Helen: With Coco’s unsteady straddling of the mundane and magical worlds, I always thought that it was the magical world that would give her the most trouble. It seems to be widely known that she’s an outsider permitted to learn magic and we see that Qifrey, the only other known person in the story with a similar background, is still shunned even after becoming a full-fledged witch with apprentices. But instead it’s the mundane world that causes Coco the most grief since she knows the truth: any little girl, any adult man, any person in the world could use magic but other people have taken away the tools from them, like parents would do to an infant.
And so during Custas’s confrontation of Coco and Tartah, an inevitable after Custas comes across Brimmed Cap Witch Ininia in the last volume, Coco sometimes looks like she’s in physical pain, being accused of withholding life-changing magic from him but the situation is more complicated than she could ever be allowed to explain. It would be easy for Tartah to deflect some of Custas’s barbs, saying that his lack of color vision has caused every other witch to assume he can never become one, that wouldn’t divulge any of magic’s secrets, but Tartah admits that he’s chosen to follow the lies forced upon them, rightly or wrongly. In some ways, Coco must be the most successful experiment the brimmed hats have ever had: even Tartah won’t really consider breaking the rules of magic and upending the world, but it’s hard to imagine this series ending with Coco not doing that.
The deeper we get into the world of magic the more spoiled it seems to become; with all of the witches gathering for Silver Eve we get a bit of a glimpse of the politics behind the scenes and also more insight into some of the other adult witches. I do believe that some of the full-fledged witches in this world we’ve met truly are good people, like how Qifrey demonstrates the community service all witches are required to perform yearly, but then we see in a flashback how at least one mentor asked for a memory spell to be put upon his apprentice since her reaction to the sexual assault she escaped were causing too many “problems” for him and his client. Thankfully for this character, current Knights Moralis enforcer Luluci, the Knights were able to see that it was her mentor that was the problem here and did not follow his request, but seeing this fully-fleshed out world of magic and consequences is truly one of the best things about this series, even if it’s terrible for the characters living in it.
This volume ends on quite the cliffhanger standoff involving Coco, Tartah, and Custas, and the promise of a b-plot with Tetia finally getting the same kind of focus the way her atelier-mates have, and I can hardly wait as we get one volume closer to catching up with the serialization.
Helen’s rating: 4.5 out of 5
Justin: What Coco has continued to learn from being a normal human aspiring to become a witch to being told you have to be born one, only to then discover that’s a lie by witches in order to keep everyone safe, has allowed her to see the good and the bad of that decision. From the start of Witch Hat Atelier to her journey to this current point, Coco has seen much after accidentally using magic on her mom, and with everything she’s experienced along the way, you suddenly start to see Coco, whose eyes shone and mind full about magic being amazing, start to waver in a way that’s seems unnoticeable unless you really pay attention. She even begins questioning if she should have fun.
In volume 9, she finally reckons with her unique position — and different factions want to take advantage of it.
How interesting that in what should be a very festive and delightful time at the Silver Eve, many troubles break out politically and simmer around the festivities, essentially waiting to explode. We get the debut of the Five Kingdoms, a host of new characters aside from them, someone abusing their position, a runaway prince, a castle without magic allowed in it, Luluci’s past, the return of Custas but not in the way we last saw him, and of course, the new witch that appeared towards the end of volume 8.
But while all these pots keep simmering, the main pot has Coco getting asked if she can become a witch — after Coco’s simple contraption of flight took off at the booth. What should be a simple answer is far too complex for Coco, who’s in the position of knowing too much. The change in Coco is relatable: you’re young, you have ideas on what you want to do, but on that path you learn the good and bad, and from there you have to find an answer that’s unique to yourself. Her woes only get further exacerbated when Custas shows up alongside Ininia, and, along with Tartah, will have to test what it really means to be a friend.
There are a lot of storylines in this volume, which ranges from Agott trying to perform at the festival’s main event and Richeh creating a contraption that allows friends and special ones to find each other (sure to be plot points in the future). But interestingly, what also got my attention in volume 9 was the appearance of the prince who wants to become a witch but can’t, and there may have been like 4 or 5 pages involving him, ending with Tetia eventually finding him. The reason is because he lives inside a castle that has sealed off magic, which, maybe on the outside seems reasonable for safety and the Knights Moralis should be able to handle any threat due to their training.
But inside, what does that say about the place that absolutely no magic can be allowed there? Doesn’t something seem odd about that? And as it’s mentioned the prince usually escapes during Silver Eve, where lots of witches are there with their contraptions…in other words, I’m curious to find out more about this prince, and how Tetia will handle this encounter.
The one other thing that will likely be noticeable is the chapter where readers are warned about sexual abuse and victim blaming. This ends up involving one of the better characters on the Knights Moralis, Luluci, which explores her past and how she ultimately joined the knights. I’ve been of two minds on this, and I ultimately ended up with the wording of this isn’t helpful. Publishers should take time to give a heads up like this, particularly in a series where it seems the least likely to ever show up. And maybe in a vacuum, the actual storyline that leads to looking at Luluci’s past seems mundane.
But short of the creator stating this themselves — if this was said in the Japanese edition, fine — saying “alternately, this chapter may be skipped entirely; doing so will not interfere with understanding of the main plot” is unnecessary. For all we know, any of the plots within that chapter could be brought back up later on in the series, of which there’s currently 10 volumes…and not leaving it up to the reader to decide after the warning feels like a mistake. I imagine there was discussion about this so the idea isn’t bad, but the wording, again, feels unnecessary.
There are so many storylines that emerged in this one volume that I fear a few of these will be unresolved or not answered well…but the set-ups are certainly appealing, with Coco’s witch and human values being put to the test by someone she knows. Will the world of Witches actually change because of this? What will happen next to all these characters? Yeah, Shirahama’s got much explaining to do…I’m waiting!
Justin’s rating: 4.5 out of 5