Burn the Witch

By Andrew Osmond.

Burn the Witch is a quick slice of action in a fantasy London with dragons and witches. It’s from the studio that made Penguin Highway and from the manga writer, Tite Kubo, who created Bleach.  Actually, we should get the Bleach thing out of the way. As you might have read, Burn the Witch is officially set in the same world as Bleach, but it’s the loosest of links, and the anime certainly isn’t just for Bleach fans. There are no shared characters, no references to Bleach lore, just a cute little nod. If you want more on Burn the Witch’s world and characters – and admittedly the anime leaves many things unexplained – there’s one manga volume so far.

This is one of those fantasy stories in which the “real” world is full of magic – it’s just that ordinary people can’t see it. The characters in Burn the Witch live in London, but they also speak of a “Reverse London” that’s the realm of magic creatures hidden from our eyes. (Perhaps it has a Diagon Alley.) The main characters are two girl witches, who work as a pair in a bigger magic organisation. They’re the grave Noel and the peppery Ninny, and neither of them has any time for acting cute. They’re able to deal with a range of creatures – in the first moments, Noel chases a deer with giant bat-wings. However, their priority is handling dragons.

London is infested with the things, which is why they’re so prominent on the capital’s coat of arms. How their existence is completely unnoticed by normal citizens is never really explained in the anime, but perhaps magic users are really good at rewriting memories. In any case, it allows for plenty of monster action, with the great beasts bashing their way through London’s architecture. The Godzilla comparisons are obvious, but an early sequence with a four-footed behemoth in the streets feels like the first great urban monster rampage in cinema. No, not King Kong, but rather the brontosaurus which causes havoc in London in the finale to the 1925 silent film The Lost World.

Noel and Ninny spend much of their time in flight, and the show has enough mild fanservice to conjure memories of the infamous Strike Witches, though it’s far tamer here, more humorous than lewd. The interactions between the surly Ninny and placid Noel are a large part of the comedy – it’s just a pity the anime also has to bring in a useless himbo, a hapless boy called Balgo, who gets dragged into the sky by his own “tame” dragon and who has an annoying fixation with Noel.

Released to cinemas in Japan, Burn the Witch’s cheery animation is by Studio Colorido, best known for the films Penguin Highway, A Whisker Away and Drifting Home. If Burn the Witch doesn’t match those films’ biggest spectacles, it still delivers a satisfying third-act finale amid the rooftops of London, as the girls dart round the capital’s exploding architecture, delivering polemics on why you should never trust fairy tales. One mostly minor character plays a surprise role in the denouement – he’s the girls’ moustached supervisor, Billy Banx Jr. He’s voiced in Japanese by Hiroaki Hirata, and if you’re trying to place his voice, then he’s played another unassuming adult who everyone underestimates – Tiger in Tiger & Bunny.

Andrew Osmond is the author of 100 Animated Feature Films. Burn the Witch is released in the UK by Anime Limited.