Weekly Shonen Jump manga continue to dominate the American manga market, although most of the really successful ones were titles that were continuing from last year (if not earlier). One of the few notable debuts was the return of one of the magazine's most popular creators.
BURN THE WITCH, by Tite Kubo. First published in 2020 and first published in North America in 2021.
PLOT:
Noel and Ninni are two up-and-coming witches in the alternate world of Reverse London. Their job is handle the harmless dragons that provide their world with everyday resources. Then Noel's classmate Balgo is attacked by two different dark dragons. Now he's cursed with the ability to draw dragons to him. When they aren't cleaning up the messes Balgo creates, they're trying deal with the leaders of their world who are convinced that Balgo is too dangerous to keep alive.
STORY:
If you had any hope that Tite Kubo might have been the slightest bit humbled as a mangaka after the slow, sad, public decline of Bleach, you would be deeply mistaken. Burn the Witch couldn't be more up its own ass if it tried, convinced of how cool and awesome it is in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
We're meant to be engaged by the lively dynamic between Noel and Ninni, but it doesn't work because Ninni's desire for money and promotion is so shallow and Noel is so deadpan about everything that she doesn't so much read as 'calm' as she does 'comatose.' Ninni doesn't really start to feel like a real character until she runs into a former bandmate (did I forget to mention that she was previously a pop star in the real world?); Noel never manages even that much. The world of Reverse London isn't particularly interesting either. Not only is it pretty much a copy of the regular world with a lot more random signage and hollows dragons, but Kubo is convinced that lobbing lots of proper nouns with little to no context at the reader equals good worldbuilding.
Then there's Balgo. He makes a bad impression right from the start as he obsesses over Noel and seeing her panties. Things only get worse when he basically becomes the nexus of this story, as Noel and Ninni's job becomes being his babysitters. Being a hapless doofus, he immediately stumbles into trouble, provides absolutely no assistance, and is generally just a load at all times. It's bad that by the time that the sneaky magic council of elders are calling for his death I was in perfect agreement with them. Balgo takes a bad manga and makes it worse just by existing. If all this was meant to serve as proof that Kubo was still relevant as a creator, then he utterly failed.
ART:
Of course, Kubo's strengths as an artist are still present. He's still got a knack for stylish character design, even if some of them fall prey to his hornier tendencies. Mostly I'm thinking of the magic council lady who decided to do the Power Girl thing but with her panties. He still loves coming up with magical creatures that are more alien than animal. He loves to play with fonts and patterns and SFX, which the letterers embrace with abandon. Personally I think he could have toned down some of the use of tartan. There are some great expressions and even a few standout panels of well-drawn action. Really, the big thing holding the art back is that it's all in service to such a lackluster story.
RATING:
This series is published by Viz. This series is ongoing in Japan with 1 volume available. 1 volume has been published and is currently in print. It is also currently being serialized on the Shonen Jump app.
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