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The Summer 2025 Anime Preview Guide - Secrets of the Silent Witch

How would you rate episode 1 of
Secrets of the Silent Witch ?
Community score: 4.0



What is this?

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Monica Everett, the Silent Witch, is the world's only practitioner of Voiceless Magic, a veritable heroine who single-handedly fended off the Black Dragon of legend. However, the young prodigy is actually…super-duper shy. and she only learned Voiceless Magic to avoid speaking in public. Ignorant of this, the Seven Sages have placed her on a top-secret mission to guard the Second Prince.

Secrets of the Silent Witch is based on the light novel series by author Matsuri Isora and illustrator Nanna Fujimi. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.


How was the first episode?

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Episode 2
Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I find parts of this episode painful to watch. Monica's shyness, which seems to draw from both her natural reticence and traumatic experiences, isn't played for laughs, per se, but it's still difficult to recognize the difficult positions she's placed in. Being stood up in front of the entire class and told to introduce herself and then chastised for not being able to is a real-life nightmare, and the urge to hide when someone who scares you approaches for unknown reasons is likewise a real pain some of us have experienced. No matter what the story is actually going for, for people with certain neurodivergencies or just plain old painful anxious shyness, it can be hard to watch Monica experience these things.

That, of course, can be taken as a sign that the episode is depicting them with some degree of faithfulness, although whether or not that's a comfort depends on the viewer. But it all certainly highlights how much work she's got cut out for her in her mission to protect Prince Felix. Fighting dragons is A Piece of Cake compared to interacting with her peer group. At least with dragons, you know what to expect. Teenagers? Not so much. That's very much driven home by Monica's interactions with Eliott and Felix. The former distrusts Monica almost on sight, although he's got a good reason to do so: another student council member, Aaron, has just been found guilty of embezzlement and claims to haven an accomplice, so when Monica accidentally falls into Eliott's trap, it's hard to blame him for making an assumption about her. And as scary as he is, Prince Felix is the opposite. Yes, he freaks Monica out too, but not in the same fear-based way his bodyguard (?) does. Felix just gets way too close too quickly.

In some ways, this feels like the real first episode. Not that we didn't need the information episode one gave us; Monica's silent casting and Isabelle's reasons for playing the haughty noblewoman are important. But with Monica at school the plot seems to be really kicking off. Awkwardly enough, I also found it generally less enjoyable than the first episode, but it could simply be that Monica's issues hit a little too close to middle-and-high-school-me's home. But with nice details like the ways girls wear their uniforms based on how much money they have and the way Isabelle is committed to helping Monica find a way to do her job and be less stressed, I think there's still a lot of promise. It's not for me, but in this case, that's not an advisory to steer clear – just a note that it can hit on some difficult issues for some viewers.

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Episode 1
Rating:

I empathize with Monica, the eponymous Silent Witch. I know what it feels like to be so shy, so anxious, that throwing up is the natural result of trying to open your mouth to speak. The narrator tells us that Monica is “unlike most people” when she pioneers a form of magic that doesn't require her to speak in front of people, but in her place, I would absolutely have done the same. I'm better now, but there are still days when Monica's life of living in a remote cottage with her cat and her books feels like the safest way to face the world.

That doesn't, interestingly enough, predispose me to be all in on this show. Already within this first episode are moments that show that the outside world neither understands nor respects Monica's differences. Louis, her fellow Seven Sage (the seven greatest mages in the land), clearly thinks that Monica isn't living up to her title by shutting herself away; when she says that she recently killed a dragon, he swiftly responds that he's killed ten. He's not wrong that she's the best choice to protect Prince Felix at Serendia Academy, but he's also really not respecting her disability or neurodivergence. I spent most of the episode feeling a sympathetic knot in my throat for her.

But personal empathy aside, this seems like it could be good. Monica's own schooldays weren't great, but this time she'll be going in with a built-in ally in the form of Isabelle, who's incredibly excited to play her evil stepsister, Cinderella style. Right now Isabelle is terrifying to Monica, but given that Louis' wife Rosalie noted that Monica is malnourished and anemic after living on her own, she could use someone looking out for her. And Isabelle's act gives Monica an easy out in social situations: people can chalk her silence and discomfort up to Isabelle's presence. As long as Isabelle calms down a bit in private, this might work surprisingly well.

It's not going to be easy for her, but I think based on this episode that the story may understand her at least a little. She's got her cat, she'll have books, and if she's given space, she may do better than she expect. While I didn't love Isabelle's voice (although it is impressively flexible between her real self and her ojou-sama act), it's not enough to make me run away screaming. If this can avoid cruelty, it really might be good.


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Episode 2
James Beckett
Rating:

God bless Lady Isabelle. Her adorable friendship with our heroine Monica might just have single-handedly improved my opinion of Secrets of a Silent Witch in its entirety. Everyone deserves the kind of bestie who will commit to method acting as a deranged, haughty, rich-lady stereotype to make sure you get the private digs that you deserve at the magical academy you are infiltrating under false pretenses. That's just a fact of life.

Actually, I think I'm just happy about all of the new characters we get to meet this week. Not only do they help to flesh out the setting of Serendia Academy that Monica's mission takes place at, but they provide some much-needed depth to the show's storytelling. The premiere was just exposition and setup, which did nothing to flatter Monica as a character who is, by her very nature, a person who does everything in her power to avoid making any kind of impression on people. Instead of just having Monica's strengths and weaknesses as a character rotely explained to us, we get to see how Monica reacts to the new environment she is in, and all of the new people she has to actively deceive in order to protect Prince Felix. It just makes for much more engaging television.

Take the scene where Monica gets harangued by Elliott for keeping an eye on Felix from afar. There's comedy there, to be sure, which helps make Monica more endearing, but the scene also plays Elliott's aggression and arrogance fairly straight. Here, you feel why Monica would have become so shy and withdrawn if she'd already had to go through her own school days surrounded by people like this.

Of course, we get more flashbacks to the abusive childhood that Monica also had to suffer through, which goes a long way towards making her into a proper, three-dimensional protagonist. This material I'm less enthusiastic about. It comes across as heavy-handed and dour in a way that I'm not sure benefits what the story is already doing. You don't have to have been mercilessly beaten and verbally abused as a kid to struggle with anxiety and making healthy connections. I feel like backstories about horribly traumatic upbringings are often used as set dressing, and little else. Maybe the show will prove me wrong, though.

It has, after all, already proven to be a much more entertaining anime than its choppy premiere let on. The pacing of the comedy is more on point, the characterization is much more effective, and the story's momentum has properly kicked into gear. I'm pleasantly surprised to report that Secrets of the Silent Witch is, in fact, pretty darned good.

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Episode 1
Rating:

Secrets of the Silent Witch had me feeling hoodwinked throughout a lot of its premiere. We begin with a fairly well-directed bit of fantasy spectacle that introduces us to a world of witches, wizards, dragons, and kingdoms in peril. So far, so predictable. The execution of this opening, though, indicated a higher-than-average level of polish and effort, so I was actually feeling rather intrigued to learn more about this universe. Novelty is wonderful, of course, but I'm happy to take a familiar story that has been executed in a visually pleasing and entertaining manner.

Then, though, we're introduced to the titular Silent Witch, Monica, and the whole premiere grinds to a halt. Monica is not an awful protagonist, per se, but she is very much a bog-standard variation of the socially awkward and painfully shy girl who can't so much as open her front door without having a panic attack, except she's also a super-special mega-level genius witch that unlocked a hitherto impossible method of casting impossibly strong magical spells. I would have been able to handle this trope fine if the rest of the show had kept up with the lively presentation that it promised in that opening scene, but for ten solid minutes we just sit around at Monica's table while her wizard buddy exposits about how ultra-amazing she is at magic, and the important mission to protect the prince at his academy, and blah-blah-blah.

It is the driest way possible to introduce us to the main character of this story and the adventure she's about to set out on, and Secrets of the Silent Witch nearly lost me right then and there. It isn't just that the dialogue itself is so laborious, either. The whole episode has a pace of editing and direction that just feels off. Gaps in between lines last a little too long; it takes a few frames too many to cut to the next shot in a scene; the overbearing soundtrack is trying to be funny with out it is matching intense choirs to Monica's mundane personality, but the execution just makes it seem like the wrong audio file got chosen as background music. The combined effect of all these misguided creative decisions was honestly a little maddening.

Then, just when I decide that I had this show figured out, the second half of the premiere ends up being kind of good. The weird pacing issues are still there, but once we get out of Monica's shack and start meeting other characters, Secrets of the Silent Witch suddenly comes back to life. We get funny jokes, like Monica's pig-counting singalong, and we even witness a smattering of impressive dragon-slaying spectacle that does more in one minute to convince us that Monica really is an exceptional witch than any of the infodumping that occurred ten minutes earlier. There's promise for this cartoon, yet. Hopefully, future episodes don't see it backsliding into bad habits.


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Episode 2
Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

With this episode of Secrets of the Silent Witch, we get a much better look at what's going on in Monica's head. Basically, there are two issues she is grappling with—one inborn and one traumatically caused.

The first of these is that she has a special interest: math. She sees everything in mathematical terms—loves thinking about math and sharing her viewpoint with others. On one hand, this makes her a genius—both in observational skills and in creating magic. On the other hand, while she understands logically that others don't necessarily share her passions or interests, it can be hard to remember that in the moment—especially when it feels crazy to her that others wouldn't be as excited as she is about mathematics.

The second issue is that she was physically and mentally abused by her caretaker (seemingly after her father's death). He beat her and blamed her for it—saying it was because she talked about weird stuff in public. She has since internalized this. Of course, she never intends on saying “weird stuff” but what if it slips out? Will she be abused again? So, when it comes time to talk, she is too paralyzed by trauma and fear to say anything at all—even knowing that saying nothing will result in being shunned socially.

Luckily, Monica is slowly but surely getting acquainted with people who value her—either for her unique viewpoint on the world or her non-judgmental personality. These are people who will 1) accept her special interest and 2) help her naturally start to heal from the abuse she suffered and how it continues to affect how she views herself and the world.

So, it's safe to say the personal side to the story is off to a good start—and so is the mystery, as it turns out. It's clear that someone behind the scenes is using memory-altering magic to set up a fall guy while at the same time working to assassinate the prince under the guise of an accident. Who this is and what their motive is looks to be the perfect kind of case for Monica to solve with her observational skills and hidden powers.

All in all, I enjoyed this episode far more than the first and will almost certainly be watching it through to the end.

silent-witch-richard
Episode 1
Rating:

This first episode of Secrets of the Silent Witch unfolds rather slowly. In fact, the vast majority of the episode is exposition, explaining first who Monica is and second what her mission will be (at least for this arc of the story). This is, without a doubt, the least interesting way possible of giving us this information. Louis is basically giving a monologue (with only the briefest of visual flashbacks) while Monica alternates between stammering short answers and total, baffled silence.

Think how much more interesting this episode would have been if seen through Louis' point of view: him given the mission to protect the prince, slaving over making the surveillance jewel, and getting it back destroyed. Then we follow him as he travels to a remote village looking for the one person who can help him: the legendary Silent Witch—only for us to be blindsided by the fact that said mage is a diminutive, socially awkward young woman. From there the episode could play out similarly and only in the end do we see the unrivaled magic power she commands—showing her to be every bit the legend she is purported to be.

Regardless, in it's current form, the anime seems doomed to undercut its action climax—which sucks because it's one of the most beautiful scenes of magical destruction in recent memory. We know from the moment Louis shows up that Monica is the real deal. He feels outmatched by the enemy they are facing and so he has come to the strongest mage he knows to get the job done in his stead. Thus, the idea of her defeating scores of dragons single handedly seems believable from the start. Just because she lives along and loves math doesn't mean she's weak, after all. And no one ever said that social skills were needed to be a good fighter.

So, in the end, I'm not sure what we're supposed to feel watching this episode. Are we supposed to laugh at Monica throughout the episode due to her social awkwardness? Are we supposed to find Louis asshole-ish demeanor comical? I really don't know. However, I will say that I like the mysteries that have been setup here as well as the whole undercover operation. I'm not sure how I'll like this one in the long run but I am more than happy to give it another watch next week.


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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.

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