What if I told you there was an anime where teenagers have to end up kissing each other to use magical powers, and that the first such power revealed was body swapping? You’d probably think, as I thought, that it would likely be awkward as heck, and even more likely neither funny nor charming. Well, that’s the premise of Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, and I’m pleased to say that it’s at least a little bit funny and charming, and not as awkward as one would fear.
The story begins with Yamada, the
notorious delinquent (falsely accused, though he is bad at
schoolwork) running into ace student Shiraishi, literally. They fall
down some stairs together, colliding impressively, and come to in
each others’ bodies. Over the course of the school day they spend
swapped, Yamada discovers that Shiraishi is being bullied and manages
(along with Shiraishi) to terrify her tormentor, after which they
manage to discover after some painful experimentation that it wasn’t
the fall but the collision of their lips, a “kiss” that was the
cause of the swap. Miyamura, one of the student council vice
presidents, appears and reveals that he knows their secret, and uses
that to resurrect the paranormal research club with Yamada and
Shiraishi as members.
The club soon recruits (to their
chagrin) Miyabi Ito, who discovers Shiraishi and Yamada kissing (to
swap bodies for an exam) and becomes despairing that the club that
was finally to her interests as nut for the paranormal was, in her
mind, just a cover for illicit relations. She starts to spread
rumors that the two are an item, which Yamada forcibly swaps bodies
with Ito to retract. However, once he’s in her shoes, he finds that
no one believes anything she says and she’s also being hustled, owing
money to some jerks who sold her worthless junk by saying it was
paranormal in nature. Yamada helps intimidate her out of her debt,
and Ito is now quite interested in a club with actual supernatural
nonsense.
At this point, you may be sensing a
pattern, as the show has its basic idea: Yamada meets someone new
(from here on often one of the other “witches”) and discovers and
solves their problem through kiss-delivered magic, often body
swapping.
We finally meet the second Witch in
episodes 4 & 5, Nene Odagiri. She’s the other Student Council
Vice President, in competition with Miyamura for the high seat next
year. She’s got a group of loyalists and a sultry, conniving
demeanor, and manages to obtain a blackmail photo of Yamada
(Shiraishi in Yamada’s body, going through Shiraishi’s bag during the
school trip) to force the Paranormal Research Club to throw the
Student Council President competition. Yamada tries to kiss her to
swap bodies and delete the “incriminating” photo from her phone
but after she’s oddly eager the kiss doesn’t seem to work on her, and
investigation with Miyamura and Ito makes it seem as though he’s lost
his power. The next day, however, it seems like things are more
complicated as Miyamura and Ito have both fallen madly in love with
Yamada, a status reversed with a second kiss each. Yamada’s power
has transformed or, rather, he always had a different power: the
power to copy other powers. Shiraishi is the source of the body swap
and Odagiri is the source of the charm powers. With Odagiri having
fallen under her own spell, it’s trivial to get out from under her
blackmail, after which we get an interesting scene.
Yamada and Odagiri are alone together.
The photo is deleted and Yamada intends to undo the charm over
Odagiri. Even knowing what the cause of her feelings is, though,
Odagiri begs Yamada to not release her. Though there is a moment of
what seems to be temptation he puts her back to her normal, terrible
old self anyway, but the framing and ideas indicate that, like with
the body swap power, the writers had an interest in exploring the
nature and depths of the charm power and what it might mean for a
person to have or be affected by it.
Sadly, this is the last time we get a deep study. Not that the others witches are bad but we had three episodes with just Shiraishi and two with Shiraishi and Odagiri. There’s just not enough time for the others to get the same level of development, especially as the first two are kept in the game, Shiraishi as the female lead and Odagiri as the foil, much like Ami Kawashima in Toradora!. And a lot like Kawashima, Odagiri is a character whose secondary status could have left her without a good deal of development but who instead stands as hugely memorable. So, the room for the later witches was… limited.
That said, the show does stick to
pattern. Yamada and pals find them, find that they have some sort of
problem, and help them with the problem, pursuing the mystery of the
seven witch powers they learn of from an old Paranormal Research Club
journal. Meiko Otsuka is the next witch, who has the power to
establish a telepathic network which she uses to help herself and
some remedial friends pass their make-up exams, which they manage
with Yamada’s help. Maria Sarushima is next, and her witch power is
to see a glimpse of the future of who she kisses, an ability which
has kept her at home ever since she had a vision of disaster for the
school, which Yamada has to work to avert in an especially awkward
circumstance because the key figure is another guy who has a crush on
Shiraishi (for those curious, he uses the school’s home ec classroom
to cook tempura when he’s upset, and a session is set to burn the
place down). Noa Takigawa, a witch with the power to see the past
traumas of others, has her own trauma which Yamada tries to help her
overcome in order to get her to stop being a terror. And a request
from Maria to see if her witch power can be removed (as she wants to
be able to live and love like a normal person) leads them to witch
#6, Mikoto Asuka, the student council’s terrifying secretary, and
another male with an ability, Shinichi Tamaki, who steals one power
at a time rather than copying like Yamada, currently holding Asuka’s
power of Invisibility (To a target kissed. All powers work only
through kissing). All of these are done in one episode each, leaving
time for the final arc.
At this juncture, the Student Council President puts a task to the hopefuls: Whichever team tells him the name of the seventh witch will have the mantle passed to their candidate: Miyamura, Odagiri, or Tamaki. Yamada, using the future sight power, receives a vision of Tamaki as president with Shiraishi, seemingly miserable, as his secretary, which causes Yamada both to realize his feelings for Shiraishi and to dedicate himself to winning the presidency for Miyamura to prevent a future in which Shiraishi is unhappy.
The search brings Yamada to Miyamura’s
big sister, Leona, who knows about the seventh witch and has been
living as a shut-in at home to avoid her. The seventh witch’s power
is, it seems, to erase memories, which she’s seemingly bound to do in
order to prevent too much knowledge about the witches as a whole
(specifically, the full list of their identities) from being
assembled by anyone outside the Student Council. One past victim was
the writer of the notebook on the witches, formerly the head of the
old Paranormal Research Club and formerly Leona’s sweetheart, who
forgot all about her after their time together was largely erased by
the Seventh Witch’s power – revealed to now be the Student Council
President, still ignorant of what he lost. Even so, Yamada turns in
the ‘assignment’ for Miyamura, knowing that he’ll have to face down
the Seventh Witch in person if he does. His friends promise to help
him remember if her power works and his memories are erased and sure
enough the two of them soon have a little chat… during which she
doesn’t even try to kiss Yamada. Instead, she’s already erased
everyone else’s memories of him and his deeds in the Paranormal
Research Club. Yamada’s friends don’t know him, and even fear him as
the delinquent he was thought to be, and the other witches have
reverted to the normal, horrible old selves they were before Yamada
helped them overcome their issues. His only ally is Tamaki, who
naturally couldn’t have his memory erased.
There’s an especially poignant/painful
bit in here where Shiraishi is the most difficult witch to connect
with, and not just because of the outside interference of the Student
Council; she resists being kissed (which would restore her memory
it’s eventually proved) because she knows she’s in love with someone.
The thing is, she doesn’t exactly know who because she’s this way
thanks to her memories but not her feelings being erased by the
seventh witch; she was, of course, in love with the Yamada she knew.
There’s some indication that the Student Council President may suffer
similar echoes, but it’s both funny and tragic how Yamada becomes a
love rival to himself. That’s not something too many characters can
pull off.
Also notable in this arc is the
progress of Odagiri’s character. She’s the first witch to have her
memories recovered and becomes an invaluable help to Yamada. She’s
also developed at least budding feelings for him, but in contrast to
her pre-development state as a kind of ruthless manipulator, she does
the right thing and tries to help him win back Shiraishi even though
it stings. Again, she does have a fairly similar arc to Ami
Kawashima. We also see one of her supporting characters, Ushio
Igarashi. Igarashi was a good friend of Yamada before the show, but
fell under Odagiri’s spell and became her right-hand man. Towards
the end of the show, though (in an echo of Odagiri’s earlier scene
with Yamada) he asks her not to, Odagiri ultimately releases him from
her power, expecting to be hated for how she used him, only to be
shocked when after the release and backlash he still professes
feelings for her, having apparently developed a normal and not
charm-magic-based attachment thanks to being close to her.
I really do like the study of Odagiri –
along with the lost memory moments between the Student Council
President and Leona, it’s some of the most surprisingly effective
stuff in the show (there’s effective material with the leads, but
that’s not as surprising)
After going through hell to reach
through the memory wiping making the Student Council President
question his own status in the process, the final bit of story
involves the reason the Witches were to be kept secret: if all seven
are brought together, a ritual can be performed to magically grant a
wish. Yamada gains the right to make the wish, and his choice of
request is to have the Witch powers vanish from the school. All of
the witches received their powers because they figured into some
deeply held desire. Odagiri wanted to be loved. Shiraishi wanted to
be somebody else. Otsuka wanted to be able to make friends. You get
the idea. But, as was evident through their character growth, the
powers had become crutches that the girls didn’t need, or even
burdens that were holding them back (as we saw with Odagiri and
Igarashi – she couldn’t believe that someone would love her without
her power). By erasing the witch powers, a capstone is placed on the
series, neatly wrapping up everything and cementing the characters in
their grown versions that no longer needed the witch abilities.
I’ve heard the Manga actually goes much
longer, with new plotlines and new sets of witches even, but the
anime feels marvelously contained as what it is. I’m honestly quite
surprised that the story goes on past the seventh witch arc, unless
the ending was stapled to a point earlier than it occurs in the
Manga.
So, some high points of the show. I’ve
talked a lot already about Nene Odagiri, and she really does deserve
it, but oddly I actually want to talk a bit about Shiraishi. I say
oddly because Shiraishi could, from a certain point of view, be
described as a flat affect character, a kind of character that I
don’t like much in general and that I hate in a leading lady. She
usually has a fairly mild expression that’s quite hard to read and
she doesn’t emote very much with her voice, at least not most of the
time. It is legitimately hard to tell what she’s thinking at times,
especially since she can be rather laconic, not explaining herself in
situations where you might expect it.
All the same, Shiraishi manages to
successfully walk the thin line and be a little enigmatic without
being frustratingly blank. I think a big part of it is that she does
have strong opinions which she will express in a manner that, while
plainly matter-of-fact, is actually refreshingly direct. Shiraishi
answers “why?” very rarely, but provides an answer to “what?”
fairly often. Another part is that I think her visage and mannerisms
are actually needed here, specifically because of the other element I
wanted to highlight, the body swapping.
Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches pulls
off the fact that it has a body swap premise with absolutely
commendable skill. Because Shiraishi and Yamada are often swapped
(and, less frequently, in other bodies still), it could get very
confusing for the audience to determine who is actually who.
However, it never does. Why? Because mannerisms go with the mind,
right down to facial expressions. Shiaishi’s trademark
placid-pleasant face is NOT one that Yamada would ever make, so when
he’s in her body, she doesn’t really look like herself, because the
Shiraishi body is making Yamada expressions. Similarly, Shiraishi in
Yamada’s body makes Shiraishi expressions and movements, which are
otherwise alien to Yamada. Shiraishi’s level nature is, in a way,
her loud marker, as it serves to make her different from whatever
body she’s inhabiting and/or whoever is inhabiting her body.
Mannerisms and movements are down to the person in the body too, and
the animators sell every swap marvelously. There are points where
Yamada is in Shiraishi’s body, haven gotten to know her pretty well,
and is trying to act like her to convince a third party it’s her, and
you can tell that it is Yamada in Shiraishi trying to act like
Shiraishi and doing a decent but imperfect job. The voice actors
also help a ton. You don’t get Yamada’s voice coming out of
Shiraishi when it’s Yamada in there, but the performance sounds more
like Yamada’s performance in how the character talks. The reverse
(and other needed moments) are also true, so in a sense most of the
voice actors in this show had to play other characters with a
divergent range at times while also playing their first character,
and the two leads in particular had to play two characters (The lead
as themselves and the lead as their opposite number) in an effective
manner.
There is a lot of skill on display,
across many levels of the production. It’s just a pity that it
couldn’t have been more. If Yamada-Kun and the Seven Witches has a
problem, its that it does have to rush at times. The arcs around
Odagiri and the Seventh Witch got the time they needed, all the other
witches had to make do with a single episode each when sometimes we
probably could have benefited from getting at least two instead. I
can’t quite say that it’s rushed, per say, but it certainly doesn’t
spread its wings as much as it could.
On the whole, I feel like Yamada-kun
and the Seven Witches sits comfortably at B+. Its ‘home’ range is B,
but there’s enough skill in the execution to be worth a little more
distinction. I’d recommend it as largely pleasant.