One of the most exciting announcements during the first day of Anime Expo 2024 was the long-awaited reveal of who would be producing the anime adaptation of Kamome Shirahana’s gorgeously illustrated high fantasy manga, Witch Hat Atelier.
Witch Hat Atelier has been running in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine, Morning Two, since July 2016, and currently has 5.5 million copies in circulation. The award-winning series has enchanted manga readers around the globe, and fans have been itching to here ore about its anime adaptation ever since it was announced all the way back in 2022.
Everything We Know About Witch Hat Atelier’s Upcoming Anime Adaptation
During its featured panel at Anime Expo 2024, it was revealed that Witch Hat Atelier would be produced by Bug Films, the same studio behind the perfectly handled adaptation of Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead that debuted on Netflix in the Summer 2023 anime season. Additionally, it was announced that the anime would begin streaming on Crunchyroll in 2025.
It was also announced that Ayumu Watanabe (Children of the Sea, Space Brothers) will be directing the anime, with Yuka Kitamura composing the original soundtrack, and Kairi Unabara handling character designs. Kodansha handles the publication of Witch Hat Atelier in English, and gives the following synopsis:
“A beautifully-illustrated story about a girl who longs for magic in her life and learns that, on the inside, she already is what she wishes she could be. Reminiscent of Studio Ghibli, this lushly drawn story was voted one of the Top 10 manga of the year in 2018 by the Japanese manga industry. In a world where everyone takes wonders like magic spells and dragons for granted, Coco is a girl with a simple dream: she wants to be a witch. But everybody knows magicians are born, not made, and Coco was not born with a gift for magic. Resigned to her un-magical life, Coco is about to give up on her dream to become a witch … until the day she meets Qifrey, a mysterious, traveling magician. After secretly seeing Qifrey perform magic in a way she’s never seen before, Coco soon learns what everybody “knows” might not be the truth, and discovers that her magical dream may not be as far away as it may seem …”
