Highlights
- Witch Hat Atelier anime trailer impresses with stunning visuals, responding to fans’ patience. Excitement for the 2025 broadcast grows.
- Plot follows Coco’s journey to become a Witch in a magical world – a unique and captivating story for fantasy fans.
- Key staff members for the anime adaptation announced, including director Ayumu Watanabe, building anticipation for the release in 2025.
After being announced all the way back in 2022, news regarding the anime adaptation of Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier finally broke during Anime Expo week earlier this month with the release of the first teaser trailer for the series. In addition to the teaser, a key visual was also released. The trailer may very well be one of the best teasers of 2024 as it showed off the absolute beauty of the anime currently being produced by BUG FILMS, the same studio behind the incredible 2023 adaptation of Haro Aso and Kotaro Takata’s Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead.
This Witch Hat Atelier trailer was the perfect way to respond to the patience of the fans of the original manga, who have watched as other major fantasy titles have gotten their anime adaptations, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. The series is set to broadcast in 2025. Here’s why the Witch Hat Atelier anime adaptation is such a big deal.
What Is Witch Hat Atelier About?
One of the Most Anticipated Fantasy Manga Adaptations
The plot of Witch Hat Atelier follows a young girl named Coco, who lives in a world that is run by magic. Despite desperately wanting to become a Witch, Coco has the misfortune of being born normal, and in this world, Witches are born, not made. When Coco was younger, a mysterious individual gave her a picture book and a pen, telling her that she too could also learn to use magic; however, she was never able to cast a spell. Daydreaming of the day she performs the impossibility of magic, Coco spends her days helping out her mother, who is a dressmaker. One day, a male Witch named Qifrey arrives at the shop at around the same time as a group of noblewomen who came on a Pegasus-drawn carriage, which was subsequently damaged by other children in the area.
Qifrey uses his magic to restore the carriage, but Coco witnesses the spell as it is cast and comes to realize that magic is cast by drawing runes and using magical ink – ink like that of the pen she bought from the mystery individual from her childhood. After copying the runes in the picture book, Coco accidentally casts a spell that turns her mother to stone. With no knowledge of the spell she cast, but a desire to track down the coven behind the incident, Qifrey takes Coco as his apprentice so that she can one day undo the spell and fulfill her dream of becoming a witch.
“I am extremely happy and thrilled that my work is going to be turned into an anime. There are so many people involved in the process of making this anime, so what was just my creation is now becoming the creation of many people. I get to watch them not only recreate it but also make the world I created bigger, richer, and more detailed. As an anime watcher, it makes me extremely happy to see the process come to life as well. During the creative process, I actually [was very involved] in telling them details and information about this world from what I had envisioned in my head.”
– Kamome Shirahama, interview with Anitrendz, May 10 2024
The Anime Production
Staff Announced To Be Working on Witch Hat Atelier
At this stage, a number of key staff members have been revealed to be working on the Witch Hat Atelier anime at BUG FILMS, including Ayumu Watanabe (director, Summer Time Rendering) serving as director; with Hiroaki Kojima (animation producer, Komi Can’t Communicate) as producer; character designs by Kairi Unabara, who did key animation for the Zom 100 opening, and music by Yuka Kitamura (Elden Ring). The teaser trailer was directed by Kazuki Kawagoe (director, Zom 100). No cast members have been announced just yet, and additional staff members will most likely be revealed over the next few months. The anime is set for release sometime in 2025.
The original Witch Hat Atelier manga is currently being serialized in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine, Morning Two, and has been since July 2016, with 13 volumes as of February 2024. Kodansha USA acquired the title in July 2018, with the first volume being released in April 2019. The series has had immensely positive reception, with over 5.5 million copies in circulation as of July 2024, and multiple award nominations and wins, most notably the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia and the Harvey Award for Best Manga both in 2020. With the look and feel of the first trailer, a rising studio behind the production and all the excitement and support for the upcoming anime, Witch Hat Atelier might just become the most beautiful anime adaptations of 2025.
The first chapter of Witch Hat Atelier is available to read for free on Kodansha’s website.
Source: ANN, Anitrendz
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