Welcome Back! Yes Halloween is done and gone, but I have not finished talking! So buckle up! I’m your manga reader Anthony and here’s a spoiler heavy review of Chapters 1 through 3 of “Ichi the Witch”.
So to start off with chapter 1, Ichi seems like the pretty standard Shonen jump protagonist however very quickly we seem to understand that he has a little screws loose in that head of his. With his abandonment since birth on the mountain he calls home being the main catalyst of what he calls “Death for Death”.
While at first this may seem like an attempt to be edgy and brooding for the sake of being edgy and brooding it actually makes sense in the way he describes it.
Now then, During his time on the mountain and he learns to hunt, forage, fish and set traps all to survive and while it is expected to gain this sort of indifference towards death it seems that Ichi has attached a sense of morality to it by saying what he did in this panel. While it isn’t uncommon for Shonen protagonists to have a very strong moral compass I do want to highlight that this does affect how he goes on to behave in the rest of the chapters but more in depth about that later in Chapter 3. We all have read that after this explanation we go on to meet the next two main characters.
Magik King Uroro (on the right) and Desscaras the Abyssal witch (on the left) now these two are very important driving factors to how the world of “Ichi the Witch” plays out as these two seem to be super important in the culture of Magik hunting. The character of Desscaras is often described as being this pompous and super important as she is kinda like the big queen bee in the witches society as when Uroro is found she is the one to go after him and he seems to respect her and her reputation. However Uroro being the special little boy that he is, is a cheat. His condition for defeat is basically it has to be a man. Which in this world is basically a living paradox. If you’ve read the first chapter you understand that Uroro states “As long as you witches are women, you will never acquire me, it’s impossible” and later on in the next chapter it is confirmed by Desscaras that only women have the ability to control Magiks and that she is the strongest one as stated before by Uroro himself. The last part of the chapter is rather simple and can be summed up as such:
Ichi being a man kills Uroro and acquires him. Which is kinda anti-climatic in a weird way as Ichi kinda just traps him in a wire trap and the stabs him through the heart. Now while this is a weird way to kill off an antagonist it is to be noted that this is what I mean when I said that Death for Death impacts how Ichi views this culture of Magik hunting. To him it’s just like hunting big animals that he normally would for food. In a universe where they basically are just massive animals it is kinda overlooked that you can do this however this is covered more in Chapter 3. With that I it ends my review of chapter 3 and we move on to Chapter 2.
During this chapter we mainly get a lot of exposition on what Uroro can do which is basically amplify magic spells and their power. This being the case it seems that it’s actually a huge amplification as seen in this panel:
Now not only is this actually important to note as it does leave Ichi asleep for three days it seems that this whole magik thing has a few sets of checks and balances that is kinda up in the air. With the knowledge of just these three chapters there doesn’t seem to be this rock paper scissors type of system rather it’s almost seems like it’s up in the air while mixing real world physics and elements. Now while Desscaras’ version of events is actually rather cheeky it gets the point across that Ichi is one hell of an anomaly in this universe. With that being said it is rather odd as to why in the thousand years that Uroro has been around for why no one figured out that you had to be male to kill him is beyond me. Excluding the obvious which is because plot needs to happen and because Ichi is the main character. It seems that this Magik is rather weird. Uroro has stated to have been around at least a thousand years in this panel from chapter 1:
I am reiterating this as again it is weird to me that the rules of Uroro’s trial are never completed and it may be because that since only women were able to use Magic it didn’t seems possible that a man was ever needed to be involved which makes sense logically in-universe. It still baffles me that it hadn’t happen sooner. Moving forward this chapter is really short with a short 26 pages of actual panels it does nothing more than progress the story and establish the relationship between Ichi, Uroro, Desscaras even further. Moving on to Chapter 3:
Yes, yes. I am reusing this panel. However it is important. You see this chapter while being fast paced is important in noticing how Death for Death affects how Ichi sees the Magik hunting culture and more importantly how his own hunting is used in said culture. While Uroro expects this and wants an intense battle that most Shonen Mangas are known for (think dragon ball, Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, Blue Exorcist) Ichi is more like:
He does not view these magical entities as something worth making a huge fuss about but rather an animal that he is genuinely hunting. Well duh right he’s a hunter. I am not a hunter so I cannot even begin to put myself in their shoes but it seems that Ichi views these animals in a fundamentally different way, The witches view them as great beasts of power and wisdom much like the legends of the Greeks while Ichi thinks about taking it’s pelt. It is this chapter why I believe that Ichi’s Death for Death will cause him as the story moves on to view these beasts fairly different and make for great comedic usage and possibly even more creative usages of magic never really seen.
Conclusion and Personal Thoughts.
This fresh off the page manga is a great read and I feel it will most likely garner a great decent fanbase! Now will it be enough to fill in the slots of the now finished Manga like My hero and Jujutsu Kaisen? Only time will tell and so far it is going! Aside from story the art is just amazing, the usage of different methods of shading and perspective as well as Chibi mode has made this a very enjoyable read but also a visually captivating one, Illustration in these types of mediums needs to help the story bring out it’s best. You can have good Illustration but your story must be able to keep the audience captured. Having bad illustration but great story can work but only for so long until a better image is needed much like in the case of One Punch Man. With that being said, I have been Anthony and I will see you all again soon!
