Overview: ‘Ichi The Witch’ Will Enchant You

If you’ve been in the anime-focused corners of the Internet, you may have heard of the highly anticipated manga, Ichi The Witch. It takes place in a world where witches hunt fantastic creatures to gain magical abilities. Only women can become witches, that is until a boy named Ichi slays a rare beast and becomes the first male witch.

It has an appealing premise for an action-adventure shonen manga. Unlike other shonen following the mold set by Dragon Ball and Naruto, Ichi isn’t your typical protagonist; his character design and personality lean more cute and feminine.

Ichi feels more analogous to characters like Nagisa Shiota from Assassination Classroom and Tokiyuki Hojo from The Elusive Samurai. All three characters fulfill the emerging sub-genre of “femboys who kick ass”. As a reader who never really gravitated to the shonen genre, I think these slight changes are enough to make Ichi The Witch a fresh reading experience.

The main lead isn’t the only character who breaks the mold, his mentor figure, Desscaras, is humorously egotistical. Additionally, it’s great that Desscaras — an authentically Black woman — is a key character in a popular series. Japanese manga have been slow to accurately represent Black faces and bodies and it doesn’t surprise me that the manga creators, Osamu Nishi and Shiro Usazaki, are both women.

While there’s a lot that’s unique here, the first volume feels familiar in that it acts as a set up for a larger narrative. Ichi The Witch is a one-of-a-kind manga that’s worth checking out and I know the anime will be a phenomenon when it eventually gets announced.