Lucas Blogs About Witch Hat Atelier Volume 1

Well, she is wearing a witch hat.

So, what's this book's deal?

Well, Witch Hat Atelier is a manga about a young girl who discovers that she can do magic.

Wait, isn't that like the plot of any "child discovers that they were secretly magical" story?

Yes, but this time around, the twist is that Coco doesn't discover any special innate ability, the secret she uncovers is that anyone can do magic. See, the witches have been keeping the whole thing under wraps because they're worried that it might be dangerous or something.

And how does Coco make this discovery?

Well, she spies on a witch who fixes a pegasus drawn carriage in her family's dressmaking shop. Then later that evening, she practices drawing magic seals from a mysterious book that was given to her by a masked witch and accidentally turns her mother to stone.

So. . . then the witches have a point about it being dangerous for everyone to know about magic.

Yes. Yes, they do. Although, their process for dealing with normies who find out about magic is pretty draconian.

They don't kill them . . . do they?

No, they just erase their memories, like in Men in Black or The Magicians. Anyway, where were we?

Coco turned her mother to stone.

Right, so when she was a little girl, a mysterious witch gave her a magic book with a wand (a pen) and she's practicing drawing signs from the book when she accidentally petrifies her mother. Enter Qifrey, the witch that she'd spied on earlier to whisk her away to his atelier to study magic instead of having her memory erased. Now, Qifrey's motives aren't entirely altruistic, because he believes that Coco was purposefully given the book by a group of witches who wear fringed hats and practice forbidden spells that act on the human will and harm the human body, and he thinks it would be better for Coco to learn magic in order to help fight these witches. Once they get back to the atelier it becomes a pretty standard magic school story, with Coco meeting the three other students at the atelier, including her aloof star pupil of a roommate who can't stand having to explain everything to a normie and pressures her into taking the first test required of magic students with no preparation.

So, kinda like Draco Malfoy and Hermione combined into a single character?

Yep! I'd say that about sums her up.

How's Coco do on the test?

Fine, and I think this is as good a place as any to jump from talking about the events of the manga into the manga itself. Witch Hat Atelier is written and drawn by Kamome Shirahama, an artist who may be better known to readers of American comics as a cover artist for DC and Marvel. Story wise, Witch Hat Atelier is like a lot of other magic school type stories, although I should note that this is a high fantasy (that is to say, it's set entirely in an imagined world), so Coco is already aware of magic before she goes to the school (though, I suppose this is repeating information from earlier in the review).

Relax, it's just a blog.

Anyhow, the fact that only a select group of people actually use magic does mean that Coco still works as an effective audience stand-in. The magic system Shirahama has devised is actually pretty clever. While leaving unanswered the question of "Where exactly does all the energy used in magic come from?" it does at least give the reader a strong understanding of the mechanics of casting spells. And it's fun to see a fantasy comic book where magic is performed by drawing, given the visual nature of the medium. While the magic system is pretty well-thought out, the writing does suffer somewhat in the plotting and characterization. Both are well-realized, but the story is somewhat by-the-numbers and the characters are all types. That said, the real draw of the manga is Shirahama's art which is—

Expressive and dynamic?

I've working really hard at expanding my descriptions of comics beyond that, but yes, her art is also those things. But this is probably the prettiest comic I've read in a long time. Witch Hat Atelier uses a good deal more chiaroscuro than most of the comics I read. Shirahama's character designs are pretty standard as far as manga goes, but her use of shading gives the drawings more texture and dimension than something like, say, Nonnonba or Stupid Love Comedy (which also feature excellent, but different art styles). She also illustrates clean, readable action scenes that don't overwhelm the reader with too much information, but still contain enough information to be visually interesting. Speaking of visual interest, Shirahama somehow finds time to frame certain panels like illuminated manuscripts or to draw a character leaning on the frame of the next panel.

So, you're saying that it's a fantasy story that doesn't really break any new ground for the genre, but that it's still worth checking out for its effective use of the medium?

Yes. It's a charming little fantasy that is elevated by gorgeous artwork. I like it.

So, before we wrap this up, about that title . . .

What about it?

Well, doesn't it imply that the manga is about a workshop where witch hats are manufactured?

Hmm. . . kinda. I think the idea is more that it's a workshop where apprentices earn their witch hats.

That sounds like a bit of a stretch.

‾\_(ツ)_/‾

Witch Hat Atelier, Volume 1 by Kamome Shirahama (trans. Stephen Kohler), Kodansha Comics trade paperback edition, 2019 (originally published in Japan as とんがり帽子のアトリエ (Tongari Bōshi no Atorie), 206 pages, pairs well with flowers picked from floating spheres and the burning desire to prove you're not just some scrub

Links:

Here's are Kamome Shirahama's twitter and instagram feeds, if you're into that kinda thing.

And here's a sampling of some of her work.