On Thursday, the staff behind the upcoming anime adaptation of Witches Hat Atelier debuted the first trailer for the upcoming series at Anime Expo. The anime, which was first announced in 2023 and is based on Kamome Shirahama’s fantasy manga, will be produced by animation studio Bug Films (Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead) and directed by Ayumu Watanabe (Children of the sea, Space Brothers). That’s not all – Yuka Kitamura, known for her work on Old Ring, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twiceand the Dark Souls series, is responsible for composing the music for the series.
Witches Hat Atelier follows the story of Coco, a seamstress’s daughter who dreams of one day becoming a witch despite her apparent inability to use magic. After being given a spellbook by a mysterious masked wizard, Coco accidentally turns her own mother to stone and is saved from a fire by Qifrey—a powerful magician who takes Coco on as his new apprentice. While Qifrey sets out to track down the culprits behind the incident, Coco begins her apprenticeship as a witch in his workshop.
Image: Bug Films
The ongoing series, which has sold over 5.5 million copies as of July 2024 and won a Harvey Award and an Eisner Award in 2020, currently consists of 13 volumes. Shirahama’s manga is beloved for its intricately detailed linework, fantastic visuals, and densely imagined universe, so anticipation for the anime adaptation is high among fans of the series.
Luckily, the first trailer for Witches Hat Atelier lives up to those expectations and then some, with a gorgeous watercolor style that looks like it came straight out of a fairytale book and a haunting scene where Qifrey holds Coco in his arms as he leaps from the burning wreckage of her home. We can only hope the series itself lives up to this teaser when it airs next year.
Witches Hat Atelier will premiere in 2025 and can be streamed on Crunchyroll.