Here’s what I’ll say about Champignon Witch after another really good episode. It has the ability to be sad in myriad different ways, and that can’t be undersold as a tool at a series’ disposal. As I said last time being sad at all is a valuable trait, because most shows can’t do it without resorting to emotional manipulation. But this episode was sad in a totally different way than last week’s. If anything even more understatedly. And effortlessly, which is really the essence of why a series like this works. I’m extremely fond of it but increasingly it strikes me as solidly grounded in tragedy.
For the first time Lize – after all, the deuteragonist of Champignon no Majo – is an active participant in the narrative. He wakes up with no memory of who he is, though he does remember things others have told him (including his true name). He also feels as if his body is oddly small and hard to adjust to. Based on what happens when he says his true name – Lizel – Claude and Luna make it clear the boy should never speak it aloud. After some verbal tennis they settle on Lize (Minos’ suggestion) – hardly a radical change, but at least easy to remember.
Things start whimsically enough, with Lize jotting down his feelings about Claude in his diary (which Luna has ordered him to do whenever he has a negative thought or emotion). But as Lize’s narration begins to paint a picture of what life at Luna’s cottage is like for him, it’s soon clear that something is very much amiss here. Claude being a hard-ass is more or less expected, but from Lize’s perspective at least Luna “always seems angry” at him (even if she has a hard time making it stick).
I totally get why Claude and even Luna would feel this is necessary. Lize is the End of All Things – there’s no margin for error in training him. But from a distance it’s easy to see how misguided this approach is. If the imperative is to raise a little boy without him succumbing to negative emotions, doing so in a cold and loveless environment is the worst way to go about it. Luna is desperate to share her love with him in fact, and Lize is desperate to receive it. But she’s trying to play the role Claude is pushing on her, which is totally ill-fitting. As such there’s something quite heartbreaking about the general tone in the household.
That Lize has magical ability is indisputable. He appears to be a white witch, the only one we’ve seen so far. According to Claude that means that unlike black witches his power is not innate and is dependent on spells, and that his true name is the key to his power. But he remembers none of that. He gets a first-hand look at Luna’s back magic when she uses a “transference doll” to absorb Lize’s wound, which he then admonishes him that he must care for until it recovers (there was something very powerful about this moment for some reason).
Whatever Lize’s magic is or isn’t, he has the ability to see “black clouds” around people – their negative emotions. And not only that, to absorb them – which he does instinctively but is the last thing in the world he should be doing. It’s so frustrating to watch these scenes play out, with how unnaturally Luna is behaving and how desperately Lize needs her to openly treasure and value him. You have to think they’ll figure it out eventually but this is a dark ride, and I suspect their life together is going to have more than its share of pain.
