Burn the Witch

Although citizens of London view dragons as a fairy-tale myth, statistics confirm that 72% of the city's deaths are caused by these grotesque beings. Unable to see them, the public is oblivious to their existence. However, in a mirror dimension to "Front London," exists a place where dragons can be seen with the naked eye—"Reverse London."

Ninny Spangcole is a member of a popular girl group. But in Reverse London, she works as a "Witch" at Wing Bind—an organization that dispatches agents to exterminate the beasts and protect the citizens of both Londons using magic. Ninny and her partner, Noel Niihashi, in addition to their jobs, safeguard Baldo Ywain Parks, a young man with an odd connection to the dragons.

Thanks to the Wing Bind's hard work, there were no fatal dragon attacks for almost a century. But the peace shatters when Baldo's presence unexpectedly causes a Dark Dragon to wreak havoc in the city. The witches are further inconvenienced when Ninny's troublesome former bandmate appears in Reverse London—in tandem with another powerful dragon.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Niihashi, Noel Main

Yamada, Yuina Japanese

Spangcole, Ninny Main

Tano, Asami Japanese

Bangnyfe, Bruno Supporting

Kobayashi, Chikahiro Japanese

Osushi-chan Supporting

Hikisaka, Rie Japanese

Parks, Balgo Ywain Supporting

Tsuchiya, Shinba Japanese

Banx Jr., Billy Supporting

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Baljure, Macy Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Squire, Sullivan Supporting

Shimizu, Haruka Japanese

Slashhaut, Wolfgang Supporting

Mugihito Japanese

B. Dipper, Roy Supporting

Tanaka, Miou Japanese

Simone, Jamie Producer

Kawano, Tatsurou Director

Miyoshi, Keiichirou Sound Director

Masuda, Atsuhito Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Nov 20, 2024

blessingsannuity

Recommended

Burn the Witch obviously at this stage some obvious flaws as a result of getting pushed into such a small time frame but despite that I still think it was a fun watch. I feel like Kubo really wanted to go in a younger more colorful direction in contrast with the edgy and angsty style of Bleach and he has done that very well. This being set in the Bleach universe also brings up a lot of questions regarding what dragons are. Since they are basically a version of hollow, what would dragons be? Hollows come from the souls of humans while dragons seem to ... breed and hatch from eggs. How does the power system work? Could the Chief beat Goku? I came out of this with more questions than answers. I anticipate the direction that this series is heading and if another part of this gets released I will surely watch more.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 9, 2024

Adnash

Mixed Feelings

It's always upsetting to see such a good-looking show end up being all form over substance. Unfortunately, things such as stellar animation, beautiful colours, interesting looking art style, and cool character designs can't carry the overall chaotic direction and extremely rushed, poorly written plot.

"Burn the Witch" offers a very nice and intriguing setting that serves as mere background to a story that's just half-baked. Half-baked, because how would one call a situation when viewers are supposed to care about anything and anyone, when all they learn throughout the show is that "this place exists, this person exists as well"? Why do viewers have to learn ... about presumably important and strong secondary characters, see them saying a phrase or two, and afterwards not hear anymore about most of them, or just see them being somewhere in the background and saying something cryptic that's also not elaborated upon later on? Many high schoolers would write a better scenario, even for such a short animated series. It's even worse if we consider that without knowing the prequel movie, which was released 3 years (!) after the reviewed series, the viewers will have a hard time figuring out what the heck is exactly happening in the story, why do some situations occur, and why do certain characters act like they do. Yup, "Burn the Witch" doesn't offer any introduction, not without watching the "Burn the Witch #0.8" prequel movie.

Speaking about its length, there are three episodes, and each one is 20 minutes long. In theory, that would be alright to tell a cute story. That is, if the writing was at least on an acceptable level. Sadly, like I mentioned earlier, the writing was mediocre at best, but most of the time it was chaotic and messy. The direction was weird as well, as if the show couldn't find balance between more static and more dynamic scenes, but preferred to just mix them up and end up with a rather convoluted mess.

Some might say that it was like this in the source material. Some might say that this show fits the "Bleach" universe in which it is set. I'm neither familiar with the first nor the second thing, so as an anime only viewer, I can't relate to any of them. However, even if I had knowledge about one thing or another, I wouldn't treat it as something positive. If an anime is not labelled as a spin-off series, then it's not unwise to assume that one may enjoy the story without knowing the main series, no? Obviously, a shared universe is not the same as a shared story, after all. And at the end of the day, we're talking about an animated show that is loosely related to an already existing series. The fact that source material was worse or better, or that some elements might make more sense if someone is familiar with said existing series, shouldn't matter, in my opinion.

I was torn between choosing "Mixed Feelings" or "Negative" as the final verdict for this review. I think the former will be more appropriate. I don't regret watching it myself. It didn't take a lot to watch the reviewed show and the aforementioned prequel movie, after all. Although, I can't recommend this show if you care about anything else than its great-looking visuals. Not with all the cons this show has, which I pointed out earlier.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Jul 18, 2022

tmancm

Not Recommended

Funny

I am going to start with the positives first. The animation is amazing, to the point that I feel bad the it going to be associated with this show's everything else. Also, it had some interesting worldbuilding ideas but it didn't explore that nearly enough.


Ok that's the positives, now the negatives. The story feels both rushed and stalled at all times, I'm not even sure how that's possible. Things will just happen as if it was an already established, meaning there is little no explanation why things happen, but then there will be a 10 minutes of talking about nothing with characters we never met.

This ... entire show feels as if you started a long-running Shonen on episode 50, which just so happened to be halfway into the arc where they introduce the over-arcing villain of the story. It just tries to gaslight the viewer into believing that the characters and the world have already been set up and that there was an actual story being told.

I had to check many times to see if this was a sequel or prequel or a part of a franchise or that there was some thing that tied everything together, but no there wasn't. I am just hoping that this adaption was adapting something further into the manga's story, I have to believe that this made sense in the context of the manga.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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The official website for the anime adaptation of Tite Kubo's Burn the Witch announced a prequel titled Burn the Witch 0.8 on Saturday. The website also reveale...read more

Sep 16, 2023 8:45 AM by DatRandomDude | Discuss (15 comments)

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	Poll: Burn the Witch Episode 3 Discussion Adnash - Apr 8	3 replies	by Yurex »» Oct 21, 9:27 PM
	Poll: Burn the Witch Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) anime-prime - Oct 1, 2020	140 replies	by Yurex »» Oct 21, 9:02 PM
	Poll: Burn the Witch Episode 2 Discussion Adnash - Apr 7	0 replies	by Adnash »» Apr 7, 11:40 PM
	Who is better Ninny or Noel? DSAO086 - Jan 3	20 replies	by Koukyoukyoku »» Jan 5, 9:53 AM
	Your favorite character in Burn the Witch(ANIME ONLY) DSAO086 - Jan 3	9 replies	by oogaboogascary »» Jan 4, 7:51 PM