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.
