Witch Hat Atelier Re-Read (Part 1)
Re-reading Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama for the first time since I finished all the volumes about a year ago. I have a few thoughts. This is gonna be spoilers, so maybe pick up at least the first volume and read through. If you can't find it at your local library, there's a ton of websites where you can read manga for free. I suggest reading the first volume through your library or online or whatever and if you like what you see I would recommend buying the rest. Trust me, it's worth the money. And the cookbook!! There's a cookbook with recipes from the manga!! The illustrations are goddamn beautiful and you're probably gonna weep with relief if you can afford to purchase the physical copies. No pressure ofc. I'm not here to tell you you've gotta spend money you don't have when you could read it for free online.
Okay, so what you've gotta know about Witch Hat Atelier is that it doesn't hold back. Unlike a certain book series written by a certain racist TERF, Witch Hat Atelier is, at its deepest core, a story about morality. You know how the HP books refused to explore the broader moral implications and corruption of the wizard world? Cause I guess that would have been too self-aware? Witch Hat Atelier gives us this gorgeously illustrated world of magic and mystery....then turns right around and shows us exactly how fucked up the world is under the surface. And not in an edgy grimdark sorta way. I mean in an uneven distribution of wealth and authoritarian police force kinda way. ACAB includes the Knights Moralis.
And Coco is not a silent or innocent bystander. She sees all the wealth inequality, the suffering, the system enforced through physical violence and mental violence (mind wiping). She doesn't turn away from the harsh nuanced truths of her reality. She understands why the system operates the way it does and how the people inside justify their actions. The Knights Moralis are not a simple mundane evil or an aberration. They exist to enforce the laws and have justified the means long before they carry out horrific actions against people for what they understand to be The Greater Good. The Greater Good is really what this story focuses on in the later volumes, how characters justify physical violence and mental violence against people. They aren't made out to be The Good Guys, is what I'm saying. Coco is pursued and threatened by The Knights Moralis for trying to break the laws. Coco struggles with trusting the adults because she worries what they might say or do when they find out Custas, an impoverished and recently physically disabled young boy, was coerced into using forbidden magic. Custas isn't treated as an irredeemable villain either. He did what he did because the adults he trusted refused to help him and the Evil Guys (TM) use this as a way to manipulate Custas into using forbidden magic. In other words, the desperate impoverished kid gets radicalized after the system abandons him and his father figure to die. This is what we in the business like to call good fucking writing.
I've also gotta talk about the diversity in this manga because holy fucking hell. So many different body types and facial features in even the random background characters. We've got fat people, people with facial scars, visibly aged women and men, short people, people with big noses, people with hooked noses, butch women. And, most importantly, black and brown people. Like. I want everybody to stop what they're doing and look at these fucking phenomenal designs for black characters.
The clearly turban-inspired witch's hat. The unique black hairstyle and carefully rendered texture. What the fuck?? It's so rare to see black characters in manga and even rarer to see black characters who are treated with such care design-wise. It's clear that Kamome Shirahama put a lot of thought and research into what she wanted her black characters to look like and what she wanted them to wear. Yeah, it's very disappointing that most of the black characters we've had so far are one off characters or side characters who've had very little plot relevance. But honestly, I'm willing to put that aside (for now anyway) and just gush about how wonderful these designs are. And for one off/side characters with very little plot relevance? That's a lot of extra thought put into these characters.
I haven't finished the re-read yet and I'm sure I'll have more thoughts, but for now? I'm happy this manga exists and I've been able to read it.
Also, side not: anybody seen the official website for the upcoming anime? It's gorgeous.
All the images used in this blog post are from the official Witch Hat Atelier Fandom page. The art itself belongs to the amazing artist/writer of this manga Kamome Shirahama.