The Spring 2026 Anime Preview Guide

The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch

Witch apprentice Spica Virgo can't use magic at all. To earn a place in the magic school she dreams of entering, she needs a mentor, but she has neither money nor connections. One day, a mysterious black cat who speaks and wields magic appears before her. Spica wants to master sorcery, and the black cat longs to break a curse. The pair's goals align. Thus begins their secret master-apprentice pact.

The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch is based on the manga series by Yōsuke Kaneda. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

I almost feel sorry for the team behind The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch. We've got a story about a young girl who admires magic but doesn't seem to have the ability, only to find herself inducted into their world by a gifted master in order to break a curse. In the same season as Witch Hat Atelier. It's not a very flattering comparison, is it?

Lest you think this is a “two cakes” situation, let me assure you: this show is not good. Not good at all. Spica is the kind of heroine that's extremely typical to non-Jump (in that Jump editors are by and large terrified of female protagonists) shonen fantasy heroine: earnest, clumsy, and kind of dim. More cute than competent, designed to be rooted for and/or made a fool of and/or ogled at rather than sympathized with. And ogle the camera does: there were more shots of her panties in the first five minutes than I think there were of the rest of the shows I've watched for the guide combined. She's driven, I'll give her that, and there's promise in how she thinks of studying ancient runes to improve her chances of finding the grimoire, but that's not enough to overcome her stock personality and the fact that more often than not, she's the butt of every joke.

Nor does it succeed on technical grounds. The animation is the LIDEN special: flat, dull to look at, and lit like it's overcast and slightly hazy, even though we can see that the sky is blue. The animators especially struggle to draw kitty Claude, often rendering him lumpy and oddly-proportioned; there's more care put into the bulge of Spica's labia than there is in his whole body. The background music rarely matches the scene; in an early scene, strings soar as if we're at some great emotional climax when Spica has met a particularly rude talking cat.

The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch is basically my platonic ideal of a two-star anime. It's not bad in ways that make me angry that I have to watch it (note: my participation in Preview Guide is entirely voluntary), just a mediocre concept with subpar execution.

I respect this anime far more than I actually enjoy it—which I admit is more of a backhanded complement than it really deserves. To be more specific, I like the comedic concept and execution of the show more than the actual story.

On the surface, this anime is your typical shoujo romance centered around a magic school. We have our hapless heroine who believes if she just gives her all in learning magic, she'll succeed in her dreams—and just maybe hook up with the hot wizard she looks up to (and pines after). Of course, she's totally useless at magic and can't cast a single spell. Enter a magical talking cat (who is totally not the man she's been crushing on for two years) and we have the framework for at least one magical romance story you've seen before.

However, rather than simply going through the motions—hitting all the usual tropes without thinking—this anime likes to twist them. Sometimes, it plays the clichés straight to support big reveals and build pathos. So while we may see characters take lethal damage and get back up with nothing but a nose bleed and think nothing of it due to our familiarity with similar comedies, this show actually uses her resilience as a plot point. Her innate magic restores things to their previous state—including her own body.

The other big twist this episode comes from the show making the conscious choice to put the comedy ahead of the romance despite its romance story framework. Basically, they take the big inciting romantic moment of the entire series—true love's kiss—and make it as unromantic as possible. Spica has to kiss the cat's butthole to undo its curse. The very idea is treated by both Spica and the cat as the vile thing it actually would be. But then, when it comes time for the kiss to happen, the directorial team flips the script once again and makes it as beautifully magical as possible. It's honestly brilliant writing and direction—a perfect payoff to the joke by diving hard into the romance framework it had just subverted.

But… and this is a big “but”… while I love what the show is doing as a piece of deconstructive, trope-subverting fiction, the fact remains that I do not particularly like the characters, the world, or the overall story. Even after this episode, I'm not invested at all. To put it another way, this is a show that seems like it will live or die based on the comedy and how it resonates with you. For me, I had some laughs and am glad I watched it but don't feel any need to come back for more next week.

On Crunchyroll, the description for the premiere of The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch simply reads: “Spica is trying to learn to become a master sorcerer. She has a long ways to go.” That is one hell of an understatement. Spica Virgo is the latest in a long and storied line of anime heroes and heroines who are almost literally too stupid to live. We first meet Spica during her latest attempt at flying a broom that would have certainly ended in her terrible and violent death if she didn't occupy a cartoon universe where the laws of physics and human mortality do not apply. This sort of setup can easily go one of two ways. As Yowayowa Sensei so capably demonstrated just this week, an incompetent idiot with a terminal suite of personality defects can make a series into an unwatchable trainwreck.

Thankfully, The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch gets off on the right foot with some capable animation and a generally breezy tone that gives us the impression that this Spica the kind of terrifyingly deficient moron who you won't mind hanging out with for twenty minutes or so each week. Hell, with the amount of antics-driven panty shots the premiere doles out in just the first few minutes of the premiere, you'd be forgiven for thinking that someone accidentally uploaded an episode from some incredibly-dated-but-still-decently-funny trash that we would have been positively swimming in back in the late-90s and early 2000s. ADV would have surely gotten its hands on this one. The DVD probably would have come in a cardboard sleeve stuffed with cotton panties and a couple of stickers showing off the titular black cat's butthole.

That's not just me being crass, either. The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch is providing more than enough juvenile humor on its own. Because the entire universe is getting off on poor Spica's pain and humiliation, she can't even stumble into a classic fairy tale plot without things becoming (almost) inexcusably stupid. When a magical talking cat helps to reveal that Spica's magical talents actually lie in the mythical powers of Rebirth Magic, it seems like a dream come true. It even makes the show's cartoonish writing and presentation seem smarter in retrospect, because she really should be dead after so many failed attempts at traditional magic, but her Rebirth Magic has been protecting her all this time. Now, Spica might finally be able to live up to the legacies of the great magicians of her time, like that dreamboat wizard, Claude! If you instantly guessed that Claude is the sassy talking cat that Spica made friends with, congratulations, you have likely read a book or watched an episode of television in the last 70 years.

However, how many of you would have guessed that the cure to Claude's condition would be for Spica to deliver her fair maiden's kiss… directly to the kitty-cat's butthole!? Okay, sure, I immediately guessed that when I saw the show's trailer, but only because it's the single stupidest thing I could have imagined in that moment! That's where I have to give The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch the credit it is due. This anime owns its stupidity with its entire heart. It commits to the bit, no matter what the friends and loved ones watching helplessly from the sidelines might be screaming in protest. It doesn't just make a joke about going magical feline ass to human girl mouth, it turns the event into a climactic setpiece. The animators work overtime to sell the drama and spectacle of the big monster guy's invasion so you know that there is absolutely no choice. Spica is going to have to give that cat the rimjob of a century.

Yeah, I'll admit it: I laughed. I laughed a lot. Is this deeply stupid, unserious show going to win any awards? God, I hope not. Is it a surprisingly well-produced mix of dumb jokes and solid anime action? Yes, it is. If you, like me, have long ago forsaken such meaningless shackles as “shame” and “self-respect,” then you might find yourself enjoying The Classroom of a Black Cat and a Witch, too.

Yōsuke Kaneda, you have a lot to answer for. I know that True Love's Kiss™ to break a spell is a hoary old trope, but was the best way to subvert it really to transfer that kiss from the mouth to the anus? Because look, I love all eight of my cats to pieces, but there's no way in hell I'm doing that. And yes, the cat in question is actually a human wizard named Claude, so maybe he's better equipped to handle hygiene, but really, not only is this gag gross, it's stupid and humiliates both characters involved.

I get that it's meant to be funny, though, so I suppose this is a “your mileage may vary” situation.

And really, when you get down to it, the method of spellbreaking is only one piece of the issue with this episode. The more pressing problem is that it's all over the place and never really gives viewers a chance to breathe. Spica's lack of typical magic and her determination to attend the school where (human) Claude taught before his disappearance is par for the course, as is Claude's muddled reputation – he saved Spica, but rumors have him fleeing in the face of attack rather than saving other people. His curse is karmic in nature, so Spica's view of Claude may be the one that's incorrect. But don't spend too much time sweating about that, because apparently Spica has a giant family we never see and a massive fantasy library to explore. And then a cult to fight. And a secret power to discover. Also, she needs to shriek and fall down a lot. It feels like there are at least two episodes' worth of material crammed into twenty-three minutes, and not only does that make for a tonally dissonant experience, but it also doesn't give you time to process anything.

Spica and Claude are both unsympathetic characters, possibly because of the episode's rushed pacing. It's clear that Spica's not actually stupid; she's shown to be able to read ancient runic script and to think outside the box. But she still spends most of the episode acting like a ditz or being jerked around by Claude, with a few underwear shots thrown in for good measure. Also, why is Spica wearing a miniskirt while everyone we see in town and the library is dressed like it's the 1880s? It's a small detail, but it drives home the episode's utter lack of continuity.

Obviously, humor is subjective. I could see elements of this working for other people, and I do love the imagery of the giant book that opens to become a portal, so it's got some visual panache. But I found myself annoyed rather than entertained while watching this, and I'm hoping never to think of it again after this review.