This review may contain spoilers.
This review is for the anime, OVA episodes and the crossover special.
The anime has an interesting concept where people can use powers after kissing a person and where the powers are randomly obtained by struggling through the daily school live.
The anime has pacing issues, where the story starts of slow for the first 5 episoded, only to pick up the pace a bit for another 4 episodes and then end up rushing the last 3 episodes.
The characters are interesting and most of them have motivations for the things they do. Their designs do not stand out.
The animation is clean and the performance of the supernatural studies club in the OVA looks pretty with all the fluent movements and fireworks.
The sound is good and has an opening (anime) and ending (OVA) which stand out.
Despite feeling rushed, leaving certain things unexplained and conveniently introducing the plot, I did really enjoy watching this anime. The main thing that did it for me was probably the synergy between the two main characters and I wanted to see how they overcame the issues they faced together. The anime probably would have been better if it had 24 episodes and approached the existence of the witch powers a bit different.
Like
The supernatural studies club learns about two witch powers through an old journal, those being the power of charm and telepathy, and a third one they already know, that being the power to switch body, because it is Shiraishi's power and she is in the club. The rest of the powers are figured out through a trial-and-error process, because the other witches do not fully know how their powers work. Doing it through that process feels like the most natural way to go about it.
Each witch power reflects an issue that the girl is struggling with. One of the girls is not good at talking to other people, so she gained the power of telepathy. Another girl wanted to have allies around her, so she gained the power to charm others.
It is sweet how Yamada uses his wish from gathering all the witches in one place to make the witch powers dissapear, so that no one would have to suffer through them anymore and they could live normal school lives.
We learn more about the blond haired guy who appeares throughout the anime a few times in the crossover episode. He is seen one time when Shiraishi passes him in the streets and another time when he is playing a fighting game in an arcade. He also appears in the OVA together with his friends as judges for the club contest.
By the end of the anime Yamada gets what he alway wanted: a place and friend group where he belongs to.
Dislike
The plot is randomly introduced at the end of episode 5, which is almost halfway through the anime, through an old journal from the previous supernatural studies club. Ushio just goes to Yamada and gives it to him and that's how they learn about the existence of witches in their highschool. However, introducing it this way feels like plot convenience. It would have been better if the group never received that journal, but instead just kept track of these mysterious powers they witnessed as part of the supernatural studies club's activaties and then linked them together after seeing a pattern in them. The club has afterall witnessed two special powers by the end of the fifth episode. This probably would not work out though, because doing it this way would probably not fit in the remaining 7 episodes, since the anime itself already has pacing issues near the end to finish the story in 12 episodes.
The memory of the person who knows the names of all seven witches gets erased, but this does not make sense. It is mentioned that it is necessary because of a tradition, but the reason behind the tradition is never explained. We learn that a wish can be made when all witches appear in a specific room in the school, so perhaps to avoid an unpleasant wish being made, but to do so it seems that the witches themselves must get in that one room, get in a specific formation, have the person making the wish sit in a specific place. With all the set-up that is necessary it feels liek you can't just accidentally make a wish. Having said that, it also is not explained why the wish needs to be made in that one room next to the student council room or how they know how the ceremony goes.
The reason why a witch killer and witch power copier exist is also never explained. Yamada just has the ability to copy witch powers and Tamaki can just steal witch powers and everyone just goes along with it. It would have been better if the reason for their existance was explained.
Halfway episode 9 Yamada learns from the student council president that there are 7 witches in total. He tells this to the supernatural studies club and they spend the rest of the episode searching for the identity of the seventh witch, but at the start of episode 10 Miyamura mentions he has a sister who knows her identity. Why did Miyamura not mention this earlier? According to him it is a secret that he has a sister, but from how things play out it doesn't seem to have been a big secret to hide. In the end it just feels like the anime lost half an episode for nothing.
Like
The main characters, Yamada and Shiraishi, have a great synergy going on and it's clear they have faith in one another, since they can kiss to use the body switching power without much resistance from either party.
It is sweet how Odagiri does not want to interfere with Yamada's plans,
It is bittersweet how Odagiri does not accept the offer to interfere with Yamada's plans on making Shiraishi remember him again in exchange for erasing Yamada's memory again so they could become a couple instead, because she knows he will always love Shiraishi even though he wouldn't remember her or no matter how much she interferes.
Dislike
It is stupid how Rika Saionji's personality is defined by her not wearing panties. It feels like she exists just to be the seventh witch.
It feels like Tsubaki only exists to create a fire in the old school building during the power of futuresight arc, because he doesn't play an important role in what happens afterwards. He helps the supernatural studies club for one episode and then he just dissapears from the anime. He is seen again in the OVA though.
Like
The animation is clean throughout the anime and the performance of the supernatural studies club in the OVA looks pretty with all the fluent movements and fireworks.
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The voice actor for Kiryu Kazuma from the Yakuza series does the voice for the leader of the delinquents.
The anime has a banger opening. Here is the opening song: https://youtu.be/BHncfQjJb_w
The OVA has a banger ending in the first episode and it also does this thing where the ending starts playing while the episode is ending. Here is the ending song: https://youtu.be/PCp2iXA1uLE
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