I have been waiting for this to drop since it was announced, i have watched most of the bleach episodes from the anime and i read the entire manga not so long ago actually. So i have a pretty fair understanding of this mans narrative and artistic style and im pretty familiar with what kind of treatment his work has received in the past. This adaptation for Burn the Witch is stylish, colorful, fluid, fun, well animated and with a soundtrack that does a great job at conveying that Kubo style and in adding depth to what we are being shown. Its supposedly a movie but as it is divided in three parts im kinda confused as to what i should call it, so if im to reffer to it once again ill just call it a series.

In an era where there seems to be a serious case of repetition in animes artistic styles, im glad to say that this series feels pretty unique and fresh. Not just for the setting (which is pretty exceptional on its own right as it is a magical interpretation of London but not entirely fantastical, its still is the london that we know in real life) and captivating character designs that Kubo is known for, but also for the style of animation. The lines on these characters are so damn clean looking, and each movement is so clear, natural and agile that its just a visual delight. Theres also plenty of scenes that i can recall with striking color palettes, which is always a plus and something that i personally appreciate.

From a soundtrack perspective, i loved how well it accompanied all of the episodes and it really helped to build the excitement in the most intense scenes.

This is a pretty exciting and fast paced series, there is some quiet time and time to breathe in between scenes. But just as a scene can start to feel even a bit boring or still BOOM, something happens and the characters jump to the action. Which is something that i deeply appreciate being that its only 3 episodes, it would be awful to see that they wasted the little time they had to tell a story in boring dialogues, but they didnt! quite the opposite! And that allows for an entertaining anime that will keep you going until the very end...

...An end that isnt exactly satisfactory or with much of a sense of closure, but its there and it works. Its not that its bad, its just that more could have been done. As i have stated before, this is the Kubo style. And everyone who has experienced Bleach from beginning to end knows how he ended that manga in a pretty unfulfilling way, so this is just him showing that he has yet to become better at giving closure to his stories. But, you should take this criticism with a pinch of salt. As this is an adaptation of a one shot and im not exactly sure about how fair it is to say this about a one shot. Now, the criticism that i can make is that while i enjoyed both female protagonists, liked their chemistry and saw a bit of development in their relationship... i feel like more could have been done when it comes to character development, cuz there were some nice things that were setted up in episode 2 but didnt really pay off in any interesting way for the ending. Which is kind of a shame, since there was even a character with a kind of imposter syndrom case which i found super interesting and that could end up leading to something interesting but in the end it amounted to nothing. Again, this also happened in bleach and it makes me worried that Kubo might still be the same kind of writer that he was when he worked on that series.

There is supposedly going to be a sequel of burn the witch after the release of this series, i seriously hope we see an evolved Kubo with an improved writing style that shows us more of what he did back in the Souls Society arc and less of what he did in, for example, the Fullbringer arc.