Anime: Yamada-kun to Nananin no Majo (2015)

When I think of witches, I think of witchcraft, crows, evil curses, and other things that frankly I don't associate with a positive connotation. However, Yamajo has none of that- it basically uses "witches" only in name.

A punk dude named Yamada is bored out of his mind with school. Luckily, he soon, literally, falls into the mystery of the witches at his school. For some vague reason, seven female girls at the school are granted special powers; they are known as witches. How will Yamada deal with these powerful girls and their endless blackmailing?

The show feels like a combination of Toaru Index and Kokoro Connect, but takes some good parts of both. It's definitely not as confusing or complicated as Index but shares some protagonist vibes. Likewise, it is much more light than Kokoro Connect, with a heavy focus on comedy and a bit of ecchi (for better or worse). If you're looking for a light show that has a contiguous plot and great characters, definitely check this out, perhaps you too may become bewitched.

Animation:
This is the first piece led by Liden Films that I have seen, and I'm pretty impressed overall with the quality. The show has a generally light atmosphere and thus has a fittingly bright and cheerful color palette. Don't expect anything amazing in the shading or background departments but the work suffices given the mood of the show. If you're one to avoid overt foreshadows, I'd skip the OP sequence, as there are quite a few spoilers as to what is to come. As for characters, I was generally impressed as well. There are a LOT of supporting characters in this show, and they did a good job of making everyone unique in both personality and appearance. While not at P.A. Works levels, the facial animations were very well done (especially for the more important girls Odagiri and Shiraishi), definitely above average considering the comedic harem category.

Recently, I've felt that there has been a general shift towards more ecchi in shows. This show takes a slight step back with only relatively mild ecchi scenes. That said, if you hold a kiss as something sacred, be prepared for a lot of blasphemy as there are more kisses in this show that probably the entirety of the romance genre from the past two seasons. They don't spare you many of the details either- expect multiple angles and lots of gooey saliva. Kisses aside, there is gender swapping as in Kokoro Connect; expect a lot of light humor with characters checking each other out in each other's bodies. There's also beach scenes, onsen scenes, flipped skirts, and a no-pan girl to round it out. Despite Yamada being a punk, there isn't all that much in terms of action- just a short fight here and there, nothing to really get excited over.

Sound:
I'm in general not a fan of guy songs, but the OP here is catchy (especially the percussion) and grows on you over time. The ED is lively with a memorable main melody and a very distinct singer, who gives the song an especially playful tone. The BGM is average overall with some more memorable pieces during tension-building sequences.

The VA cast for this work is absolutely exceptional. The veteran cast list is extremely strong with the likes of Saori Hayami, Kana Hanazawa, Maaya Uchida, Miyuki Sawashiro, and Eri Kitamura. Saori and Eri both do an amazing job with their characters. Given the personality/body swapping, Saori had the challenging role of adapting Ryouta Oosaka's rough punk voice, and she excelled at the role- absolutely great talent. The talent on the guy's side is likewise strong with forever-protagonist Ryouta Oosaka and the prolific Jun Fukuyama. It was an absolute pleasure to hear such talent working in concert.

Story:
This is one of those shows where everything is really well interwoven; character development is tightly coupled with the main story and subplots. However, due to the interwoven nature it becomes particularly challenging as a reviewer to tease out what counts as a spoiler, thus I'm going to be vaguer in my descriptions than usual, and completely leave out the detailed settings synopsis.

The general premise feels like a unique twist to the harem genre. The industry ran into a conundrum a few years back with how to showcase LOTS of girls in a single season. Some shows like Amagami used time reversal to achieve this. More recently, shows like Kanojo ga Flag have just spammed lots of girls. This show takes a middle road following similarly to The God Only Knows where girls are introduced and play an important role before fading to relative obscurity. However, certain heroines continue to play a significant role throughout the show (sort of like the spirit catchers in God Only Knows). What makes this show unique is that it seamlessly blends character exposition and regular plot devices such as going to the beach or a school festival. Not only is the plot continuous, but also rather well thought out. The rationale behind why the girls have their witch powers and the subplots behind each girl's pasts and present are all well explained.

Expect quite a few plot twists in the show as Yamada proves that he has more brains than your typical punk, and has to endure countless blackmailing by various parties- but I guess all the kissing balances it out; thank goodness no one had mono. The show builds fairly uniformly until the final climax near the end. This is followed by a cute conclusion that ties everything together, except for why there are witch hats in the opening and in the show's title picture. For the answer to that, you have to watch the OVA.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and execution of the story. It wasn't the deepest of stories, and yes there were definitely unanswered questions, but it told what it did in an effective and entertaining fashion.

Character:
One of the most common sins in a show is to spread the development out among too many supporting characters. This show toyed with this thin balancing wire and successfully navigated it- there was just enough exposition with the supporting characters to identify their uniqueness without distracting from the development and progression of the main characters. Speaking of the main characters, I was pretty pleased with all of them; indeed, this is a rare case.

Using a punk character can yield some amazing results, just look at Onizuka from GTO. Unfortunately, Yamada is nowhere as cool as Onizuka, nonetheless his brash personality and balance between being nice and forceful puts him leagues above your standard harem lead; his unique obsession with microwaves and yakisoba is also a nice touch. Shiraishi is honestly probably one of my favorite female characters in recent history. Her combination of slight introversion, laughable lack of cooking abilities, and dynamic progression towards being more outgoing and happy just work for me; you can't just cast her off as a generic bookworm. Surprisingly, the initially off-putting Odagiri also ends up making a good case for being a standout character. And last but not least, even the mysterious student council chair has a story of his own to play out.

Value:
This was a pleasure to watch, and I'm not just speaking about the ridiculous amount of kissing scenes. There actually is a pretty involved story and character subplots all working in a brilliant symphony along with the talented voice cast and above average production by Liden Films. Given the number of foreshadows, this may even warrant a re-watch. If you're looking for something light, but want an actual story with some depth, I highly recommend giving this a shot.