There’s no shortage of epic fantasy anime out there, but it’s not often one breaches containment to become an inescapable word-of-mouth sensation. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End was one such hit earlier this year, and though its second season came to an end this past spring, Crunchyroll has delivered another engrossing adventure to fill the void it left behind. That’s Witch Hat Atelier — if you haven’t been inundated with recommendations for the show already, let this be your first (and hopefully only) reminder. Because this cozy coming-of-age anime, set in an alternate world where witches perform mysterious magical acts, really is that good. In fact, it might be the best new anime of the year.
Shonen anime — stories typically made for and about adolescent boys — are usually the type that dominate the zeitgeist. Witch Hat Atelier shares some connective tissue with that genre in that it follows a young protagonist on a journey into a wider world, one rife with dangers, conspiracies, and an angsty rival waiting to one-up them at every turn. But it’s less common to see the female-fronted answer to that trope, and rarer still for a story about young magical girls to be classified as a seinen anime, which is aimed at teens and adults.
