One gets to thinking sometimes, as one does. As I watched another robustly amusing episode of Witch Watch, what I was thinking was “Is Witch Watch a gag manga?”. We certainly don’t tend to think of Shinohara Kenta in those terms. When it comes to gag manga it’s maybe Roboco for WSJ, and that’s about it. But isn’t WW basically a gag manga most of the time? It’s interludes of actual plot are pretty rare. It’s episodic probably 90% of the time – apart from watershed moments like Miharu arriving, these chapters could appear in almost any order. I suppose it doesn’t really matter whether you call it that or not, but I do think it’s sort of interesting.
On the whole gag manga come down to batting average. How often do the gags work? I have to say, Witch Watch has a pretty impressive record. Part of that is that – more than almost any comedy I remember – it’s just funnier as an anime. We got three sketches as usual this week, and two of them were really funny. That’s a solid average any day of the week, and the third one was perfectly fine in its own right. That one featured Kara, who I suppose we’ve met before but I frankly don’t remember (same with Rin). She’s a miko at a local shrine and, following Nico’s magical lead, tries to make an animated beast out of shide paper. Instead, she ends up with a shikigami, brimming with personality.
This was the weakest of the three chapters to be sure, but amusing enough. The next one is far better, starting with Kanshi doing a Tora-san impression (he’s been popular in anime lately). The gist of the gag here is Kanshi shows what a good salesman he is by feeding Keigo a line of BS about a marble. Keigo being Keigo gets totes swept up in it, and winds up doing a video about flames and air bubbles. Classmate Rin-chan – whose channel some people actually watch – sees it and does a follow-up (with link) on said channel. Soon it goes viral and marbles are the latest craze sweeping schools and social media.
Even Moi and Miharu – the so-called smart ones – get swept up in this farce. This new fad comes with its own set of terminology (Moi is too obsessive to be after common marbles, he likes bubblers). This whole ridiculous affair rings all too true, and it winds up with Keigo, Nico, and Kanshi doing a crossover video were they dress up in suits (well, dress shirts) and apologize for having led social media down the garden path.
Finally, Moi brings a box of his elementary school memorabilia to the table. Among the swag is a manga the lonely oni drew, “Martial Warriors Battle Fighters“. The art is unsurprisingly childlike but the others get caught up in the story, and Moi notes that he used to dream of going into the world he drew. Well, Nico knows a spell, that’s almost always a bad idea, and it’s not hard to guess where this is going. To gild the lily perpetual butt-monkey Kanshi gets turned into a terrifying (though award-winning) ukiyo-e drawing instead of one of the battle fighters.
My favorite part of the ridiculous sequence that follows is Keigo’s stick figure transforming into a Moi-vision version of Wolf to sniff out the missing manga page that Nico needs to return (almost) everyone to normal. The battle fighters even foil a crime the missing page leads them to, providing the full “Martial Warriors” experience. If we got a full adaptation of “Uron Mirage”, I don’t see why we shouldn’t get one for this one too – I’ll certainly be hoping for it.
