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Jan 29, 2026
As a webnovel reader who not only read Lord of Mysteries, but also the sequel, Circle of Inevitability, and other works by the author, "Cuttlefish That Loves Diving," I can confidently say that this show completely fails in all departments--except maybe art.
First of all, the anime just sucks as an adaption. The 13 episodes, while they may be 33 minutes instead of the classic 24, still adapts a monstrous 213 chapters by completely butchering the pacing. To say that the anime fails to even capture the smallest of the essence of the novel is not an exaggeration. Lord of mysteries is an amazing webnovel due
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to the Lovecraftian mythos, fear of the unknown, and strong worldbuilding. Rituals are detailed, powers and drawbacks are apparent, and the world comes alive as Klein tries to navigate the world of mysteries and his newfound powers, as well as just simply trying to stay alive and not lose control. Yet, the anime kind of just goes through the motions, summarizes each plot point, and each character is simply a vehicle to progress through the story.
My favorite parts of the novel, which were Klein holding his weekly Tarot card meetings is again, completely butchered in the anime due to fast pacing and you knowing literally nothing about The Hanged Man and Justice. A large part of what made the novel great is the monologuing of Klein, and that monologuing might as well be nonexistent in the anime.
As a standalone, the anime fails even more. If I didn't read the novel, I'd have absolutely no idea what the hell the anime is talking about. Like the pacing is just crazy fast, nearly nothing is explained, and viewers are just expected to go along with prior knowledge of the novel. The explanations just go straight past the viewer as you're thrust into the next plot point with little to no prelude. Fight scenes, the process of drinking potions, Klein trying to navigate his nightmares with the Antoginus notebook...All of these are technically adapted but have little to no punch to them due to the complete lack of care and characterization.
Finally....the art. Yes, I do love the backgrounds. It's clear that despite the weird 3D and 2D painting styles of the backgrounds in the show, they are very detailed nonetheless. Like, they're hyper detailed and rendered out--not what you'd expect from an anime. Does that make the anime good? Not really. It doesn't even mean the art is amazing.
Because do you know why backgrounds in most anime are stylized and rendered more simply? Because the anime artstyle and character design are simple. So basically, this anime just slaps low quality 2D animation for character design and movement and decided to put in hyper rendered backgrounds which makes for a very disjointed and goofy viewing experience. With the backgrounds at hand, I would have expected 3D animation, or similarly hyper rendered 2D animation models. Remember kids, more detail doesn't necessarily mean better. The art has to mesh together.
Now, is the animation and art in general fine? Yes. There are a bunch of weird things like what I just mentioned and more, like how very little movement is actually shown on screen and everything is super stiff, but overall for an anime, the budget and animation quality is honestly still above average. It's just not going to save the completely trash story and characters.
Seriously, I went into this show with super high expectations...but the anime is just awful.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Jan 22, 2026
Witch Watch is obviously at it's best when it can default to it's primary theme, which is more of the comedic, supernatural and rom-com elements of the show. When it's about weird side effects of Nico's clumsy magic spells, Kanshi struggling to hold jobs due to his flaky and lazy nature, or even Uron Mirage, the show shines. Because that's what the entire manga was created for in the first place.
Nothing's too serious, everything's more laid back, and that's kind of apparent in every setting of the show. "Like erm actually, why is Nico not in a special magic school?" "Erm, her bodyguards are
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really lax and she's always in potential danger because of it" Who the hell are we kidding? This show doesn't really care about that--it's about a show where Nico and her magical antics has fun with her household with a loose theme of "her becoming a mature witch" looming in the background.
This is also why when more serious arcs happen, the show kind of sucks. Obviously when you place a comedic cast into battle shounen situations, it doesn't really work out very well. Keigo's arc is especially poor, with the most serious performances and the most obvious plot points in the entire anime. I know it's just a random shounen, but the logic completely falls apart in serious situations like that arc, where there's never any lasting consequences, everything works out in the end, and the arc is wrapped in a nice little bowtie.
This is also why arcs more like the final episode which still maintain just a little bit of urgency but very largely inconsequential and manageable with its theming is a lot better produced in my eyes. Still, of course, the main villain of that episode gets off largely scot free and is forced to "run laps as punishment" for basically assaulting other people. The vampire arc is similar, but again, because the stakes are much lower than Keigo's arc, they're a lot more manageable despite being pretty below average in many ways.
Of course, the comedic aspects of the show dominate, and it does make up for the poor action sequences and serious arcs that it has scattered around the show. It's definitely above average, and I especially like Kanshi's character and how his manzai is on point in many of the arcs which cause it to come to life. As long as the anime keeps up its pacing of pushing out more of the comedic content, I wouldn't mind watching another season. Still, also nothing too much is missed out if you decide to skip.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Dec 4, 2025
As an anime only viewer of this series, it was kind of blatantly obvious to me that this season completely falls apart after 4-5 episodes.
If the first season was kind of just a dumb shounen, then second season is just completely nonsensical. I can't even blame the series though--the anime just straight up adapts garbage and the pacing doesn't make sense. Season 2 just cuts so much of the original material that it doesn't even matter. Again, coming from only watching the anime, even I could tell that Season 2 just did not adapt anything and was completely rushed.
Just going to drop this garbage and
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read the manga at some point. I can't even have an actual opinion of the show because of how poorly this anime adapts the original material
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 28, 2025
The main issue I have with this show is how little the setting actually matters in this anime. You can't just have a kind of unique setting like an all girls, prestigious girls school where our main character, with a chip off her shoulder is trying to become the most popular girl at school and then poof, 99% of that is never going to be mentioned ever again once she starts doing her band stuff.
Well, first of all, I don't care about our MC's terribly boring and trope filled backstory that was shoved down my throat through overly detailed monologuing and flashbacks. Even worse, it
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doesn't even really matter since the show just hyper focuses on the band stuff. Like, you really can't blame me since Otoha and our MC just happen to meet because "somehow, there's a well maintained abandoned school building that no one knows the existence about or ever visits other than Otoha who practices the frowned upon drums" and that's the entire premise of the anime before even going down the line about anything else. If you want to maintain a serious setting around our MC, you can't trivialize it with the most BS "somehows" in existence, can you?
Secondly, the way music is portrayed sucks. The CGI sucks, I don't care if it's "above average" in anime-- that bar's in hell. When our MC plays or strums the guitar, when people play the violin, obviously their finger movements don't even remotely try to mimic what's actually being played, and barring that, but the CGI is still crappy and trash. Plus, I just hate how this show just brushes all demonstrations of skill by using visual metaphors constantly. Like "oh my god her music was so breathtaking" and then rose barbs show up on her body to visualize it to the audience rather than actually have a chilling performance or aesthetically pleasing animation of the girl playing the instrument. It's fine occasionally, but I feel like that's all this anime does to demonstrate skill and all we go off of. We're not the manga, please use sound or something too, could be important, idk.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Nov 28, 2025
Somehow this show adapts like 167 chapters over the course of only 24 episodes and 2 seasons. How is that possible? Because like 99% of the manga is straight up not adapted. I don't know what to say. The first season does a decent enough job of adapting the actual GAGS of the show. This second season straight up only adapts the ROMANTIC parts of the show, which are, to me, the most unfunny to watch. The pacing is terrible, most characters don't even exist in the second season. I had to actually go read my first review to realize that Oshiro was a stalker
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type character in the first season because she had literally zero presence in the second season.
I actually recall Ishikawa and Hanako being quite fun characters to watch. Too bad they got a combined screen time of 1 single minute this season. Or even just Aharen and Raidou's interactions with kids. Instead we get really boring romantic subplots every single episode being adapted. Even Toubaru-sensei gets constantly shown because of this as well.
Overall, I wouldn't even say the source material is bad, but due to the lack of available episodes available, the show decides to go all in on Raidou and Aharen's relationship which makes this show unwatchable.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 24, 2025
It's not a very charming show. It's very clear that our protagonist is the only fun character in the show, especially before they introduce a bunch of side characters from episode 3 onwards. it's a one man show, and the main character even is basically one of two robots that can even talk. So despite how the main character is fun to watch, because of the lack of exciting scenarios and other side characters, it kind of goes nowhere. The tanuki family starts joining as side characters, and to be honest, this family kind of puts the show in a whole different direction it was
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going in. The show could have stuck to its guns and kind of went with a more episodic and sadder show but instead it's a lot more upbeat and filled with cute slice of life interactions in the wasteland which is kind of weird to me, considering the initial premise.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 14, 2025
Konoha is miserable to watch. She's just an extremely unlikeable protagonist by nature and I'm not sure how the dynamic between Konoha and Satoko is supposed to be fun at all. Really, that's the only complaint I have of this show, but because she is literally the main character of the show, of course I'm going to have to drop it.
Konoha's a pretty unfeeling/apathetic and OP main character. She talks in monotone, doesn't really care about anything or anybody 99% of the time, and her gimmick is that she has a "gap moe" when she eats food and becomes super happy and animated. There's basically
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no manzai at all between Satoko and Konoha. I actually find there to be basically no comedy at all and no actual synergy between the two main characters. Of course Satoko's more of the boke and character that gets thrown into random situations because of her stupidity or curiosity, but Konoha having to bail her out is almost too simple--because she's just that overpowered as a character. Again, when Satoko isn't randomly interacting with other characters and Konoha is just stuck with Satoko, their conversations are incredibly bland. It's just a repeat joke setup of Satoko caring for Konoha and Konoha ignoring or neglecting her over and over and over and over and over again.
See, Saiki K, a similar apathetic protagonist, is entertaining to watch because his monologues are incredibly detailed and fun to watch despite his -- yes kind of boring personality. Konoha's just kind of a shell character. She's very predictable as a character as there's not much going on around her. She reacts to stimuli the same way and doesn't change.
I don't have anything to complain about other than Konoha either. I love Shaft, and the editing and comedic pacing of this show is great. Even if the jokes aren't funny, the eye candy is just great to look at to be honest. I found Marin to be a fun character to watch, and so is Kuro and her girlfriend. Every character seems to fit in a comedic anime other than Konoha.
Again, even in OPM, Saitama's funny because the enemy characters get so much screen time, have personality, and other heroes struggling with them before Saitama ever shows up so there's comedic value. Again, the enemies are just kind of just a backdrop to the actual anime, and don't serve any purpose at all other than flavor text and wasting screen time as the enemy of the week usually. Overall, Konoha being incredibly boring to watch in a comedic show really kills it.
This definitely is illustrated in episode 5, where Satoko is replaced by a robot and the entire episode centers around Konoha and Roboko. Since Roboko just serves as assistant or helper to Konoha and Satoko isn't really featured too much in the episode, you're shown in full glory as to why Konoha is such a bland protagonist as you follow her mechanically do missions, eat food and gets happy, and that's practically it. There's no content without Satoko as the show shrivels up and dies without the premiere fun character watch.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 9, 2025
This show is so "anime original" it hurts. With anime adaptation of manga, again, at least there's a track record of it being a popular series, so at the very least it's been screened a little bit.
I swear to god every movie and anime original just doesn't get reviewed by anyone relevant, or the plot has been vetted by corporate so many times that people just pump out unpolished trash most of the time.
Even just the simple first episode where they have the MC, Natsuko get transported to a movie world is poorly done. Her sequence of realization is boring and it's like the
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anime is trying way too hard to be funny only for it to just be it to not be a good introduction of the world, but also extremely unfunny. Of course, this anime is trying to be meta, but none of the jokes are particularly funny despite the over-the-top joke setups. And through these joke setups, you see the sad reality that the Natsuko just treats everything like a game or movie, and because the viewers are using her perspective to look at the world, most of the characters in the show become more like NPCs rather than genuine characters. Whether it's her constant rambling about the story setting, character settings, or what plot is going to happen, it's all viewed in the perspective of a movie viewer and observer rather than someone trapped in a world and trying to help people out. This is more accentuated in Luke Braveheart who is such a archetypal hero character that never develops at all with his only redeeming trait being "kind to his friends" and being super hot and future love interest.
Of course our MC has typical Mary Sue characteristics--an incredible overpowered ability to turn anything she draws into reality. The only thing stopping her is her own mind!! She's super gorgeous but has this gimmick where she has super long hair and covers her face most of the time. As stupid of a gimmick as MaoMao in apocethary diaries where they're both extremely beautiful, but they hide it for some reason." OMG when the super hot braveheart sees Natsuko's face he's super surprised at her beauty time and time again!!! Such a cool romance!!! Like she's ugly but actually not really at all that's super funny and compelling!!!
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 3, 2025
God these types of shows are kind of insufferable. They try to experiment and do something unique, meta, or breaking the fourth wall, and it just still ends up being slop because of how incoherent the actual story is.
Of course, I'm talking about there's the two settings of the "game world" and the "real world" and how the show constantly shifts between the two perspectives. Similar to Isekai Ojisan-- or exactly like that show, this anime really wanted to add more "depth" by adding a completely useless layer of "the real world" in addition to the game world that our protagonist is in.
The problem is
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that this real world provides zero value. It's just that half the show is added fluff, and as a result, garbage. The real world has surface level interactions with the game world, and to be honest, it could have been completely cut from the anime and the game world part of the anime wouldn't have changed too much to begin with. Additionally, the real world characters are just super cringe. Like how many times are you going to mention to the audience that the author is an otaku and so is the mother. The father is apparently an otaku but he just seems like a typical old man with little to no anime knowledge with how his monologues are set. Additionally, the anime is supposed to be kind of a comedic misunderstanding where he's trying to be villainess but instead just makes everyone praise him instead. This doesn't really work very well since the protagonist himself doesn't really have that extreme intent of making everyone hate the MC. No penalty or punishment happens if he can't get the female lead to hate him. No death flag gets raised if he takes over the female lead's role. Overall, the comedy is extremely low level and diluted because of this. The MC makes a half hearted attempt of "being a villainess," people praise her instead, and rinse and repeat. Very boring cycle with nothing in between.
Let's just pretend that the real world didn't exist at all. This show would at best be MEDIOCRE. it's just a mediocre anime plopped with completely BS gimmicks that go completely nowhere. 5/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Nov 3, 2025
Before anything, can we just appreciate how good Medalist's 3D animation is? I complain over and over again and shudder at any mention of Japanese Anime's complete dogshit CGI, 3D animation, and 3D models. But holy shit, this anime has GREAT 3D animation. Absolutely amazing in how it blends in with the actual art style of the anime, the 2D/3D blending of the actual rigs themselves, the shaders used, and the love and care that went into the choreography. The 3D animations themselves, with the complex maneuvers that figure skaters go through is captured, and the camera panning is good as well. By far the
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best 3D animation done in a full cour anime. There's no competition.
Now, onto the rest of the show. Honestly, I just like how Inori's character development is a constant theme in the anime. She a consistent character that struggles with confidence, but tries to improve her self esteem by being good at what she does: figure skating. Not only does she love figure skating, it is also a way to regain her confidence by catching up to her peers who have glided past her all the years she spent not practicing figure skating. By improving her skills, it's as if she's truly worthy of her dream of figure skating, making her mom spend all her time worrying about her, and also proving to the world that despite her coach not having any qualification in her category of figure skating, is still the best coach there is. The chibi animations, exaggerated facial expressions when Inori lacks confidence, is scared, or has anxiety accentuate her low self esteem and also adds a lot of character. While this is a sports show first and foremost, and she does gain back a lot of that esteem back just from being good at figure skating, I think she's still a well written character. You can say that her drive to figure skate is the first time she's stood up for herself, and her effort to get good is to prove to everyone that it wasn't a wrong choice, including herself.
Her opponents are all pretty decent. There's a decent amount of them, none of which have super detailed character profiles, but they aren't archetypal cutouts with zero screen time or personality either. There's a good balance of knowing the character, but also having the story flow and not stagnate by focusing everything on each opponent. It's a rich and vibrant environment of competitive figure skaters with their own set of personalities, character traits, and talents.
Tsukasa, the coach himself is a pretty dull, but energetic and driven coach that wants his pupil, Inori to improve. Through Inori, Tsukasa is also forced to become a better coach, better understand figure skating, and figure out the best program for Inori to use. He's got a melodramatic past, but nothing super crazy, which is a nice touch.
Overall, just a very solid sports anime about figure skating.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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