Alternative title: Aru Majo ga Shinu Made
Light Novel Adaptation by EMT Squared
Streaming on Crunchyroll
Premise
On her 17th birthday, Meg Raspberry is told that she only has a year left to live. The only way to prevent this is to collect 1000 tears of joy; crystallised emotions produced when people are at their most elated around her.
Euri’s verdict: Kobatwo
I have to admit that the little information I knew about this show before watching it did not fill me with enthusiasm. It’s a light novel adaptation of a magic-centric show, which I feel describes about 80% of all anime released in the last ten years. It was very easy to assume that this would be yet another derivative story – the same ol’ formula you’ve seen before with a slightly different protagonist, world and magic system.
And, well, it is derivative, but not in the way I was expecting it to be. The inclusion of magic appears to be a vehicle for our protagonist to better help those around her, as she works towards saving her own life by filling a magic flask with the crystallised emotions of others.
This show is the second-coming of Clamp’s Kobato.
I suspect there aren’t many people that actually remember Kobato amongst the more well-known Clamp offerings, but the anime was a pretty chill slice-of-life which saw a young woman collecting ‘the suffering in people’s hearts’ within a magic bottle in order to have her wish granted. There are a couple of other similarities if you’re willing to dig into the manga, but nonetheless it’s not too difficult to see the overlap here.
Fortunately, this show is actually pretty fun. I was a little apprehensive during the opening five minutes or so, as neither Meg nor her super-witch foster mum seemed to be all that fussed about death being on the horizon, but looking back on it, I’m kinda glad it took this approach. There are other shows that would have spent their entire opening episode getting as far as Meg coming to terms with her prognosis, so I appreciate that Once Upon a Witch’s Death just gets on with it. It also manages this while slipping in some world-building, a few tertiary characters, and the family Meg helps in this episode.
Speaking of which, the ‘story of the week’ was also very solid. It was pretty safe, in that any story about a recently-departed parent and a kid trying to cope through it is going to be pretty difficult to screw up, but I do think it was handled quite well. All three characters were given enough time to develop well enough that we can actually care about their situation, and Meg is able to bring a resolution that isn’t ham-fisted. It’s a solid demonstration of how this show is going to operate, and has a solid go at tugging on your heartstrings in the process.
Do I think this is going to be the sleeper hit of the season? No, I wouldn’t go that far. But I do believe it handles its opening episode very well, and it succeeded in making me want to know what else is in store for Meg Raspberry. That being said, it really feels like the time limit of a year until Meg’s death will ultimately force her into some form of idol route, which I can’t say I care too much for.
Anyway, her name is Meg Raspberry. Amazing.
