Witch Hat Atelier 1

Coco has always wanted to be able to use magic, especially since running into a man who gave her a book of magic when she was young. But she knows, as does everyone, that you have to be born with magic and Coco was not. That doesn't change the fact that she at the very least wants to see a Witch perform magic and when by chance one arrives at her mother's shop Coco has the perfect opportunity as long as she doesn't get caught! As the saying goes curiosity killed the cat and Coco will get everything she wants while losing everything she loves. I've been playing the Atelier games on PS4/Switch pretty much once a week every week so, to be honest, and totally not fair to the manga, I pictured this series being kinda like the games. They really have nothing to do with each other, as far as I'm aware, so not even sure why I did. Anyway, I'm almost glad I did though because I wasn't really expecting this to go a little bit dark side right off the bat with Coco literally encasing her mom in stone and having no way of releasing her. Not really as lighthearted as I thought it was going to be. The other thing that kinda through me was Agott's character, she was downright mean! I thought at the very least after Coco passed the test she'd be a bit nicer but nope she was still just mean! By the way, those all sound like complaints but they aren't, I love it when a story is everything I didn't expect it to be, it makes it so much more fun to read when you realize that all of your expectations have been just thrown at the window! In terms of the rest of the characters and Coco especially she is pretty much exactly how I expected her to be. At least so far. She is going to work twice as hard as everyone else because she needs to save her mom. What I really enjoyed more than anything with this is the art though. Especially the character and costume designs, they are so detailed! I probably spent a good five minutes looking at each character as they were introduced because they are each really unique. The backgrounds are gorgeous as well, I was thoroughly impressed by the attention to detail art-wise in this volume. Overall, this was not as lighthearted as I expected it to be, however, Coco's perseverance to overcome the first large obstacle that was put in her way hooked me almost immediately! With a cliffhanger ending (it's a manga so that's kind of given) that puts the apprentices in a scary situation, I'm looking forward to seeing not just how Coco overcomes this but hopefully how the girls work together to overcome the unexpected and assumably dangerous situation they find themselves in!

Honestly, this is probably the best hard magic series I've ever read. If you're a fan of magic that has very defined and interesting rules you need to read this. Plus the characters are really charming and likeable. The world is really interesting and it's very beautifully drawn. I'm completely hooked on this. I don't really reread manga that often, but I've definitely reread this one several times. It's that good.