Manga Review: Witch Hat Atelier Volume 1 by Kamome Shirahama
Ever since she got a picture book on magic as a (smaller) child, Coco has been fascinated by magic and wanted to become a witch. Alas, in her world, you have to be born with the capacity for magic. This is a sore spot for Coco, but it doesn’t stop her from helping her mother in the family tailor shop in their small village. One day, some visitors from the big city come in a pegasus carriage, but it gets broken when the village children inspect it too roughly.
Fortunately, there is also a witch, Qifrey, visiting the tailor shop. He can repair the carriage, but the method is secret, so he must do it inside, and sets Coco to guard the door. Coco chases off some boys who are peeking, but can’t resist taking a look herself, and sees how magic is done. It’s used by drawing magic circles, just like the ones she thought were decorations in her picture book!
That night, Coco tries copying some of the circles from her book, and discovers that she can in fact create small magic with them. Alas, what she could not have guessed is that the book is a trap. One of the magic circles creates a forbidden spell that turns people to stone. Qifrey, who’d become suspicious when she mentioned the book and returned to the village, is able to rescue Coco from the effect, but Coco’s mother is not so lucky.
Ordinarily, any outsider who learns how magic is done has their memory erased, but Qifrey has a soft heart and realizes that only Coco can identify the spell that cursed her mother so that it can be undone. And to do this, she’ll have to be properly trained as a witch. To that end, he makes her a student at his atelier.
Kamome Shirahama was, prior to this series, best known in the U.S. for creating comic book covers for DC and Marvel comics. The seed of this manga story was a conversation where a friend described creating an illustration as a kind of magic. Thus the magic system of this series is based on drawing.
In theory, anyone can draw magic circles and thus use magic, and long ago, almost everyone did. But any tool that can be used, can be misused, and misused magic was. There were great and terrible wars, and horrific spells were created to harm. Thus it was that the ancestors of the witches came together to regulate the use of magic. They erased the common people’s knowledge of how magic was done, started the lie that you had to be born a witch, and forbid any spell that directly affects a human being (with the sole exception of the amnesia spell.)
These restrictions mean that the vast majority of witch work is creating “contraptions”, magically enhanced items like shoes that grant flight or ever-full water jugs. It’s useful work, and witches are in high demand, but it also limits them severely in certain situations.
After coming to the atelier, Coco is introduced to Master Qifrey’s three other students. Tetia is a cheerful girl who practices an attitude of gratitude. Richeh is more reserved and had a difficult past. And then there’s Agott. She’s a bit of a prodigy, a hard worker and very serious, and she resents Coco for basically falling backwards into becoming an apprentice witch.
This leads Agott to set Coco a trial, dumping her in the wilderness to gather a particular flower. Agott is not too bothered by the possibility this will kill Coco.
More of a background problem are the Brimmed Ones, a renegade sect of witches that disagree with the restrictions currently imposed on magic. Standard witches wear brimless pointy hats, while their rivals have brimmed hats. And they seem very interested in Coco for some reason.
The volume ends with the atelier visiting a witch city to stock up on supplies, only to be suddenly transported to another city–with a dragon!
The excellent art, deep magic system and some interesting character work made this series a big hit in Japan, and it now has an anime adaptation.
Despite the age of the main protagonist, this is more of a young adult series than a children’s one. That said, the primary content note for this volume is peril to children, and the (temporary, we hope) loss of a parent.
Recommended to fantasy and magic school fans.
