally feel out of place.
The storyline lays the groundwork for the events of the original series, and while prior viewing of the movies isn't essential, they provide a more thorough introduction to the characters. However, the special isn't without its minor flaws. Some comedic moments fall flat and appear overly childish, and the short runtime may leave viewers wanting more.
Overall, the series caters to fans ... of the original, delivering an enjoyable experience without necessarily venturing into new territory.

Burn The Witch is a sorry attempt of a happy man.

Tite Kubo is famous for incredible character designs and he is also capable of creating a sense of amazing worlds and captivating atmospheres. However he is infamous to actually write something meaningful or something more interesting than a 3 year old could do in a sandbox.

Burn The Witch is an example of his low standards and his luck of writing skills.

The animation is pretty much the only thing you will find in this a positive experience compared to the rest. Since there is no real story and the characters are so one ... dimensional that it’s hard to even believe this type of writing is acceptable.

Although that the animation is the only positivity it offers, it isn’t anything special either. I would gave it a 7 or 7.5 at best to the animation. Which is a good level of animation, but considering that they had over two years to make this 20 minutes episode, it’s pretty average.

The characters.

We have the black haired girl (Noel) who is so all Japanese. She is a silent beauty, acting like she doesn’t care about anything. We have the blonde girl (Ninny) as contrast to her. She is so annoyingly loud that you didn’t know what the hell she is saying. Even if you catch a few words that comes out of her mouth doesn’t matter to the story one bit.

We also have a boy (Balgo) whose brain cells can’t go further than panties. He only wants to see panties and the only thing he talks about is panties.

It seems that you really-really had to mess up an anime to get any kind of reality check back from it. So until you didn’t try hard enough to make it that appealing, some people will just gave it a 7 and thats applies “low” in today’s standards. From that reason anime like this will continue.

Burn The Witch is just one awful anime that has zero reasons to exist. Although I gave it an incredibly overrated score of (2), maybe because I felt it had some possibilities deep down of its original concept. As such of pathetic reason I could have also given it a (1), for waisted great talents and their time on such a dry-cut-rate attempt of an “anime”. Withal the mind that so many Mangaka’s with significantly better concepts getting declined every day.

In my opinion to adapt such story is unacceptable. It was unacceptable before the year 2000’s and it’s still unacceptable in 2024.

Final Score 2/10 ⭐️