Stripped of her life for reasons unknown, Aoi Konominato wakes up as a child in an unfamiliar world, still haunted by regret and goals left unfulfilled. After twelve years of learning under the tutelage of an elven sage named Owain, she's mastered the art of sorcery and is sent by her wise—if eccentric—mentor to the renowned Fiddich Academy to serve as an instructor and further her studies. Bitter memories of her past life as a fledgling teacher still nip at her heels, yet despite her initial reluctance, Aoi knows that this is her chance to do things better. Determination won't be enough, though. Between misbehaving students of noble birth and elitist instructors, Aoi may have bitten off more than she can chew...or she might just be the missing ingredient the academy needs to become a paragon of educational equality and discipline. Class is in session, and the fearsome witch of Fiddich Academy has come prepared to teach them all a lesson they won't soon forget.

The Fearsome Witch Teaches in Another World: Ms. Aoi's Lesson Plans is written by Mitsuru Inoue and drawn by Sakura. Character design by Suzuno. English translation by Geirrlon Dunn. Lettered by Arbash Mughal. Published by J-Novel Club (October 29, 2025).

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Oh, look! Another isekai story. Wow, it isn't like I haven't already reviewed what feels like several dozen of them for this guide already. Sigh. At least this is one of the better ones. The fact that protagonist Aoi was previously a 24-year-old Japanese adult who died and was reincarnated into a random 8-year-old body becomes less relevant as the plot progresses. The main way that her previous life has influenced her is in her desire to be a good teacher and her total lack of tolerance for bullying, social status, and undeserving exceptionalism. Taught advanced magic by the man who essentially becomes her foster father, at the (physical) age of 20, she sets off to teach at a prestigious magical academy full of entitled upper-class jerks who have no idea what's about to hit them.

I'll admit to greatly appreciating Aoi's actions in this story. She doesn't suffer (rich, arrogant) fools gladly, and the way she repeatedly bursts the bubbles of every entitled little shit noble (and some tutors too) is quite cathartic. I can't imagine there's a practicing school teacher out there who doesn't wish they could smack the most disruptive, abusive students in their class with a swift ice spell to freeze them in place and make them shut the hell up. Sadly, teachers in our world don't have the freedom to discipline little horrors, but I imagine this manga could help soothe their frustrations.

Aoi's rigidly inflexible devotion to justice, disregard of social norms, and sensory fixations (she has a thing for rubbing animal people's ears) could almost be read as the actions of a person on the autistic spectrum. I like her a lot, especially the chaos she leaves in her wake. I'd like to read further volumes, if only so I can see what happens when she calls her promised parents-teacher conference. I can't imagine she'll hold back on the parents of troublemakers, regardless of their powerful statuses. As many of my teacher friends will attest, often the parents are more trouble than the students...

Erica Friedman
Rating:

As a believer in the modern hope that inequity and bullying are tools of the weak and incompetent against the majority of people to keep them unaware of their power, I found The Fearsome Witch Teaches in Another World: Ms. Aoi's Lesson Plans satisfying. Aoi is a likable, if unrelatable, character. I mean, how are we meant to relate to a person who dies, was adopted in another world by a powerful elf mage, and whose skills are orders beyond everyone else's? Nonetheless, you will like someone who not only steps up for the marginalized in their world, but who demands everyone step up with them.

So, we're okay with Aoi being overpowered, because she's a nice overpowered lady. Ahah! It's the old “Aw shucks, I ain't that powerful” power fantasy, with a female lead and a 21st-century moral code. I did wonder why it was an isekai, but that alone would be a driver for Aoi being from our world. There is also space in the story for Aoi to fulfill her kendo championship former life goals, if the author wanted to address that.

Worth calling out is the pleasant lack of hyper-sexualization. Yes, Aoi's skit is short, but while people around Aoi keep referring to how cute and young she looks, we never once have a breast size conversation – not even in a bath. Phew.

What we have in front of us is a decent person with enough physical, magical, and status power to force any bully to unmask themselves as pathologically violent and thus strip them of respect. As I sit here in the USA of 2025, this seems like a perfectly lovely power fantasy to me. Let's all sign up to be like Aoi and “aw shucks” the bullies out of town.

Bolts
Rating:

Teaching kids is not a job for everybody. As someone with experience in the education system, applying the stress and frustration of that job to a typical fantasy setting honestly sounds like a pretty interesting idea. What happens if we take the overpowered protagonist tropes that you would see in a typical isekai story, and make someone like that a teacher, where they need to work with people who are, by default, significantly weaker than them? That has a lot of potential as a comedy rather than an action-packed narrative, but I was willing to keep an open mind when I first started reading The Fearsome Witch.

The result, unfortunately, is so middle-of-the-road that it barely even leaves an impact. Despite the simple premise, this is a very wordy and dialogue-heavy story because the writer feels the need to explain virtually everything about everything. In some ways, that makes sense, given the fact that this is a school setting where magic is being taught, but when I say everything is being explained, I mean everything needs to be broken down, which bogs down the overall pacing. We get an explanation about the school. We get an explanation about specific students. We get an explanation about the deep-seated racism going on, and we get an explanation for seemingly all of the magic that we see. All of his dialogue is accompanied by very little flair or style to the point where it feels like I'm just reading a light novel with pictures.

The fact that the overall story doesn't really have a direction or point makes this feel like more of a pain to read than it actually is. There are some lighthearted and comedic moments, but they don't stand out and are too spread far apart. It really does feel like this is a story with a premise that was unique, but the writer didn't know how to present that premise uniquely, so the result is something that doesn't really try to be anything more than a typical isekai story; it's just a lot more wordy. Maybe I had too many high hopes, but ultimately, the final result is more boring than expected.