Witch Hat Atelier
Japanese Name: とんがり帽子のアトリエ (Tongari Bōshi no Atorie)
Author & Illustrator: Kamome Shirahama
Translation: Stephen Kohler
Lettering: Lys Blakeslee; Editing: Ajani Oloye; Kodansha Comics edition cover design: Phil Balsman; Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Manga, series ongoing in Japanese, 13 + books in English.
Spin off / Associated works / Awards: Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen (short stories with Witch Hat Atelier characters with working IRL recipes) which is absolutely adorable. It has 5+ volumes in it. There’s also an upcoming announced anime. The manga also won an award back in 2020.
Is this review spoiler free? Somewhat. It’s spoiler-free for plot, with the exception of world lore, magical workings, and specific inventions to explain how great the story is. I also do mention that a past event is shown in volume 9, chapter 120, but I mark the spoiler in this review and do not mention names, specifics, details, or even suggest characters.
I think you’ll be spoiled more from the wikipedia article than me.
Fast summary: In a fantasy world, only witches (all genders) have magic and magic is only for fellow witches and their descendants. Coco, a young nearly teenage girl, has always adored magic and wanted to be a witch, but she’s just a tailor working in her mom’s shop. She wasn’t born a mage and therefore can’t do magic.
Except, she’s got this book a witch sold her as a small child. After spying on the witch Qifrey casting a spell, she tried one of the spells from the book. It worked – horribly so.
She joins the Qifrey as his apprentice in his Atelier to learn magic. But magic – and the world of witches as a whole – isn’t as simple or as wonderful as Coco thinks.
At first glance, it’s a cute story about a young girl defying norms to become a witch – except it’s not. Without spoiling things, it quickly is revealed that this is a world with flying pegasus carriages and magic toilets, but it’s also a world where witches have used magic to war in the past and are, in their own way, controlling the world. It’s very Ghibli in that way.
It’s a story that’s got substance and the main character certain has her charm and flaws. She definitely suffers from imposter syndrome, which is something that’s commonly felt among magical practitioners. “Am I really experiencing magic or this divine event or is it all in my head?”
More importantly, the magic is SUPER SOLID. (Yes, the caps is necessary.) All of magic in this world operates on sigils. It’s actually a stunning example of sigil magic. Art witches and those who particularly like sigils will enjoy the series.
It’s also got some really good magic lessons in there. That repetition is great for building skills. That the ideas and thinking behind the spells can be just as crucial as the actual spellcasting or materials. That magic can be part of your everyday life, especially if it makes you nervous or you want to get good at it. And that life itself has it’s own special kind of magic that’s present, if you’re willing to see it.
A major key point of the story is adapting, creating, coming up with solutions to a problem or for a client while using the basic building blocks you already learned. It’s really a beautiful lesson many practitioners should appreciate – forging your own path, even when others tell you that’s not the right way.
Of course, the whole plot of the series involves conflict regarding the state of the world and, in some ways, how magic of this world works. Issues with rushing too hard towards a goal, trying to do everything your own way, and endless guilt over a mistake. There’s fears and phobias with consequences. There’s going too far and not knowing when to stop. And there are certain kinds of magic that is considered forbidden and that’s a major plot point of the series.
There’s issues involving disabilities not being accommodated for – and the ones that are. Two separate characters have physical disabilities. One characters with an invisible but life disrupting disability is disparaged and no one’s made adaptations or accommodations for them. However, two characters are shown to have wheelchairs-esque objects. Another character is missing an eye and has accommodations for that missing eye. Blindness is also discussed.
Anyone who suffers from an invisible disability, such as mental illness, color-blindness, migraines or chronic pain knows what it’s like to be disparaged because “you don’t look sick”.
There’s a magical side to this. Being able to see or visualize your magic is often considered an essential step for practitioners. But what if you can’t? Are you suppose to just simply give up magic without being able to see? Give up visualization because you’re bad at it?
We’ve got a host of characters, some POC, some queer, some disabled as mentioned earlier. It’s rather diverse in that aspect. Romance is on the fringes – people are already in relationships or there’s first crush sort of deals.
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// VAGUE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 9, CHAPTER 120 //, scroll down quickly
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In book 9, around chapter 120 covers victim blaming, peeping / sexual assault, and a character’s backstory involving underage sexual assault with implied rape. In both cases, the perpetrators were caught and brought to justice. There’s even a content warning in the book before you start the chapter!
(And the chapter is totally skippable as it doesn’t progress the plot, just character insights and development).
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// END SPOILERS //
I recommend this to read if you’re into plot-driven character development, interesting fantasy worlds, stellar magical systems, and solid representation.
As mentioned above, there is also a spin-off series with recipes in it. The recipes are accompanied with short stories, free of the plot of the main series. I have a few of the recipes on my list to try and some are fun versions of recipes I’m familiar with. It also shows more world lore and magic that is just so good.
All of that being said, I haven’t finished either of the series. I’ve been reading it in the officially published Kodansha English edition for years now and my Japanese isn’t up to translating the fantasy elements from the original, so no spoilers if you drop a comment.
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