Let’s talk about, how I arrived at, The Witch and the Beast. After watching lots of shonen anime with their flairs and motivations, I started to crave something different, something more consequential repercussion, spun around a story.
My search led me to seinen genre and already released, The Witch and the Beast, was just there.
I didn’t ponder much, I thought, “Hey, why don’t I give it a watch”.
Though I’m not much of a binge-watcher, it took me two days to finish the entire season.
Well, I’m hoping there will be another season.
I liked each episode along the way and found a chance to discuss some good points that made the watching experience more wholesome.
But before anything, let me tell you the gist of the story first, and then I’ll tell you about the good side and some good points that compelled me to like this series.
Table of Contents
Synopsis Of, The Witch And The Beast
As the title “The Witch and the Beast” tells, the story is about a beast and a witch and the strange connection between them.
By the way, there is more than one witch, but the person of focus is a single one, Angela Anne Huell.
The beast is named Guideau, trapped in a girl’s body, after being cursed by Angela.
Imagine, a big, muscular, and wild dude, trapped in a delicate girl’s body, the frustration he would feel!!
This situation resulted in vengeful thoughts of Guideau and he joined the Order of Magical Resonance.
Order of Magical Resonance is an organization dedicated to dealing with everything related to magic while being managed by magic users.
There he was assigned a partner, Ashaf.
Ashaf, who talks smoothly and is shrewd, can use magic, but not on par with Witches.
He carries the real body of Guideau in a big coffin on his back and travels all the continents while solving magic-related problems with the help of Guideau.
His secondary and Guideau’s primary goal, which is to find Angela for breaking the curse, continues.
Interesting Points On Guideau
In, The Witch and the Beast, Guideau is a character who appeared to me as a “tsundere” at first, but soon I found out, that there is no “dere” part in him, it’s purely “tsun”.
A purely vengeful beast, solely living for vengeance, and having a unique attachment to revenge, that’s what Guideau is.
I like how Guideau is shown as always irritated and ready for action, it shows his eagerness to reach his goal as soon as possible and his beast-like nature.
In each case, which he and Ashaf take, or the cases they chance upon, it seems interesting as soon Guideau opens his mouth and asks, the whereabouts of the witch.
To him, it’s all witches if there is anything wrong, and most of the time, he is the one, who is wrong.
Guideau’s outburst seems funny whenever that happens.
His brutishness also comes with his sensibility in a package, he seems patient despite his instinctive nature.
This gap in character makes Guideau more appealing in general.
It may seem that he would lose himself in the battle, but surprisingly that isn’t the case, despite functioning with instinct, he is capable of making precisely smart judgments in such situations.
His eating habit is also quite interesting, eating meat ferociously while crunching the bones to the pieces.
It somehow spices up his character.
One thing, that makes me curious, is how the hell Guideau retains a portion of his strength in that delicate alternate body of his!!
yes, he sometimes uses a magical tool, but, most of the time, he can muster much more strength than his delicate “female” body can handle!!
I guess that’s a mystery and that also adds to the charm of the character.
Interesting Points On Ashaf
In, The Witch and the Beast, Ashaf may come off as a gentleman with a plan, like a person, and he is exactly that.
His exterior seems neat and posh, a smoker, with a piercing on one of his ears, an appearance screaming to be noticed as of upper echelon.
But, the truth can’t be more different, as he is more of a shrewd and street-smart person.
Well, I guess both the characters of the focus have something in common, a gap in character.
He is shown as an empathetic person, as in each case he and Guideau chance upon, he tends to sympathize with the victims and Guideau is at the top of his list.
For him, not only witches but everything and everyone related to the misuse of magic or magical objects must be dealt with as he follows the Order of Magical Resonance’s principles.
But, what makes him more appealing to me is, he can use the loopholes of those rules if necessary!!
Finding Angela to lift Guideau’s curse, was never of less priority to him, he just never wants Guideau in harm’s way.
That’s why, he sometimes uses his magic smartly and stealthily to hold back Guideau’s ferocity.
His smart and calculating brain sometimes manipulates Guideau into his bidding and that is quite fun to watch, especially when Guideau finds out and freaks out in anger.
There is one thing that I noticed, that, Ashaf isn’t exactly similar with other suave characters of other animes.
He got his priorities right, to keep at those he never once shied away from breaking his character.
Magic And Witches In, The Witch And The Beast
The world of, The Witch and the Beast, is somewhat of a fantasy.
To be precise, it’s a fantasy world in its progressed modern version, with government, technology, and more.
What remains common among this world’s past and present in, The Witch and the Beast, is witches.
This unique setting attracted me, as I’ve not seen another anime forging fantasy in such a realistic approach without using the isekai element.
As much the story is about the beast, it is more about witches, as the presumable protagonist, Guideau seems to appear as a conclusion to each of the story.
That doesn’t mean that he appears only at the last of each story arc.
The actions he takes build up repercussions until the last moment with the influence of witches or magic-related incidents only to blow up.
The approach taken in this story is unique but very natural.
Like in the early centuries, witches were symbols of hatred and fear, the same is the case in this story but a toned-down version.
There may be some witches, who are loved by others, but more or less, their social stance is that of a fear factor.
But, in reality, everything is not so black and white, there is grey in between.
In that grey area, resides the witches and magic.
The story doesn’t shy away from utilizing its fair share of deaths in Raw to depict the influence of those so-called fear factors.
From the very first episode, the involvement of magic and witches was very prominent and it started to grow with each episode.
There were even episodes without the protagonist and even the tritagonist, but there was a witch.
Just like I said, this story is more about witches than the beast.
Final Thoughts
The series, The Witch and the Beast, somehow made me love it.
It has its fair share of action, mystery, and close-to-the-ground kind of reality check.
This first season of, The Witch and the Beast(yes I’ll call it the first season, cause, I hope a second season will be released in not so far future), seemed like a character development arc, which is good in its way.
I got to know those charming characters, and the traits of those characters, and presumably the next installment of the series will elaborate on those.
This in itself is a good suspense, as it teases you for wanting to know more.
In its entirety, The Witch and the Beast is a series that may captivate you as it did to me and you may find yourself thinking about it even after the series ends.
There are more seinen animes, released in 2024.
Among them, I’ve curated 7 such gems, to know what those are, consider reading my Blog Post on 7 great seinen anime to watch in 2024.
