An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Month: October 2026

God Hates Witches – Maria the Virgin Witch Spoiler Review

Well, when talking about witch shows, this is one that seems prudent to tackle. Though released in 2015, Maria the Virgin Witch is one of two war-time witch outings that tend to come up. I guess it has been over ten years now, but the show feels older than it is in a good way, like it impacted public consciousness. That said, I at least didn’t know much about it other than that it existed before digging in, so with this minimal preamble, let us do just that.

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To Life – Once Upon a Witch’s Death Spoiler Review

This is a show that legitimately scared me, when I was just approaching it. Not because it was conventionally scary or even related to the horror genre, but because it had some creative DNA that I know backfires far too often.

This is the pitch for Once Upon a Witch’s Death: on her seventeenth birthday, apprentice witch Meg Raspberry is told that she only has a year left to live before a horrible curse claims her. There is an out, but it’s not easy: she needs something called a Seed of Life, and according to her mentor, the only way to make one of those is by collecting a thousand tears of joy in the time Meg has left.

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Mushroom Soup for the Soul – Champignon Witch Spoiler Review

It is once again spooky season, and this year that’s going to mean one thing: witches!

I love the witch archetype in anime. Terrifying, adorable, or anywhere in between, these magical girls (who may sometimes overlap with Magical Girls) and their usually sizable hats just seem to hit the right notes for a lot of folks, myself included, and we’re here to honor them this month – and we’ll start by putting the “fun” in “fungus” (or so I hope) with Champignon Witch.

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