A Witch Watches Flying Witch

The Daily Life of the Average Witch

I don’t normally watch shows like Flying Witch.  I’ll watch the occasional slice of life story, but anime with a focus on nature and scenery where not much really happens usually isn’t my cup of tea.  In the case of Flying Witch though, the slow pace, soft color palettes, and everyday occurrences of the series really highlight the witchy things that happen in the show.  The series juxtaposes simple slice of life situations like going to a café or making breakfast with extraordinary experiences like meeting sprits who work part-time as waitresses or riding giant, flying, stone whales.  Unlike most little witch anime, Flying Witch focuses on the former experiences rather than the latter. Makoto, the main character, doesn’t cause trouble with her witchcraft or go on amazing adventures, and instead spends most of her time doing regular teenage girl things.  The combination of the normal with the occasional fantastic magical happening actually reminds me a lot of how actual magic works.  It isn’t actually a cause for adventure, but a slow, regular process for witches with maybe one or two strange things happening every once in a while.  Because of this, Flying Witch really feels like it could be a reflection of the actual daily life of the average witch.

Magic in the Mundane and Mundane in the Magical

One of the things that makes Flying Witch stand out against other little witch series is the fact that magic is so normalized to most people.  Makoto, when asked by her mortal friend Nao why she is attending high school, says that her parents wanted her to go in order to prepare for a career since witchcraft isn’t as lucrative as it used to be.  Witches in the series see witchcraft as any other craft.

Interestingly enough, most adults in the series see witchcraft the same way.  They are often depicted as seeing magic as a special skill that some people train in and nothing more.  It can be a little surprising to see a witch, but most adults are immediately filled with happiness at seeing such a cute witch or are filled with memories of witches they’ve known as children.  One woman who Nao and Makoto make a delivery to in the series even recognizes that Makoto is a witch right away from Chito, her cat and familiar who often follows Makoto around.  The woman smiles and recalls a witch friend she had when she was younger who taught her a love spell that nabbed the woman her husband.  This reaction is normal and welcoming copared to the reactions of the two mortal girls Makoto spends the most time with, her younger cousin Chinatsu and Nao.

The children in the series who don’t have as much life experience also have never encountered real magic before despite it being all around them.  To them, it is a new and strange thing.  Nao is completely shocked silent when she sees Makoto flying a broom for the first time.  The first few times Makoto does something else magical in front of her, Nao has a similar reaction, like when Makoto pulls up a mandrake root to give as a gift. Though Nao is more weirded out here than shocked, she’s still unsettled by magic.  Chinatsu is even younger and has a stronger reaction to magic when she first encounters it.  She doesn’t even need to know that Makoto is a witch before deciding that she is a weird stranger.  At first, magic is scary to Chinatsu.  She is terrified of the Harbinger of Spring who comes to visit Makoto.  She doesn’t want anything to do with Akane, Makoto’s older sister, when she first meets her.  It is only after she’s grown and experienced the magic in her life more often that she can appreciate it.

Once magic is normalized as an everyday occurrence, it blends into the rest of the everyday and mundane.  Most episodes can be divided into two parts: a part which focuses on some sort of magic or supernatural happening, and a part which focuses on Makoto and her friends’ everyday lives.  If you were to watch a real witch in action, their life would look pretty similar to the episodes of Flying Witchin the division of parts at least.  In real witchcraft and magick, many witches constantly do casual spells and magick without really thinking about it.  A small part of the day may be devoted to doing something magickal, but for the most part, witches live average lives.  They may not be accidentally luring an entire murder of crows with a spell they just learned, but a witch might spend a minute enchanting their coffee before going to work.  Though Makoto is technically training in her magic, it is never the sole focus of the show, which is something I appreciate.  In the end, the anime feels like a show about a girl who also happens to be a witch and that makes it relatable to the actual witch.

Flying Witch and Magick

The magic depicted in Flying Witch is actually pretty accurate to actual magick.  Most anime and shows in general show magic as a quick flick of a finger or wand and maybe an incantation or two, but magick in reality often uses different components to cast a spell.  The magic in Flying Witch works the same way.  Over the course of the show, Chinatsu grows so enamored with magic that she wants to become a witch herself and Akane, Makoto’s older sister, offers to help train the girl so that she could get a feel for if witchcraft is something she really wants to do.  The spells Akane shows Chinatsu and Makoto could practically be real spells. One uses an envelope, an incantation, a fire, and a strand of black hair in order to summon crows. In another spell, Akane uses candles, pentagrams, and sigils in order to enchant some snacks from the local convenience store.  Not only do these spells resemble real spells physically, they could actually work as spells in real life with a bit of tweaking.  They’re perfect for a pop culture witch to try out (and I might just adapt them as real spells, but we’ll see with time).

Not only is the spellwork similar to real magick, but divining is also identical to divination techniues I’ve seen before.  Inukai, Akane’s friend who accidentally cursed herself to turn into a dog-like human during the day, is an expert fortune teller.  She uses a variety of ways to divine in the series, but an episode goes in depth for one of her readings of Makoto, Chinatsu, and her older brother Kei.  Inukai tosses some chosen crystals onto a paper with a circle divided up into sections with words.  Inukai then picks out words associated with the crystals and the placement on the circle and uses those words to create the fortunes.  They are simple and vague things which the kids constantly try to figure out over the course of their day, but Inukai’s technique is accurate to witches I’ve heard from before.  At least in my personal experience, much of divination is about picking out the words and symbols with the most meaning and piecing together the message behind them.  It is a skill which takes time, work, and energy and I really admire those who can divine so easily in real life.

The Nature of Magic

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, magick isn’t often as simple as a flick of the wand and a wiggle of the nose. It takes different components, much of which come from nature, to make many spells, potions, and glamours witches use in their everyday lives.  Flying Witch pays close attention to this fact. Makoto says at one point that she wished to move out to the country to train because of all the natural resources which could be found there.  Makoto and her friends spend a couple of times searching for herbs to cook and eat together, which is something that only can be done while in the country. Because Makoto’s specialty is making potions, she specially loves that it’s so easy to get certain supplies straight from the woods and mountains that surround her.

I feel like I need to take a moment to talk about the depiction of nature in this anime.  The show itself spends a lot of time on nature and the scenery around Makoto as she goes on her everyday adventures.  It makes sure to show the changing of the seasons from early spring where snow still covered the ground and trees, to late summer where everything is lush and green.  This not only results in beautiful scenes but also in an awareness of how time passes by which is important when you remember that Makoto takes up farming as a hobby.

I think it’s interesting that Makoto wishes to learn farming because magick itself is a lot like farming. They are both processes with results that aren’t always immediate.  Makoto learns of the hard work it takes to get a plot of land prepared for farming just as it takes a lot of hard work to set up for a spell.  Like farming, magick involves research, gathering supplies, as well as picking the right times if need be.  Like planting seeds, a spell can take anywhere to from hours to a matter of seconds to perform.  Then you wait.  While you’re off living your normal life—going to school, picking herbs with friends, going out to cafes—the seeds of your spell are budding, slowly blooming into your will.  Eventually Makoto has more food than she knows what to do with and is able to give some to others (also important when you remember that Makoto wants to use her magic to help others and not herself).

The way witchcraft is depicted in Flying Witch is genuinely special. It shows how magick can be amazing and even a bit scary when you start out.  Like farming, it’s a process that begins with a lot of floundering around because you aren’t sure what to do or where to get started, but after a while it starts to become natural.  Yes, amazing things will still happen with your magic like the first time your divination was correct or when your first spell works out and you feel that energy release out into the world, but, like the adults of Flying Witch, it becomes a normal part of life over time. The more you are exposed to the magic around you, the more it becomes as familiar as the changing of the seasons or the scenery you pass by on your daily walk.  It is both hard work and something that comes naturally.  It is both fantastic and part of the every day. Magick is both the makings of a magical girl, and of a slice of life story.