As someone who has never consumed a Tite Kubo work before reading Burn the Witch, this whole work was such a breath of fresh air in so many different ways. The banger characters designs and outfits, the intriguing nature of the setting, the character motivations, the worldbuilding, and on and on I could go naming the things that make Burn the Witch so interesting and captivating for me. Does Burn the Witch do things that no anime has ever done before? No, but it does what it sets out to accomplish and does it well. It took a mildly confusing volume with three chapters and an insane amount of info dumping and turned it into a cohesive and intuitive 60 minute movie. I felt like I had a much stronger grasp on what was going on with the world and the background info that was brought to light in this movie compared to reading the first volume, so whatever Studio Colorido trimmed and condensed was perfect, in my opinion.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I paid very much attention to the soundtrack, but what I recalled was pretty decent, at least nothing super weird or off-putting. The ending song was really good, especially combined with the visuals. Other than that, the sound design was pretty good, nothing special, but certainly not worth pointing out as a detractor. The voice acting was really good though, with Ninny and Noel sounding exactly as I'd expect them to. Really good performances there.

Visually, I just have to rave about Burn the Witch. As I mentioned in the intro, the character designs are so good. There's so much personality packed into Burn the Witch, even to the abundant use of color without appearing gaudy and overbearing. Of course, the superb animation backs up the visual style tremendously, as Burn the Witch is one of the best animated series I've watched in a while, its short run time being the biggest credit for that most likely. The action sequences are beautiful, especially the one in the final episode, but beyond even that, emotions are so carefully painted on our characters through the animation. Everything in the visual department is abundantly beautiful and deserves nothing but heaps of praise.

Favorite Character: Nina Spangcole

I mean, what can I say? Blonde haired female characters are my weakness, as anyone who has been following these reviews could've predicted. Moreso than that though, Ninny felt like so much more than her trope of the classic brash, bold, and hotheaded main character. She, and every character in Burn the Witch, felt like actually people, with more dimensions that just one or two. They all have some kind of emotional complexity that transcends beyond their strong primary personality traits. I think Noel is the best illustration of this in this volume, but Ninny certainly has her character depth brought to light, albeit, more subtly presented.

I'm not sure if there are any true negatives to Burn the Witch to really touch on. I could say that Balgo is a rather annoying addition, especially because he feels more like just a walking trope, even though it's obvious that he'll have a large role in the future (and hopefully some growth beyond the idiot comic relief.) I think you could probably say that a first time watcher would be extremely confused with all the names and systems getting dropped like its nothing, because despite me saying that it was much easier to follow in the anime adaptation, I was already exposed to the general ideas of the world and therefore had a fundamental grasp on the world. And the biggest negative of them all: there isn't more to watch.

There's so much more to explore within Burn the Witch's story that they only just set up in this first volume, and I think that's what makes this so intriguing and why I'm so excited to read/watch where this goes in the future. There's so much potential here, that I'm genuinely considering watching all the way through bleach just so that I don't miss anything about this in the future. Consider me a fan.