Kara Dennison
April 10, 2025 
The anime adaptation of Kenta Shinohara’s fantasy rom-com Witch Watch brings a dose of wacky magic to the small screen. Hijinks ensue as ogre-boy Morihito attempts to keep an eye on his witchy charge. The manga has been a hit in the pages of Shonen Jump for quite some time now. And it’s not hard to see why. Besides being cute, clever, and emotional, the show leans into a long-standing tradition of witch girls in Japanese media.
Nico’s story begins 6o years ago, and threads its way through decades of magical girl manga and anime. Join us as we explore the history of witch girls in your favorite shows!
Samantha and Sally
The pedigree of Witch Watch starts with a certain sitcom that’s gone on to inspire lots of other beloved series: the domestic fantasy comedy Bewitched. Premiering in 1964 in the US, the series was dubbed into Japanese and aired in Japan starting in 1966. And hot on the heels of Samantha was Sally: one of the first two magical girls in manga and anime history.
In the same year Bewitched was winning fans in Japan, Mitsuteru Yokoyama jumped on the craze to make his own version of the story. Rather than a housewife, his witch was a princess from the Kingdom of Magic who came to live among humans. As with Samantha, Sally both created and fixed problems with her magical powers. And in addition to helping to kick off the magical girl genre, she became the first of many witch girls in anime.
The Witches’ Road
Many anime throughout the intervening decades have focused on witch girls, with Witch Watch being the latest. It’s become something of a subgenre of magical girl anime. The concept of a magically-gifted girl from another world was a constant in the early days of magical girl anime, from Majokko Tickle to Minky Momo, even if the witch aesthetic wasn’t strictly present. But as time went on, and after some Sally the Witch remakes, the style would return to our screen.
1999’s Ojamajo Doremi centered a whole magical girl franchise around the concept of witches. Later down the line, Precure would devote a season to witchy antics. And plenty more—from Little Witch Academia to Tweeny Witches—would carry on that love. One could even make an argument that Madoka Magica belongs in this grouping… though the show’s surreal monsters bear little physical or practical resemblance to the witches of yore.
In the Present
While witchy symbolism has been largely the purview of the magical girl genre, Witch Watch is back with a lot of Bewitched vibes. Granted, Nico is in high school and living with a whole bunch of cute boys… but it’s pretty clear that Morihito (a.k.a. “Moi”) is her one and only. Unlike Darrin, Moi is much more built to handle magical nonsense, being from a line of ogres. But he and her other cute boy familiars do still tend to take the brunt of her spells’ punishments… even though sometimes they’re the ones requesting the spells.
Also like Bewitched, Witch Watch is largely dedicated to a single formula: spell gets cast, hijinks ensue, witch must figure out how to undo the spell before things get too weird. But in Nico’s story, there are more serious moments as well. Because while she may not always seem it, she’s an extremely gifted witch. And some people would love nothing more than to do away with her. Fortunately, she’s got plenty of people protecting her!
