18if

I was initially intrigued by the premise of this anime, but I thought it kind of fell flat in the execution. A trippy dream dimension where Witches control worlds sounds right up my alley, and many of the episodes seek to tackle deep and sensitive topics. Unfortunately, 18if falters in its ability to provide a satisfying resolution to the witches' stories, in my opinion. Many of the endings feel clunky, and they fall into a pattern where the male protagonist (Haruto) swoops into the girls' lives and saves them with a few conversations. The girls all fall in love with him in some capacity, also. There were a few occasions where the depictions of certain issues made me cringe, but there were others that felt decently handled and interesting. The show also suffers from setting up some interesting worldbuilding that never gets fully fleshed out, especially in the backstory of Haruto himself and some of the other characters. The ending feels unsatisfying, with a build-up that kind of fizzles out at the end, if that makes sense?

However, there are some interesting individual stories, and I really enjoyed the unique EDs for each witch!! Episode 7 has a very beautiful artstyle and one of the best (but somewhat confusing) storylines from the show. I think it could be watched standalone, honestly, so I would reccomend at least watching that one if you're interested!! I think Episode 3 handles its topic pretty well and gives Haruto one of the more active roles in saving a Witch, so it was an enjoyable watch!! The series overall was fun enough that I binge-watched a good 6 episodes at once at one point.

I would have rated it a 5, but the art and music bumped it up to 6/10.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW
I'll do my best to keep things vague but I do want to talk more in-depth about a couple specific episodes and some general storyline spoilers as well. So please be warned if you choose to read this section before watching!!

Two episodes in particular made me feel a bit uncomfortable, those being E4, The Witch of Gluttony, and E9, Idols Don't Go To the Bathroom. E4's central theme is a Witch with an eating disorder, and I don't think it was handled particularly well.The situation is solved so easily by a simple conversation with Haruto, which to me minimizes the issue that the episode is meant to represent in the first place. E9 is the weirdly sexual episode, with the Witch acting as an idol dominatrix. It was funny, but felt out of place after watching some of the more impactful episodes. The rest of the series was relatively clean, with a few innuendos or suggestive moments, so one weirdly explicit episode right before the show's final arc (11-13) was definitely a curveball.

There are a few things I wish they had explored more, like The Thorn Cross Association and Kazumi's research into the dream world. There were a lot of things set up that could have been interesting, but ultimately didn't lead anywhere.

The ending... where do I even start? I found the final episode to be really anticlimactic. They build Eve up to be a massive fight, but then all they do is sit around and talk. The message boils down to "feminism exists and is really cool!!" which is funny, considering in most of the episodes the Witch is saved just by talking to Haruto a couple times. I feel like the message contradicts itself a bit.

Overall not a terrible series!! Watch the first couple episodes if they interest you, and even if you don't finish it, I highly reccomend checking out E7.

Thanks for reading my review <3