No spoilers here.
Yamada-kun and the 7 Witches was one of the anime that I was dreading this season. Why? Because it was one-cour. The story arc that could be concluded with the manga as it is now is either over 80 chapters in or an original ending, and with the sweet spot of manga to anime adaptation being 2-3 chapters an episode, 80 could be a little too much in 24 episodes, even if filler is cut. Well, for better and for worse, Yamada-kun met and exceeded my expectations.
But let’s talk about the good stuff first.
Yamada-kun and the 7 Witches (which I will abbreviate as 7 Witches) follows the titular Ryu Yamada, a second year delinquent who is all alone in a rather prestigious school. When walking up the stairs threateningly near the class genius and beauty, the diminutive Urara Shiraishi, he accidentally falls down the stairs on top of her. To their extreme surprise, they switched bodies. After walking in each other shoes, Yamada realizes Shiraishi is being bullied and, against her will, helps put an end to it. They then discover they can switch back by kissing. Subsequently, Yamada and Shiraishi get embroiled within the contest for Student Council President, create the Supernatural Studies Club, and search for the 7 Witches, who have powers similar to body-swapping.
Premise aside, 7 Witches’ key strengths are its art and extremely ball-busting humor, drawing from ecchi, physical, character-driven, and wordplay based humor. The anime always succeeds here. Linden does a tremendous job in animating here, making the environments of Suzaku High School seem especially grand and high-class. Many girls have extremely strange hair colors (green, blue, pink, whatever), and while they appear strange in the manga, Linden does a pretty good job at making them seem less jarring in the anime. Facial expressions are rendered extremely carefully, elevating the humor, which is usually done right. Aside from kissing, there is some playful fanservice here, and while it does get grating, the anime, in adapting, skips out on some of the fanservice as well, which is actually a plus, especially for those who are averse to such elements.
The true star of this entire anime is by far the voice work. I have to give amazing credit to the characters who generally swap bodies: Ryota Ohsaka (Yamada), Saori Hayami (Shiraishi), Toshiki Masuda (Toranosuke Miyamura) and Maaya Uchida (Miyabi Ito). When the characters swap bodies, each voice actor immediately switches their delivery to match the personality currently inhabiting their character. Hayami, who typically does quitter or gentler female roles, becomes bombastic and crude when Yamada is in Shiraishi’s body. Similarly, whenever Shiraishi inhabits Yamada, Ohsaka delivers in a very terse and gentle tone. Masuda and Uchida also do a splendid job when body swapping is going on, but Ohsaka and Hayami are, without question, amazing.
The rest of the voice cast does an amazing job, because 7 Witches’ voice cast is stacked. To single out some of the biggest names here, Eri Kitamura voices Nene Odagiri, Aoi Yuki voices Noa Takigawa, Kana Hanazawa voices Mikoto Asuka, Daisuke Ono voices Ushio Igarashi, Miyuki Sawashiro voices Leona Miyamura, and Jun Fukuyama voices Student Council President Haruma Yamazaki.
This is where the praise stops, because Linden decided to make this one-cour instead of two.
The original 7 Witches manga had some filler that could have been taken out without too much trouble. A subplot with the girls’ archery club president, Karen Kimishima, was cut out, and ultimately, that does not matter. Some arcs could be cut a little shorter without too much trouble, such as the arc focusing around Maria Sarushima or the arc surrounding Noa. But 7 Witches wasn’t filled with so much fluff to be able to cut much more than this, so the amount of corner-cutting when it comes to plot make certain developments jarring and eliminates the impact of some of the arcs.
(Some subtle foreshadowing sprinkled within the early chapters that reference the ongoing arc in the manga are cut entirely, so if that’s ever adapted, it will seem less clever and more out of left field.)
The final arc of the anime was a rushed and hollow shadow of what was in the manga, which is a severe disappointment. Due to this corner cutting, all characters other than Yamada (and to a much lesser extent, Shiraishi) that had character development don’t have any. Admittedly, some characters don’t have much character development still don’t, like Ito, Kentaro Tsubaki, and a couple of the witches. However, other characters lose both their motivations and screentime, making them hollow shells of people and not actual characters. The best way to describe this is in quick list form.
-Shiraishi loses her dry, cutting humor, making her more generic.
-Toranosuke Miyamura’s motivation in the manga doesn’t exist in the anime.
-Leona Miyamura’s motivation is heavily watered down.
-Odagiri’s, Ushio’s, Noa’s, and Yamazaki’s cut scenes make them more one-dimensional in the anime.
Yamada is pretty much the only major character to come through the adaptation unscathed, but with the other characters being rather weak, it prevents the anime from being a good adaptation.
Many adaptations come in too soon and have to rush or make an original ending. This was not that. Linden’s rushed 12 episode adaptation of Yamada made it lose most of its plot and character based strengths. More than a faithful retelling, it often feels like a highlights reel of the plot. The presentation is beyond stellar, but when the plot and characters are diluted to such an extent, it’s hard to be happy with this anime.
Story - 5 (premise is OK to begin with, anime cuts down on many strengths)
Art - 8 (beautiful animation)
Sound - 9 (music is forgettable but the voice acting is amazing)
Character - 5 (all characters except Yamada are hollow)
Enjoyment - 4 (as a manga lover, this rushed adaptation hurts)
Overall - 6.2 (rounded to 6)
Edit 7/6/15: Decided my score was a tad reactionary.
