"The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea" is a fantasy novel written by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Set in a world of pirates and magic, the story follows the journey of a young genderfluid pirate called Florian. Florian works as a steward on the ship called "The Dove", whose captain is known as Kidnapper Maquette. The crew of "The Dove" is renowned for its ruthless behavior, specializing in capturing and selling magical creatures. The story is divided into multiple narratives that intertwine as the plot unfolds. One narrative revolves around Florian, who desires to escape the life of piracy and the oppressive gender norms they face.

Witchcraft Works 13 (Paperback)

This is book number 13 in the Witchcraft Works series.

• #1: Witchcraft Works 1 (Paperback): $12.95
• #2: Witchcraft Works 2 (Paperback): $12.95
• #3: Witchcraft Works 3 (Paperback): $12.95
• #4: Witchcraft Works 4 (Paperback): $12.95
• #5: Witchcraft Works 5 (Paperback): $12.95
• #6: Witchcraft Works 6 (Paperback): $12.95
• #7: Witchcraft Works 7 (Paperback): $12.95
• #8: Witchcraft Works 8 (Paperback): $12.95
• #9: Witchcraft Works 9 (Paperback): $12.95
• #10: Witchcraft Works 10 (Paperback): $12.95
• #11: Witchcraft Works 11 (Paperback): $12.95
• #12: Witchcraft Works 12 (Paperback): $12.95
• #14: Witchcraft Works 14 (Paperback): $12.95
• #15: Witchcraft Works 15 (Paperback): $12.95
• #17: Witchcraft Works 17 (Paperback): $12.95

Description

Basis of the anime series, Witchcraft Works is a romance comedy where magic and supernational powers shape the lives of a handful of high school kids.

Alcina, a high-ranking Workshop witch, continues to investigate Takamiya, since she finds it improbable that he could take in the White Princess without her power overwhelming his. Does the appearance of so many old witches—and their clashing wishes, preferences, intrigue, ideals and beliefs—portend the outbreak of a magical war?

About the Author

Very little is known about Ryu Mizunagi but the author's birthday is March 23rd. Originally from Aichi, Mizunagi won the Kodansha Four Seasons Manga Award in 2004 with the pilot for Witchcraft Works. Mizunagi was able to continue the project through Kodansha Japan in 2006.

In 2015 Mizunagi debuted her second series for Kodansha Ltd. Japan.

• Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Media Tie-In
• Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Fantasy
• Comics & Graphic Novels / Manga / Supernatural

Witchcraft Works

Honoka keeps running into the school princess, Ayaka. They take the bus together, they’re in the same class, they even share cleanup duty, but he’s never managed to have an actual conversation with her. Despite the completely innocent nature of their relationship, Honoka keeps getting attacked because of it. Honoka’s a bit of a doormat so he just takes it but then MAGIC! and before he knows it he’s in the middle of this magical war or something and Ayaka is a super powerful witch. And she’s huge you guys. Like amazon princess witch. That was cool. Oh, she decides to be his bodyguard.

A little while ago I got in a witchy mood, as one does, and ended up watching three “witch series” back to back: Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Flying Witch and Witchcraft Works. At their very core, all three of these series tell the same story, namely the story of a teenage witch trying to find her place in the world and come to grips with her powers. But this is pretty much the only thing they have in common. Presentation, style, tone and even message are all so different that in a way, it was quite the Rashomon effect… No, no it wasn’t. I was just trying to sound smart. You caught me.

Look we can’t all be geniuses

I probably liked Witchcraft Works more than most people and overall I would say I quite enjoyed it but I can understand why someone would have complaints. The plot is a hero’s journey/ clash of the titans type story, not that original but also interesting enough. I’ve seen much worse. What I think may be at fault here is an unskilled adaptation. I’m just assuming, I’ve never read the manga, but it seemed as if chunks of storyline had been just roughly carved out. It’s not so much that there was huge gaps in the background information that would render the story difficult to follow like for instance Pandora Hearts but you can easily tell if for instance a character should have had a larger pat or if a series of events that led to a particular situation had been omitted. It’s not that the show is shallow exactly but it feels hollowed out. Like a cheap Easter chocolate bunny.

Who are you calling a cheap bunny?

I understand the need to condense content to fit the format but I always feel cheated when its done with such a lack of finesse. Especially when a lot of the components happen to be pretty interesting. The hapless tower witches (those are the enemy witches) were entertaining and at times amusing. The light shoujo-ai touches throughout were fun. I appreciated the magical powers and the visuals associated with them. The entire cute but threatening aesthetic with monstrous stuffed toys and killer bunnies is right up my alley! The story seems to hint at an epic war of magic and ancient powers that could have been amazing. Sadly, those visuals gave the show a grand sense of scale that the plot just couldn’t sustain.

You just realized that this was missing from your life, didn’t you?

And that’s the other major problem I have with this series. I often had the feeling that the best stuff was happening offscreen. Like all my friends were having fun without me. Honoka and Ayaka are perfectly fine characters and protagonists but they’re also, in my opinion, the most boring characters the show has to offer. I get that making your protagonist very eccentric is difficult since they need to serve as an audience stand in and get all the exposition out, but I still would have liked a bit more implication from the chorus.

As I mentioned above, the story refers to past events and a great war out of which the current unsteady, and rapidly crumbling, truce among the witches is built but we never really see any of it. This mae me sad as it sounds so much more interesting than what was going on.

So how exactly did we ge here?

To me, this show shines brightest on its periphery. The B stories and fillers were usually amusing and the supporting characters were pretty much all great. This is where we get to the actual purpose of this post – my Kazane appreciation thread. I LURVE Kazane. I have no logical way of explaining this to any of you – it was love at first sight. From the second she entered the scene, a bit of my drink dribbled down my chin, and I have been hopelessly and irremediably in love ever since. There’s really no help for me. I love her design, her personality, her smoking, her drinking, her voice sends those pleasant little tickles down my spine… you get the idea. I would have watched a much worse show for this character alone and enjoyed it deeply.

Now normally I’m the jealous type when it comes to my waifus but surprisingly I even had a ship for Kazane. There was in fact a second lady who, under normal circumstances, would have totally stolen my heart but the competition was just unfair here. After I saw Chronoire Schwarz in one of the first episodes (in a great scene that basically sold the show to me), I spent the entire series wanting to learn more about her. Unfortunately, the show is very stingy with both her appearances and her history. I nevertheless savoured every moment she was on screen and when she happened to share the spotlight with Kazane well – let’s just say I had to replace my yuri goggles cause my pair melted.

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t what I was supposed to get out of this series. As far as the young witch coming into her own story went – I dunno, it was fine. It was presented through the lens of stepping up to one’s duty and accepting responsibility that comes with power and growing up. The romance element was definitely present but subdued and the gender swapped hero/damsel dynamic was cute. There were funny moments. If you have a “witch week” of anime to fill up – this is a pretty good choice. I’m going to go hold my breath for a Chronoire and Kazane spinoff now.

Favorite character: Take a wild guess

What this anime taught me about myself: I will wait for Kazane forever.

Don’t cry over spilled milk…it could have been beer!

• Every time a new tower witch is introduced – take a drink
• Every time Kasumi is way too attached to her brother – take a drink
• Every time Takamiya gets beat up – take a drink
• Every time Ayaka flames – get some water
• Every time Ayaka princess carries Honoka – take a drink
• Every time there is a new character in the end credits – have a drink
• Every time we see a familiar – take a drink
• Every time someone mentions everything going fine – brace for impact
• Every time there is Les Yay – take a drink
• Every time Kazane comes on – lay off!

The Dumbest Protagonist Ever: Why Witchcraft Works Makes Shoujo Heroines Look Intelligent

Witch Craft Works (WCW) disappointed me on several levels. I was extremely hesitant to begin watching it in the first place because from what it looked like at least based on the first episode and the cover art, I thought it was going to be an idiotic harem show. However, Josh assured me that he had heard a lot of good things about it and that I should at least give it a try. Reluctantly, I conceded. He was right on one count–this isn’t really a harem show. (Unless you count a weird love interest, little sister love triangle.) Harem show or not, there is something so irreconcilably wrong with this show that no amount of pretty much anything I usually appreciate in anime could possibly fix for me. It has a name. It’s name is Takamiya Honoka. I call him ‘it’ because to give him personhood would be insulting to the human race.

This is Takamiya. He has the same level of interest and intellectual capacity as a sea cucumber.

Here is a brief synopsis of the show (courtesy of MyAnimeList) for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet:

Takamiya Honoka is a regular student whose only problem seems to be that he sits next to Kagari Ayaka, the school’s #1 beauty. They have never spoken to each other before and any small interaction between them immediately results in her fanclub beating him. Yet when a falling part of the school’s building is about to send him to the afterlife, it’s Kagari that comes to his rescue. Only… she’s dressed as a witch, carrying him in her arms and floating on a broom?! Kagari tells him it is her mission to protect him and that now she can finally protect him openly rather than undercover.

I’ve watched my fair share of shoujo in the day and spent a solid post talking about how it’s an under appreciated and often harped on genre. I meant it when I said it then, but if I rewrote that post now after having wasted a few hours of my life watching the first half of Witch Craft Works (WCW) I think I would have had a lot more material to go off. I’m not going to pretend that this isn’t going to be ranty so bear with me. WCW plays host to THE single dumbest protagonist I have ever seen in any anime ever. I understand that the intention of the show was to do a weird shoujo gender role inversion, making Takamiya the damsel in distress and Kagari the valiant hero. However, that is no reason to make Takamiya about as useful and effective as a bucket with a hole in it. I do give it credit for the obvious parallel they were trying to draw, but I really don’t think they had to make Takamiya such a moron. Basically it was him getting into stupid situations because of something dumb that he had done and either Kagari or his sister (who was probably the best character in the show) had to swoop in and save his ass.

The show also played with the idea of true love and a romantic interest where usually the heroine can’t understand why some super sexy guy has fallen in love with her. However, usually I think the romance is sweet and that the main couple works and has chemistry. Um not the case here at all. There was nothing special about Takamiya except for the fact that some weird princess lived inside him (WTF?!) and that he was really good at being dumb. His utter lack of intellect combined with Kagari’s lack of personality made it impossible to construct any chemistry in the relationship. It was literally a relationship for the sake of having a relationship. Then there’s the whole weird thing about the mothers deciding that the two are going to get married before they’re even born so it’s totally cool for them to live together and for Kagari to go all Edward Cullen and creep on Takamiya while he sleeps.

I mean essentially the show set it up so there was no way the relationship could possibly be in doubt on any level and that it could function without any difficulty or hindrance. There was no love triangle (unless you count Takamiya’s sister) and no real stumbling block to their romance at all. This being the case, it was also boring and stupid as hell when they got together. That is probably also due to the fact that Takamiya has the sex drive of a potato–at least from what I saw of the show. And the thing is, even if he did for some odd reason decided to creep on his weird girlfriend/bodyguard she would probably take all her clothes off for him without batting an eyelash.

Look at all that non-existent chemistry!

Takamiya x Kagari is decidedly one of the worst couplings I have ever seen in my entire experience watching anime. Takamiya looks like the stereotypical bumbling anime schoolboy with zero distinguishing features and Kagari just looks like a man with huge boobs. Am I the only one who thought she was unusually masculine looking? Then there was the super overbearing behavior from Kagari. Takamiya asked her to teach him magic so he wouldn’t be such a useless lump (not sure it would have helped) and she basically taught him how to fly and how to wear a stupid hat. Basically the attitude of an abusive and controlling partner who wanted Takamiya to be completely reliant on her to exist (who the hell knows why?). I also really want to know what the hell he was doing with his life before Kagari came around.

Onto another problem with this series: What the hell was happening!? I know Josh says in his post that it’s an interesting use of fairytale-esque absurdism, but I kind of call BS on that. The witches all had really weird powers that made absolutely no sense. I kind of lost it with the giant OP teddy bear that Takamiya’s sister started riding around on out of the blue. Then there were all the other witches whose power was kind of random and unnecessary and the fact that you could never actually tell who was good and who was evil based on two completely arbitrary factions that sprouted up to divide the magical world. Tower witches and Workshop Witches–what the hell sort of purpose did those two organizations serve? Anyway there were a zillion plot holes and inconsistencies that Josh covers in his post on this show and I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted enough/made my point. Not to mention, I only watched the first six episodes so undoubtedly there are some serious flaws or holes in my ranting. In summation: this show would probably be awesome if you’re REALLY, REALLY high.

Because this is normal

For Josh’s thoughts on the show, check out his review here.

One narrative revolves around Florian, who desires to escape the life of piracy and the oppressive gender norms they face. Florian's dreams of freedom and self-discovery soon become entangled with a secret mission to transport a hidden cargo—a mermaid. Within the narrative, the mermaid is a symbol of power coveted by many characters, both on and off the ship.

As the crew seeks to sell the mermaid to the highest bidder, Florian forms a connection with her. This relationship becomes the central focus of the story, as Florian grapples with their moral obligations and the consequences of their choices. Another narrative follows Aaslo, a young slave boy who possesses an unknown power and is at the mercy of his abusive captor, Mr. Mardler. Aaslo's journey parallels Florian's, as he seeks to escape the clutches of Mr. Mardler and find a place where he truly belongs. Aaslo's journey brings him into contact with various magical beings and ultimately collides with Florian's quest. An additional narrative delves into the world of the witch. It explores the intricate power dynamics and alliances among witches, who pull the strings behind many events within the story. Through this narrative, the reader gets a glimpse into the complexities of magic and the roles witches play in the larger world. "The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea" weaves together themes of identity, freedom, and the consequences of one's actions. It explores the concept of power and the choices one must make when confronted with it. The novel invites readers on a captivating journey through a magical and dangerous world that challenges societal norms and expectations. Ultimately, it poses thought-provoking questions about personal agency, sacrifice, and the pursuit of one's own truth..

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