I apologise if I sound rude when I say this but, can we please stop making Coco out to be like a Qifrey clone? Yes she has a lot of stuff in common with Qifrey, yes their objetives align, but Coco is her own person who, by the way, also shares many traits with Olruggio AND has a bunch of other traits that are exclusive to her.
What promoted this post was that I've seen so many fanarts (which were very well drawn btw, the authors are very talented) of adult Coco where she's basically a re-skin of Qifrey but female and with green hair. I know Shirahama has drawn some sketches of grown-up Coco where she's wearing glasses that resemble Qifrey's, but one thing is having a small accessory that matches with your teacher's, and another thing is stealing his entire outfit and lifestyle, because she's also most of the time headcanoned to become a teacher in an atelier with Agott as her watchful eye.
Can't we get a bit more original people? I don't want Qifrey 2: electric boongaloo, I want Coco.
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it’s not that i hate when ppl refer to qifrey (and sometimes olruggio too) as coco’s parent in a genuine manner, but i don’t like it because i feel like it ignores an important part of the story and an important part of the conflict and internal struggle coco is going through.
coco petrified her mother with forbidden magic. she feels guilty for the fact that as a result and in order to undo her mistake, she’s leaving her mom and going with a witch. this is something that is repeatedly made clear.
this is the key conflict in coco’s life. she petrified her mother. from this comes the main source of angst in coco: that in order to save her mother she has to leave her mother.
and we know she specifically feels guilty at the thought of replacing her mom when she later revisits her home and, after being found by qifrey, says it outright
coco is only learning magic because she needs to save her mother. if she hadn’t traced that petrification spell her mom would be okay and coco would have had no reason to fight qifrey to keep her memories. the book would have still been accessible to qifrey and he would’ve had no reason not to erase her memories.
to call qifrey a dad/father figure (or in some cases, and especially in these cases, a mom/mother figure) simplifies the dynamic between qifrey and coco into an easily digestible heteronormative idea and further erases a part of what makes coco the character she is. it also overwrites the complexity of qifrey’s character but this post isn’t about him this post is about coco (the protagonist, the point-of-view character, the main character, the one the story is about)
Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor
There is not enough knights moralis hate I need all of them to lose their jobs and have tomatoes thrown at them every single day and yes I mean every. Single. One of them.
Not only are they corrupt violent authoritarian witch cops but they personally offended me with the sin of being a group of (questionably written) dumbasses that greatly annoy me and try too hard to make me pity them while they beef with literal kids
Journal With Witch Episode 6 - Love Is Complicated
I honestly can relate to Makio so much in that I have a tendency to forget things a lot and when such a thing happens, I often get chided. It’d be nice to have someone who’d understand my quirks and habits, but the fact that there never will be that one person who will makes Makio’s frustration so understandable. I know that people will say things like Makio might be neurodivergent or has ADD, but I don’t think it’s fair to put labels on her; also, those types of speculations are just assumptions, so it is dangerous to try and diagnose someone as this or that because it will nag at them for a long, long time. Regardless, Makio is flawed and that makes her human.
I like that she’s not oblivious when it comes to love. She does seem to have lingering feelings for Kasamachi that gets triggered when Emiri brings it up when she asked if she has a boyfriend or a crush. She’s also perceptive to catch on that Emiri is a lesbian to the point that she hands her a DVD of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, which has LGBT representation as the main leads are implied lesbians…according to research I did. She’s also the type who seems to realize her feelings for someone abruptly and quite late. She might have broken up with Kasamachi out of the sense that she probably couldn’t develop feelings for him. It was cute seeing her freaking out over Kasamachi’s muscles and scent. And you know what? I think Kasamachi is an amazing catch. He’s well-dressed, dandy and incredibly sweet to Makio. I think all everyone needs someone like Kasamachi in their lives.
Given Asa’s personality, I do wonder what will happen if she discovers Minori’s diaries that Makio hid away. I also do wonder what sort of role Touno will have in this story as he does seem to pop up occasionally since his debut and seems to be the only other prominent male character in the story. Anyways, do you think Makio and Kasamachi will get back together or is it a fakeout? Let me know your thoughts!
While Inori and Tsukasa aren’t prominent in this episode, it does showcase how figure skating is graded. What I like is that this episode’s POV is the Kago Family as Koichi and Yoh are the audience surrogate for figure skating newbies. Also, I do recommend watching Hana Milet’s videos on full analysis on how figure skating grading works as the anime only does a brief run down.
What I really like is that it shows the realistic aspect of young skaters performing. In the first season, we’re mostly seeing characters like Inori, Rioh, Hikaru, Miketa, and Ema perform on stage, and they’re considered good and talented despite some setbacks. Here, we’re seeing figure skating through people who train in different clubs and aren’t considered the aces. While it does hurt to see some of the girls injure themselves as they perform, it does show how much the sport means to them; I felt bad for the girl who got hit by a board and got a nose bleed. I think the production team definitely earned a lot of money with the first season to the point that they’re able to animate in 2D more. The mix between 3D and 2D is cool, but it also shows who is more significant in terms of performance. Still, it does feel as if some of the girls did get done dirty by being shown as a montage rather than an actual performance. Then again, it’s due to how much they can fit into an episode without going past the run time—and let’s face it, these girls aren’t that significant.
The fact that there are so many characters is both a plus and a minus because that means I have to go over them. Since Rinna, the girl who went first, had a 3D performance, I’m assuming she’s someone important. By the way, all of the skaters in this anime are named after animals except for Inori. In Rinna’s case, her surname is Sarukawa. Saru means monkey, which is why the assistant coach gave her a bouquet that had a monkey head as a decoration. She’s voiced by Mao Itou who is a rookie, and this is one of her first roles. She’s a part of Meikoh Wind, which is Shinichiro Sonidori’s figure skating club (FSC). Yotsuha Ushikawa, the blond girl in green, is also a part of the club. The ‘Ushi’ in her name means cow, which was why she got a bouquet with cow decorations. She’s voiced by Minami Tanaka who voiced female Rover in Withering Waves and Hinata Okano from Assassination Classroom. The assistant coach Shoya Kijita seems to be like a host, but I did look up that his family runs a flower shop, hence why he keeps getting all those elaborate bouquets. Apparently, the coaches are also named after animals because the Kiji in Kijita means pheasant—wait, why am I realizing this when the Sonidoris are named after kingfishers. He’s voiced by Yohei Hamada who voiced Ikhan from the Noblesse anime.
The Anaguma in Sakina’s surname means badger, which befits her black and white motif. She’s a part of Takt Toyohashi FSC, which is probably the first mention in the anime. She’s voiced by Takako Tanaka who voiced Annette in Fire Emblem Three Houses. Her coach Hakubi, voiced by Yuuki Inoue, is also named after an animal, which is civet, which looks similar to a badger.
The Niwatori in Sana’s name means Chicken. She’s a part of Meijoh Crown FSC. She’s voiced by Yuko Natsuyoshi, a name I know because she voiced Kaguya from Cosmic Princess Kaguya. I also remember this character because she was the one who had informed the other girls about Hikaru not showing up for the Chubu Block tournament. The girl with short hair who was sitting next to her in that previous episode is definitely her twin sister. I wonder if she’ll perform next episode… The assistant coach for Meijoh Crown also showed up. His name is Chiwa, which comes from Chihuahua, which I find hilarious because the author is definitely going to use all the dog breed names for the minor characters…
The girl with brown hair is named Kurumi Risu; Risu means squirrel which feels befitting given how autumnal her design feels. Oh yeah, Risu is the one who got a nosebleed, I believe. She’s from Nagakute Flower FSC, which is probably a first-time mention as well. She’s voiced by Hikaru Touno who voiced Anna Yanami from Too Many Losing Heroines. Her coach shows up briefly but also has an animal name, which is Yamane, which is the name of the Japanese dormouse, befitting the rodent theme.
After that, there is another girl who gets a 3D performance named Manaka Roba who probably has my favorite performance of the episode because it’s so lively! I feel like figure skating athletes should use more peppy songs! Hers was so cute and I love the stripes in her skirt! Roba can be read as donkey. She’s a part of Aisei Ride FSC. Since she got her own screen time, she’s definitely significant. She’s voiced by Maria Naganawa who voiced Komugi from Wonderful Precure. Her coach is named Gori, which is probably taken from gorilla. He’s voiced by Chikahiro Kobayashi who voiced Tanaka from The Summer Hikaru Died.
While everyone got a performance, I felt bad for this Umitsuki girl who didn’t even get to perform on-screen. She’s mainly crying about how she can’t practice figure skating since she lives so far away, which shows that distance and availability is also important when it comes to figure skating. The Umitsuki in her name can be read as jellyfish. She’s voiced by Reina Kawamura, who is a rookie. Her coach is named Kumanomi, which means clownfish, befitting the sea creature theming.
Yes, I am done talking about everyone and everything. I’m sorry it took so long—I don’t know how to make this episode review feel interesting without making it too short. I like long reviews, okay? Also, I apologize for taking too long to get this one out because I was mainly waiting for Hana Milet to post a video so I could understand what was going on. Like I mentioned before, please watch her videos on Medalist because they’re informative! Let me know your thoughts on this review and the episode as a whole.
Journal With Witch Episode 4 Review - Two Different People
I like that despite both Makio and Asa having friends, there’s still an air of loneliness around them. There are different types of loneliness as well! For Asa, she starts high school and made some new friends, but she just told them about her circumstances, causing her to feel isolated from them who are normal. There is a sense of loneliness that comes from not having someone to relate to you.
For Makio, even though she still keeps in contact with her friends and Kasamachi, she finds solace in solitude. Her actions show that sometimes, loneliness can be formed even if you have a social life, but that doesn’t mean you feel isolated or outcasted. She does get anxious whenever she meets someone new like Asa’s friend Emiri, but she does her best not to show it on her face. Though, I do feel as if her loneliness comes from her resentment towards her sister. All she has are bitter memories towards Minori, one of them being Minori mocking Makio for writing a novel. It could be anxiety in a way…
It was also nice seeing Makio and Asa interact with people. It was cute seeing Asa meet Kasamachi for the first time and developing an instant fondness for him. She definitely is keen on the idea of Makio and Kasamachi getting back together if they want to. It was also nice to see Asa making new friends on the first day of school. She isn’t limited to being friends with only Emiri, even though she knew her the longest. I do wonder which one of the friends will be more prominent later on.
I also like how Makio and Asa interact towards the end where Makio tell Asa that they’re two different people so that how they interact and behave will always be different and that isn’t a bad thing. I’m glad that Asa’s getting better at communicating with her aunt. She doesn’t like eating alone and instead of keeping it to herself, she says it to her face, and Makio promises that she’ll eat with her from now on.
Emiri’s mother Michiko is voiced by Mie Sonozaki who is voicing Maki from Digimon Beatbreak. Kotoko is voiced by Hisako Kanemoto, who voiced Sailor Mercury in Sailor Moon Crystal. Motsu is voiced by Sanae Kobayashi who voiced Tighnari from Genshin Impact and Asuka Tenjoin from Yugioh GX. Asa’s school friends are all voiced by relatively new voice actors, so I don’t really know much about them.
Speaking of Kotoko and Motsu, I’d like to see more of them later on since they have history with Makio! I just like how human this story is. I enjoy is a lot. Let me know your thoughts on this episode!
Medalist is back! There’s only nine episodes, though… They announced a movie, though! Will it even be shown outside of Japan, though? Regardless, Medalist is back and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Inori!
Inori is taking part in the Chubu Block Tournament, which is the next level for her. She’s not the only skater her age as there’s a plethora of them. To be honest, I can’t remember most of their names…Not only there are girls her age, but there are those older than them too. The girl with the blue hair, Iruka Okazaki, seems to be the standout alongside Riina Kojoh. Inori also sort of gets the spotlight on her in a bad way as she thoughtlessly asked Riina on how to get into the Olympics, which earns the ire of Iruka.
Other than that, there’s also the parts with Hikaru that stand out. How Hikaru first met Jun is seen as she is adopted into the Yodaka family and that’s how Jun takes her as his student. Though, I do wonder if they’re relatives… Hikaru also gets some spotlight as she’s not attending the Chubu Block Tournament as she already has a one-way free ticket to the All-Japan’s Tournament. Instead, Hikaru is at Russia, training under a Russian figure skating choreographer named Leonid. Hikaru constantly wants to improve hence why she’d go out of her way to go to Russia to get training. She just doesn’t want to be a figure skater who was good at ballet.
The parts that involve Tsukasa are mostly comic relief from Inori’s father pleading Tsukasa to make his daughter a winner and embarrassing his family to Inori meeting Kago and thinking he’s his father and him playing along with it, much to Tsukasa’s bewilderment. I think my favorite part of the episode was Inori channeling Tsukasa and trying to rizz up the other girls. Like skating dad, like daughter.
I honestly don’t know who’s who, but with Iruka, she’s voiced by Hibiku Yamamura who voiced Cure Twinkle in Go Princess Precure. Riina is voiced by Kotomi Aihara who voiced Gina in Solo Leveling and Bamboo Memory in Uma Musume. The pink haired older girl is Marika Kurione who is voiced by Ai Kayano who voiced characters like Menma from Anohana and Cure Finale from Delicious Party Precure. Leonid is voiced by Kou Bonkobara who has been in various anime as minor characters or as the English-speaking one as he’s fluent.
The opening and ending is a lot different than the first season’s, but I think it’s super cute! It shows a different stage in Inori’s skating career in a way. It also gives emphasis to the rivals.I honestly can’t wait to see what this season will be like for Inori. The number of rivals have increased. I hope I can remember them all. Let me know your thoughts on this episode!
Journal With Witch Episode 3 Review - Grief Kicks In
Grief is very complicated and chaotic as it’s an amalgamation of various emotions. Sometimes, you feel restless; sometimes, you feel sad; sometimes, you feel angry. It’s really hard to process it and give a concrete answer when you’re going through it. This is the first time Asa is truly feeling the overwhelming emotions of losing her parents and it’s hard for her to take it all in.
While she reminisces about her family as she and Makio go to her parents’ place to clean it up, she only had fond memories like remembering liking her mother’s cooking. However, it’s when she goes back to school for her graduation ceremony that the loss of her parents truly kicks in. Her best friend Emiri was the only other person who knew about her loss, but Emiri accidentally told her parents which then became a long game of telephone without Asa realizing it, which then causes Asa to become furious because she had trusted Emiri to keep her secret and that she didn’t want to be seen as the odd duck. Her teachers became too nosy about her situation and it made her feel suffocated. I do like that she’s dealing with the more complicated and emotional aspects of grief that she actually went back to her house in disarray, but quickly realized she can’t go back. She got lost going back to Makio’s place to the point that she had to tell her once Makio had to call her as she got worried.
Makio is definitely the calming presence Asa needed. I liked the part in the beginning where they were talking about tenses. Asa unconsciously referred to her mother in present tense, but noticed Makio uses past tense. Because of this, Makio teaches her about other English sentence tenses like past perfect and present perfect. This really awed me because I don’t think a lot of Japanese stories emphasizes these types of tenses. In the second half of the episode, Makio gives Asa a foot bath in hopes that it would calm her down. While Makio was the one who told Asa that her feelings are her own, she also tells her the importance of having friends because they’re a presence that people need in their life—one that family can’t fill in. She and Nana have been friends for over two decades, since middle school. Even if they don’t hang out as much as before, she’s a presence that Makio definitely cherishes. She even has a group chat alongside two other friends.
I feel like Asa’s mother Minori might haunt the narrative as she does appear often in flashbacks. It’s interesting that Asa sees her one way, but Makio sees her in another. She wasn’t aware that Minori could make pickled vegetables or still kept her school uniform pristine when she remembered her making un of her outfit in the past. Minori doesn’t seem like a bad person overall, as she was a human at the end of the day. I am curious about what Asa’s father is like as he’s not really mentioned much despite also perishing in the same accident.
Emiri is voiced by Sumire Morohoshi who voiced Yuki Itose from A Sign of Affection, Yachi from Haikyuu and Emma from The Promised Neverland. I honestly like her voice, so it was surprising to hear her in this anime; it’s not that she sounds different, but it’s more like I didn’t realize it was her until I saw the credits.
Anyways, I do hope that Asa and Emiri reconcile. Asa definitely needs a friend and Emiri does seem like a good girl despite her mistakes. Having someone to vent out your emotions is definitely needed. When I lost my dog Cherry, it was hard for me to process everything, but I had a friend I spoke with about my loss and it helped a lot. If you lost someone dear, make sure to at least talk to someone about it. It can help a lot. Let me know your thoughts on the episode.
