One of Shonen Jump’s strongest new manga needs to tread very carefully with a recent story development. As major series like Jujutsu Kaisen have ended and even more (like Sakamoto Days) gear up for their final arcs, Jump fans have been itching to see what will rise to the top next. Amid a broad field of new contenders, Ichi the Witch has stuck out an ideal candidate to carry Shonen Jump forward through a new era.
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Warning: Minor spoilers for Ichi the Witch up to Chapter 45!
Ichi the Witch smashed onto the scene with a unique charm, a lovable main character, tight writing, and great world-building. Its fans have only been growing in number, and as of the time of writing, the manga has now accumulated 45 chapters. But the latest chapter, “Appearances Deceiving”, established a love interest that might signal a major misstep for Ichi unless it’s handled remarkably well.
Ichi the Witch Has Become One of Jump’s Best New Stories
Ichi the Witch, for the uninitiated, is a story about a feral boy named Ichi who inexplicably has the ability to acquire majik (humanoid manifestations of magic) in a world where men have no magical potential. After a chance encounter, he absorbs an incredibly strong majik who had resisted acquisition by female witches, becoming the first male witch. Accompanying him on his journeys so far has been a team built around Desscaras, one of the strongest witches around, also consisting of insecure scribe Kugumi and newcomer Gokuraku.
With this team as a foundation, Ichi the Witch has already framed out a sprawling tale with pacing that’s methodical but never plodding—rare in an era where even top-performing Shonen Jump titles seem ever more intent on bringing things to a rapid close. Ichi the Witch‘s world is enormous, and its subtly dense sociopolitical storytelling and unique magic system mean that world is ripe for exploration and safeguarded against future meaningless meandering. The last arc’s trip to another country showed this potential off with a thoughtful story combining political intrigue, personal connections, a killer fight, and a remarkable sensation of its conflict’s stakes.
All that to say: Ichi is very intelligently written. It bats higher than one would expect for Osamu Nishi after his gag comedy, Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun, which was thoroughly enjoyable but nowhere near as ambitious as Ichi. It’s possible that giving art duties to Act-Age‘s Shiro Usazaki reduced pressure and allowed Nishi to flourish in his storytelling.
Ichi the Witch‘s Latest Chapter Gives Too Much Room to Stumble
Ichi’s generally top-notch writing goes to show why its latest development is such a surprise. The most recent chapter isn’t egregious, but it is definitely unexpected: after countless chapters flush with sincerity and carefully-paced characterization, Chapter 45’s sudden romantic subplot provides an unusual opportunity for fears to arise about Ichi’s tight storytelling losing consistency.
Team Desscaras’ Kugumi has fast become a fan-favorite. She’s a great friend to Ichi and Desscaras, her character design is cute, and her anxiety and insecurity are deeply relatable. She checks all the boxes, basically. Ichi the Witch Chapter 44 had us speculating where the story would take us after revealing that her sister, Spica Harvest, would attend Ichi’s witch debut party.
Kugumi’s obvious discomfort had us feeling that Spica Harvest’s reveal would immediately give way to some longed-after backstory for Ichi’s supporting cast. There are subtle hints of that, like Spica commenting that Kugumi is “the best stepping stone” during her internal monologue. But Chapter 45 focused on something completely different: Spica waffling over Ichi’s male witch status and his fitness as a potential marriage partner.
But Spica initially rejects Ichi in her head, assuming that he must be an absolutely undesirable feral boy. Nonetheless, Spica’s tone is totally different when finally seeing Ichi. The chapter ends with her claiming that she “definitely would” and having a clear attraction to Ichi. On its own, this isn’t awful. But if it isn’t played right, it could show the start of a major crack in Ichi‘s storytelling.
Why Chapter 45 is Unexpected, and How Ichi Can Play It Right
So far, Ichi has been a resoundingly sincere story when it comes to character interactions. Romance hasn’t exactly been on the table, precisely because no character has seemed geared for it. Spica’s romantic intentions aren’t entirely unwarranted, since her interest is initially pragmatic (and the vessel for talking about power, status, and privilege in Ichi’s world) and Ichi is the center of attention at his debut party, after all. But the shift from conscious pragmatism to clear infatuation starts to feel like the build-up for an empty gag, by the end. In other words, the problem isn’t what happened, but how it happened.
So how will this play? Realistically, Ichi could only be confused by (or outright reject) her advances. Furthermore, given Ichi‘s pacing and the general vibe of these sorts of festival set-ups in other action-fantasy manga, the debut party feels like it’s probably the setting for enemy intervention, major conflict, or plot twists. In other words, the plot crumb probably won’t go anywhere.
Setting up a romance through this kind of gag feels very out of place in comparison to Ichi’s so far meaty relationships; the set-up, to be frank, feels like something out of a worse-written manga. There’s nothing wrong with a lighthearted intermission or romance for its own sake, either, but the reveal feels cheap, and it’s easy to see how it could play disastrously out of tune with Ichi‘s emotional arrangements to date.
To be more optimistic, there’s one way that a cheap reveal could work in its favor: Ichi has shown in the past that it isn’t afraid to take things suddenly dark, like with its prophecy revelation. The Spica Harvest development could be a way of lulling readers into a false sense of security so it can catch them off guard. Another route could be Ichi using Spica’s interest to compel some kind of forward momentum for Kugumi’s character development, possibly out of jealousy (not necessarily romantic) of the attention she’ll inevitably give Ichi.
To be clear, this isn’t fatal for Ichi. It would show something more unfortunate than fatal: a brilliantly written manga can actually just be middling. Where do you think Ichi the Witch will take Spica’s interest in Ichi? Let us know in the comments! And if you want to read about the other top ongoing Jump manga, click through to the link below.
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Image courtesy of HBO
