The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch

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Alissa is a witch who lives alone in a forest. One day, she finds a human baby, and she names her Viola. Alissa raises Viola for 16 years, but Viola grows beyond even Alissa's imagination. The comedy series focuses on the parent-and-child relationship where appearances are deceiving as to who is the parent and who is the child.

The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch is based on a manga of the same name by Piroya. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

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Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:
I'll be frank. One episode of this was enough for me to know this show was not for me—and the second did nothing to change my mind. This is one of those shows that has one joke and is bound and determined to explore every possible permutation of it. We have an immortal witch who looks like a child and acts like an adult—with a human child who looks like an adult and acts like a spoiled child. Throw in some magic and some fantasy clichés and you have The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch.

Honestly, it's not bad to start—30 minutes or even an hour with the show is enjoyable enough. This is in no small part thanks to Aoi Koga bringing her A-game as Alissa. Anyone who's seen Kaguya-sama: Love is War knows just how amazing her range is—which makes her a great voice actor for any anime heavy on the gag comedy. The jokes themselves are a mixture of sight gags and situational comedy—and they hit the mark more often than not.

However, I can't imagine enjoying a full six hours of this—I was already starting to tire of it after an hour. Sure, new characters and situations were constantly being introduced but I know myself well enough to know I'd be finding the show pointless and utterly grating sooner rather than later.

That said, I want to make one thing completely clear. Nothing I see in this show seems objectively bad. As with all comedy shows, the issue is a matter of taste and what you enjoy. I'm sure that this will be an entertaining ride for many. Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

This seems to be the season for coincidences – not only do we have two shows with men in their twenties creeping on high school girls, but we also have two series where adoptive parents find infants abandoned in the forest. That's the only similarity between this show and My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer, though, unlike Ange, Viola has exactly zero intention of leaving home, ever. She's very attached to her mom Alyssa, and apparently, it's supposed to be funny that she's such a mama's girl when she looks much older than her 223-year-old parent at only age sixteen. People develop differently and have different figures! Ha ha, that's so funny! Let's show Viola's breasts a lot so everyone understands how funny it is!

The sad thing is, this show isn't without potential. Did it need to be a double release of the first two episodes? Absolutely not, because seeing both at once doesn't dramatically increase the likelihood of knowing whether this is a series for you; it's very much a "what you see is what you get sort of story." And when we discount how possessive Viola is of her mother, they have a charming relationship. Flashbacks to Viola's babyhood show how Alyssa has always been determined to do her best, as well as her reasoning for adopting the little girl herself rather than finding her human parents (humans and witches are different species in this world): she was worried that humans wouldn't be able to handle Viola's magic power or the fact that she doesn't know instinctively how to control it. She's doing what she believes is best for Viola, not herself. Her relationship with her human friend Lira is also really nice, and Lira has always done her best to be supportive, even being Viola's wet nurse, since she was nursing her son when Alyssa found her. Also, all the points in the world to Lira for ripping up Alyssa's parenting books that espoused the "breast is best" philosophy. Not breastfeeding Viola herself doesn't make Alyssa any less her mom, as the rest of these episodes amply demonstrate.

Viola's mommy issues do start to wear a bit thin, even within only two episodes, though, which isn't a great sign if this isn't your genre in the first place. The introduction of Fennel, Alyssa's childhood friend who desperately wants to get out of "little brother" status, helps a bit, and Viola's summoned phoenix is great if only for the disconnect between his deep voice and the fact that he looks like Uramichi-oniisan drew him. There are some decent sight gags, like Viola's "special" mandrake roots, and the voice cast is clearly giving it their all. This is good enough if you're in the mood for a goofy comedy, and if it can leave Viola's boobs alone, it may even turn out to be just plain "good."

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James Beckett
Rating:

I have a simple rule I tend to follow when covering comedies in the Preview Guide: Did the show make me laugh out loud, genuinely and earnestly, at least once? If so, it's probably getting at least three stars unless something else about it has gone seriously wrong. For whatever other faults it may have, The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch didn't just make me laugh once; it had me regularly cackling many times throughout its first two episodes. That makes the four-and-a-half-star rating I'm giving it an easy decision indeed. It's cute, funny as heck, and left me excited for the next episodes. What more could you ask for in a comedy?

Granted, the show doesn't exactly put its breast—er, best foot forward since one of the very first jokes we get is the sight of the tiny Alyssa getting her head smooshed into her adoptive daughter Viola's extremely jiggly boobs. You see, one of the main running gags is that the very young-looking (but ancient) Alyssa looks like the diminutive apprentice of the buxom (but teenaged) Viola when the truth goes the other way around. The show communicates this joke primarily by smashing Alyssa's face into her daughter's mammaries at any opportune moment, with the addition of a bit or two about how Alyssa gets very…different kinds of suitors compared to her Viola (it's a joke about child predators, you see). I wouldn't blame anyone for being put off by this material, but I promise you, the rest of the show is shockingly wholesome, and more importantly, the rest of its jokes are really goddamned funny. Whenever Viola's doodle-looking phoenix familiar shows up on screen, I was ready to shoot milk out my nose from laughing so hard. The second episode showcases the extensive rivalry between Viola and Fennel, the only love interest of Alyssa's that doesn't belong on a government watchlist, that yields a lot of great Looney Tunes-esque slapstick. Not every joke lands, of course, and nothing here is incredibly unique or original, but that's the thing about comedies. They can get away with being offensive, derivative, inconsistent, and stupid as long as they make you laugh. The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch succeeds at just that.

Plus, a very genuine core of familial sweetness makes even the dumb bits about Viola's magic cauldrons easier to roll with. For instance, other anime could quickly run into problematic territory with very buff and "masculine" female characters like Lira. Still, the show never really makes her the butt of the joke. Even though her immense strength and aggressive nature are used as a source of comedy, she's also presented as a much-needed source of maternal wisdom for Alyssa, even if Lira's domestic drama includes a lot more violent outbursts and fist-fights than Alyssa would ever engage in. Comedy can still work if it operates with a more biting, mean-spirited edge, but it's a lot easier to win your audience over when you care about the characters being laughed at and laughed with. I wasn't expecting The Family Circumstances of the Irregular Witch to rocket straight up to near the top of my seasonal favorites, but here we are! Give it a shot if you need good vibes and belly laughs to keep you warm this fall.

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Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

I'm of two minds on this unexpected double-length premiere. On the one hand, the second episode was key in winning me over. Everything in episode one was fine, occasionally funny, and altogether pleasant to watch, but it was the opening of episode two that endeared me to this cast and got me invested. On the other hand, this is a style of comedy that's probably best left to small bites, watching an episode at a time and letting the pleasant vibes and sensible chuckles digest, because even a second helping felt a bit like overdosing.

Taking both bites, however, I still enjoyed myself. These are simple gags based around the basic premise of a childlike mother and her very adult-looking daughter getting up to magical shenanigans, and they generally hit more often than they land. As an abiding witch-liker, I enjoyed the overall look of the series, and it got me to laugh several times. Yet even with just one episode, it felt like the gimmick was running out of steam, and we needed something besides “Haha Viola's got big boobs” to fuel punchlines. Thankfully, the sequence exploring Alyssa's early struggles with parenthood, and the support of her friend Lira, was earnest and funny enough to refresh me. I also dig that Lira is tall and muscular without anyone making a gag about it. In a show that's built around misleading appearances, I'm glad they didn't go for that low-hanging fruit, and instead just made her a cool friend.

I'm less enthused with the extended introduction to Fennel. I'm not even bothered that he's smitten with Alyssa, since despite her appearance she always acts like the centuries-old adult she is. It's more that his shtick of crushing on her, and Viola constantly interfering, got old quickly and just kept going. Similarly, when the show is just rapid-fire skits, it starts to feel like a series of shorts stitched together, rather than a cohesive episode, and that gets tedious after a while. If the show can be more like that segment with Lira, balancing comedy and sweet sentiment more evenly, I think we've got a real charmer on our hands. If it can't, well, it gave us some cute witches, so it's still a net positive.