Cute girls act insufferably nice to each other while practicing witchcraft and doing extraordinarily little flying.
It was really well made, I’ll give it that. But it was boring. Knocked me right out. I don’t know how I managed to finish it.
Fully three quarters of the show must have been exchanging pleasantries and smiling at each other.
Some people like this kind of show. I don’t. Sorry.
- Storytelling – B – Quite skilled at what it sets out to do.
- Voice – B – Love the setting with witches in the modern time.
- Characters – B – Have a lot of personality. Like Makoto, what an idiot.
- Attention Grab – D – So boring.
- Production – B – Looks gorgeous.
- Overall – C-
Recommendations – Kikki’s Delivery Service, Kamichu, Aria (which is terrible, for the record, but if you like Flying Witch you’ll probably like it)
I only made it through half of the first episode. It was so boring it actually made me angry. I say this as somebody who liked the first episode of Tanaka-kun.
The opposite happened to me. I like Flying Witch a lot but was bored out of my mind by Tanaka-kun. I guess part of it is that I like visual details a lot, so even though there’s little in the way of writing with Flying Witch I can enjoy the overall atmosphere and all the little details in the art. Tanaka-kun was far less interesting in that respect.
I guess we just look for different things visually then, because a big reason why I liked Tanaka-kun so much was how beautiful and atmospheric it was.
I like the water colour aesthetic but in general I couldn’t really pay much attention as the combo nothing happening + one guy being actually literally sleepy on screen all the time made me seriously drowsy.
Interesting. Flying Witch did have a lot more visual detail. For me though that was part of the appeal of Tanaka-kun, it had a more unique watercolor type style.
So glad to hear other people who feel this way about what is, in my opinion, a remarkably dull and pointless show.
I know you aren’t a fan of Non Non Biyori, but that show was actually ABOUT something (growing up in the country). It might put you to sleep watching a little girl learn how to ride a bike, but there are those (like me!) who found such scenes utterly transcendent in their quiet, melancholy beauty.
Flying Witch, on the other hand, really is about NOTHING. There’s no character growth and not even much magic. It’s just people sitting around and being unspeakably nice to one another.
High production values in the service of tripe.
Yep. I didn’t like non non biyori, I also thought it was boring, but I can kind of see why people would like it at least. Flying witch I can also see why they’d like it, honestly (the same reasons they like Aria), I just think they’re crazy.
Aria *is* boring for the most part: it’s iyashikei. But it knows how to use that to its advantage, unlike weaker attempts like Flying Witch. It has a strong protagonist who draws me into a “wonderful” world, and lets me see it through their eyes. I can come to care about whimsical characters like that. They make their mundane lives seem more interesting, and with the help of Choro Club I can at least get a lovely pre-sleep anime. I don’t have a tedious girl with a thin personality pulling out screaming mandrake roots instead.
I will admit, this was worse than Aria. I can at least see why people enjoy Aria even if I don’t agree.
“High production values in the service of tripe.”
I’d say it’s rather a way of preventing the plot from getting in the way of the production values. The whole show is basically a long display of tiny details – the art, the environment, the atmosphere, all the small details in the animations like the characters’ gestures or the cat’s movements. It’s not supposed to be *about* something and would have probably been worse if it tried and came up with some lazy excuse for a plot. It’s just an aesthetic experience. Not unlike listening to quiet instrumental music in the background. Probably best followed a bit lazily, without paying *too much* attention.