{"id":697959,"date":"2025-11-03T01:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/brief-manga-thoughts-witchriv\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T01:50:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T22:50:14","slug":"brief-manga-thoughts-witchriv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/brief-manga-thoughts-witchriv\/","title":{"rendered":"Brief Manga Thoughts: Witchriv"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I don\u2019t read much manga<\/a>, but <\/span>Hakuri<\/b>\u2019s newly serialized <\/span>Witchriv<\/span><\/i> (available in English on MANGA Plus<\/a>) stirred my interest thanks to its one-shot predecessor <\/span>Meririrarariri<\/span><\/i><\/a>. Set in a world where most humans detest mages, magic in <\/span>Meririrarariri <\/span><\/i>requires composure from the caster \u2014 get flustered or panicked by the situation, and you won\u2019t be able to use magic to save your life. That becomes something protagonist Meriri, born to a mage mother and a human father, has to surmount when her life is directly threatened by a witch hunter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The composure requirement was a big reason I was curious about <\/span>Witchriv <\/span><\/i>\u2014 when you face constant discrimination and danger, and your best means of defense is remaining calm no matter what, how would that affect the character development and worldview of the protagonist in a serialized work? Sadly for me,<\/span> Witchriv <\/span><\/i>opts for a different system where each mage specializes in one particular type of magic (based on what\u2019s been shown so far, at least). Nona, the protagonist in <\/span>Witchriv<\/span><\/i>, has sewing powers, while her mother has surprisingly lethal and destructive comb magic, with its ability to slice up people highlighted in a couple of large, violent panels.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another big difference (among others) is that instead of <\/span>living in seclusion in a forest, Nona resides in a town and even has a human friend who keeps her identity as a witch a secret. This creates a situation later in the first chapter that bluntly showcases the terror of state-sanctioned and -enforced persecution and othering (something that easily recalls events from the past and the present), although the predictability of the development and the alright panels nip at its impact.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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