I appreciate it when the back cover copy does a great job of summarizing a manga without major spoilers, so I’m going to quote Flying Witch’s here:
“Makoto Kowata, a novice witch, packs up her belongings (including her black cat familiar) and moves in with her distant cousins in rural Aomori Prefecture, in the far north reaches of Japan, to complete her training and become a full-fledged witch.”
The atmosphere of Flying witch strikes me as Someday’s Dreamers meets Yotsuba. It’s an easy going, character centric slice of life story in a world where magic exists and is generally acknowledged (if still somewhat uncommon). It’s a wonderful premise for a light, everyday story to explore.
Flying Witch reasonably successful to that end. I did find this on slow side even for slice of life, but it works overall. The characters aren’t deep yet, but they are diverse and developed enough to start with to be engaging as the status quo is established.
The art style is solid and suitable, although there’s a strange mix of really detailed backgrounds and sparse/no backgrounds in certain panels and close ups. It’s not a huge deal, but the contrast does stick out a bit.
Overall I liked this, and just enough of Makoto and her world are shown here to make me interested in reading more. This volume ends on a high note too, with a fun character introduction that gives a glimpse of a good deal of potential going forward.
Derailments of Thought 