New season, a whole bunch of premieres. I’m still down to try everything but it’s exhausting watching a dozen or so premieres and deciding what to cover from there. So for this season, I decided to pick the shows in advance and see if that might make things more manageable. Once Upon a Witch’s Death is the first show on the docket and I admit that I chose this on a whim. The premise caught on my eye and the main protagonist is voiced by Yoshino Aoyama, whose work I really enjoyed in BOCCHI THE ROCK!.
Once Upon a Witch’s Death stars Meg Raspberry (Yoshino Aoyama), a witch in training. On her seventeenth birthday, Meg learns from her teacher and one of the world’s Seven Sages, Faust (Yoshiko Sakakibara), that she was born with a curse called the Death Sentence. When Meg turns eighteen, the spell will cause her rapidly age until she dies. Her only cure is to collect literal Tears of Joy from 1,000 people into a special bottle that’ll give Meg enough energy to offset the curse and allow her to live a full life. Suffice to say, this will be easier said than done. Funnily enough, the show does explain why Meg is only finding out about her curse a year before her fate. Faust deliberately kept it a secret because if she told Meg earlier, her student would procrastinate and neglect to collect enough tears. By only giving Meg a year, the girl is forced to focus on the task at hand. A little silly given the gravity of the situation but it’s still painfully relatable. Plus, giving Meg a year gives her a decent amount of time while adding some urgency to the plot.
Given the show’s plot, there’s potential for a solid anthology series where Meg meets all sorts of people and possibly learn more about herself along the way. The first episode makes a promising case by having Meg meet Anna Williams, a young girl whose father Dr. Hendy is a regular customer of Faust’s and whose mother Iris died recently. Anna wants to leave her mother’s favorite flowers on her grave though neither her nor her father is sure which species it is. By going through photos of Iris and Hendy’s travels, Meg deduces that Iris’s favorite flower must be Yoshino Cherry Blossoms from the Far East. Since it’d be difficult to obtain the flower on short notice, Meg fulfills Anna’s request by using an illusion spell that temporarily turns the trees in the graveyard into ones with the cherry blossoms.
On its own, I really enjoy this story of the week. It’s a good demonstration of Meg using her wits and magic to fulfill a good deed. I also like that the show takes the time to explore the guest characters. Anna initially acts as if she doesn’t understand her mother is dead to trick herself into dealing with her mother’s death better. It’s only until Meg creates the illusion and consoles her that she allows her self to grieve. Meanwhile, Dr. Hendy feels he failed to make enough time for his wife, due to being preoccupied with his work and providing his family a good home. What gives him closure is Meg noting that all the herbs Iris collected are to ensure he and Anna could live healthy lives, thereby showing that Iris still loved him and their daughter. It’s interesting seeing the two characters deal with their loss differently and it’s satisfying watching Meg help them come to terms with it.
What also makes this plot work is how it relates to Meg. The fact that her first good deed involves death and that Iris died young seems very intentional, as if to have Meg get some idea of what’ll be like when she dies after turning eighteen. That especially becomes at the end when Anna hopes to see Meg become a witch greater than Faust and Meg promises to do just that because she can’t bear to tell the little girl about her curse. I think it’s at this moment that Meg really understands the gravity of her condition. Not only is she fated to die in a year, there’ll also be people that’ll miss her and that motivates her even more to collect the Tears of Joy and overcome the Death Sentence.
Funnily enough, Meg doesn’t actually gain any Tears of Joy from her helping the Williams family. Faust reveals that they’re more of a mix of joy and grief, which does make sense given the plot of this episode. That said, the tears Meg gained are “Pure Tears”, which are potent in power, hence the magic bottle still collected them. So technicality aside, I guess that’s 2 down and 998 more to go? I don’t want to lock in on this show just yet but I really enjoyed this first episode so I’m down to at least the next step in Meg’s journey.
Watch Once Upon a Witch’s Death on Crunchyroll
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