Guardian of the Witch (Relook): Research Notes

Manga Details

• Asahi Sakano

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Yuki Tabata (Black Clover, Hungry Joker)

  • Other works

    • Kuro no Shinobi (2018, 3 chapters, Jump GIGA)

      • Back when Jump Giga ran six times a year, they would publish these three-issue miniseries. This one featured a modern day ninja, Zen Kurono, as he reluctantly takes jobs instead of living the normal school life he so deeply desires. 

    • Fire Beast Alan (2019, 3 chapters, Jump GIGA)

      • Another miniseries. I wasn’t buying GIGA at the time, but considering the titular flame swordsman Alan looks EXACTLY like Fafner, it feels safe to say this is something of a prototype for Guardian of the Witch. 

    • If I Can’t Find Love I’m Going to Die - How to Find True Love in 60 Days (2020, 1 volume, published by Bunkyosha)

      • A self-help guide to love, presented as a manga with accompanying essays as to the benefits of love. I dunno. 

    • Beast King and Medicinal Herb (2023-present, 2+ vols, Manga One/Ura Sunday) written by Tatsukazu Konda, character designs by Momochichi

      • A bit of a breakout hit for Sakano, as the artist of this tale of Tina, an adventurer who forges a pact with the king of beasts to save her own life, and now she has to work for him as they… heal other monsters. A fantasy medical manga for fans of Frieren!

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • February 3rd, 2020 to June 22, 2020

  • Series it replaced

• Dr. Stone reboot: Byakuya by Boichi (1 vol, miniseries)

• Series that replaced it

  • Hard-Boiled Cop and Dolphin (5 vols, flop, Shonen Flop episode 41)

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • Undead Unluck by Yoshifumi Tozuka (21+ vols, HIT)

  • Mashle: Magic and Muscles by Hajime Komoto (18 vols, HIT, Shonen Flop episode 9)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 19 chapters/3 vols

About the Manga

• Plot

  • The world of Ouv is overrun by giant monsters called Evils. The city states within are protected by witches: teenage girls with strong magic powers given to them by seeds of evil which will one day turn them into evils themselves. Manasfa is one of those witches, specifically one with fire powers, and she is looked after by her maid Nahta and protected by her guardian Fafner. One day the leader of the rectory in their town commands Fafner to kill Manasfa because she’s about to turn into an evil. Fafner decides not to, grabs Manasfa and Nahta, and escapes, saying they’ll find a way to turn Manasfa into a normal human again. When they’re out of town Nahta says that there’s a witch in another town called Noir who rumor says was able to “retire” instead of dying as a teenager, so that’s where they set off to. 

  • In the first town they reach they encounter Gen and Ruli, a guardian and witch combo which is apparently a “thing” now. Fafner, Manasfa, and Nahta have been branded deserters so they’ve been dispatched to kill Fafner and Nahta and bring Manasfa in. Even though Fafner and Manasfa can’t fight together like the other two can they still force a retreat. The team then leaves the town to continue on their journey and run into Mr Drake, an ex-guardian-turned-scientist who fell in love with, killed his witch, and seems to wear her skull around his neck. He trains them to use their powers together gooder and says that if Manasfa uses too much of her power she’ll turn into an evil. They soon reach another city where the guardian, Claude, immediately recognizes them because these fucking idiots were wearing cloaks that only guardians should have access to. Claude and his witch with gravity powers, Spica, try and bring them in. 

  • Just then Manasfa remembers that Mr Drake gave her a magic pendant that acts as an HP bar for how long she has left before she turns into an evil. Spica uses too much of her power tho and starts to transform when the evil Rector shows up and tells Claude to kill her which he can’t do. Just then Manasfa remembers that Mr Drake gave her a device to temporarily keep witches from transforming in the form of a blood transfusion or something. Phew. They need 30 minutes of time for the transfusion to work but Fafner just punches him in the gut and all his grunts throw down their swords cuz they like Claude more than him and a few days later he’s arrested for tax fraud. Fafner Manasfa and Nahta then arrive in a new village to meet Aqua, a brand new witch with water powers. She’s gotta go soon to a city state and her dad, the mayor, is big sad because he never told her that witches gotta die. The team drag him over to her to say goodbye. He says she's gonna die but Aqua’s like lmao I already knew that cuz I read your diary. Flash forward five years and Manasfa stands in front of a crowd and puts on a ring that turns her normal again. the end.

• Characters

  •  Captain fafner

    • Fights with his sheif 

    • Guardian

    • Aware of his limits 

  • Manafsa

    • Witch

    • Fire power

    • Complains a lot bratty

    • Humgy

  • Nahta

    • Bookish assistant to manafsa

    • Has some cool skills

    • Team mom

    • The series really fights to make her relevant 

  • Drake Mardock

    • Sora of the series

    • Legit badass has a skull of his former lover

Why it Failed - Jordan

• Why is the bad guy called evils that's so lame

• The storytelling is kinda lame like they needed all this exposition cut with exciting scenes so it felt like the plot couldn't explain things 

• Flashbacks in the first chapter always annoy me like just show the events in order 

• This really is an attack on Titan ripoff lmao

• What a pointless shot of the mc in her underwear 

• It just feels so try hard like the author is inexperienced and you can tell

• The fact that the author doesn't really think about the logistics of how powers interact - how do you block an exposition with a sword - is kinda emblematic of how the setting doesn't make a lot of sense

• Fafner being aware of his limits is kinda weird when he's insanely powerful in 

• This really has some of the worst black and white morality 

• This went into a training arc way too fast

• I’m disappointed Drake had to explain the teamup system it feels like an easy win for the MC to realize like drake could have just kept alluding to it

• Seriously what is with this series not really explaining things, how did they get so close to the watchtower, how did they jump over it?

• It really doesn’t seem like the 2v2 system was meant to be a thing from the get go. Why wouldn’t they know about it when the other guardians are already training with their witches? Why would the witches leave their tower? The series seems to contradict itself or go back on itself over and over again. 

• The evils are completely irrelevant. 

• Manasfa is constantly “almost” gonna transform but then nah it’s all good. A doctor fixed it. At one point a rector was like “Manasfa is less likely to transform than Spica” but wasn’t Manasfa already condemned to death because it was about to happen???

• The art is not good. It’s almost good but it’s not. 

What it Did Well - Brandon

• Art is good enough 

• I do like the idea of the protector having to ultimately execute the witch

• I like the 2v2 system 

• There's these hints of the psychological drain what they're going through has on the mc I wish was discussed more, especially with having a cool down chapter 

Where it Could Have Gone

• Why are there indicator images in speech bubbles in the first chapter when it's literally showing the character

• Had some more buildup before the execution, really lean into what makes the world interesting 

• Build up the world and characters more it just feels too much is going on

• It would have been cool to actually see a which turn into an evil like wow there really are risks to what they're doing 

• I think a much better structure was introducing drake further into the series like the MC goes from top dog to shit at the first possible opportunity, he even wins his first fight

• This series badly needed cooldown time to actually explore the word like why instantly are they getting into fights in every situation

Misc Thoughts

• Did the author just not have a way of them surviving the fall so he just kinda skipped it?

• So does Northern Ireland exist? I wonder what caused the schism 

• How did the characters get blunt wounds from all the steel magic stuff that's clearly cutting weapons 

• Lmao aquas dad and her have the same hair

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • This series has a remarkable amount of text handwritten in English, notable mostly for being clearly written and (mostly) making sense, and as this is also true of his early one-shots, it stands to reason that Sakano is pretty okay at English.

  • Volume extras include:

    • One-shots:

      • Flower on the Battlefield, 2014 (debut)

      • The original one-shot for Guardian of the Witch, 2016

      • Strawberry Punch, 2020 (drawn after Witch’s cancellation, but early enough to make the final volume)

    • Inter-chapter gag strips

    • Character designs

    • Character profiles

    • An illustration gallery

    • Preliminary cover design for vol.2

    • “Nahta’s hearsay memo”, notes building the world of the manga

    • Staff credits

    • A final note from the author thanking readers

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Tucker: A business transaction in comic form

    • Maxybee: We have Double Arts at home 

    • AuraPaladin: Bizarre, yet somehow not bizarre enough???

    • BigBubbaBass: Great Value Zeppeli Ex-Machina, Go! | Bad writing? Use a Time Skip™!

    • ChemyChems: Become a witch's pokemon, sword boy.

    • Chickenwarlord: Divinely talented school recruitment embarrassingly forceful

    • Diego The Phantom Seer: Strawberry Punch was the better one-shot | Claude and Spica were based actually

    • duderocks the earthchild stan: It’s a very DEwitchingly mediocre manga

    • GenericMan: Magical Girls become witches...déjà vu

    • Glornak Ironspawn: Kinda worse the second time around

    • Kpt.Kluless: Just go read witch watch instead

    • Meru (Commissions open!): Guard Underage Now Damming All Mankind | I miss Mágico God f---ing damn

    • Portal man: Attack on zatch bell’s bastard child

    • Quack.: Five years later, still not legal

    • Redblade: This manga was a training arc

    • Riel: I just wish Nahta was relevant.

    • Spike: Which witch was the witch which-

    • The Wolf The Wood The Trafalgar: Witches only live to suffer, eh? | Mangaka continually depreciates their world building

    • LordAnubis: Took the wrong lessons from BC

    • Brandon: Show ‘em a thing or three

  • David: Fire magic burns out the plot | Man, imagine if England was real

  • Jordan: guardian of huh I already forgot

• Flop or not

  • David: yeah this is a flop, read witch watch