Witch Hat Atelier ‒ Episode 9

© Kamome Shirahama/KODANSHA/ Witch Hat Atelier Committee

Every so often, I wonder if I'm just knee-jerking rating every episode of this show “5.” But then I stop and really think about how each episode (this one included, obviously) takes care to balance the dynamic at the atelier, drops of information about Qifrey's obsession with the Brimmed Caps, character development, and exquisite detail, and I decide that I'm probably just being anxious. Again. But at least this week I had the added comfort of watching the adorable brush buddy (emphatically not named Puff Puff) mimic the way Qifrey chewed on leaves. I love that little creature. He's like an extra stretchy ferret.

It's also impressive that the scene doesn't try to make Qifrey chomping herbs on the roadside look “pretty.” He's just shoving them in his mouth and chewing, with bits of leaf sticking out and the usual unattractive look of a person mid-mastication. It seems like a little thing, but it drives home how remarkably human Qifrey is. The girls see him – and he seems to want them to see him – as reliable and maybe a bit infallible. But he's not; he's got his own things going on, he makes mistakes, and he almost gets himself electrocuted by the eye witch when he tries to tamper with their twinned jar spell. His ambition got the better of him, and he knows it, and then, to add insult to injury, he can't hide the evidence of his numb hands. Agott should really listen when he tells her to slow down, because it looks like he knows what he's talking about.

Perhaps more important is the fact that we seem to get a bit of an idea of why Qifrey is so obsessed. It's been said before – as recently as last week – that among the forbidden spells after the Pact are those that work on the human body. While it makes sense in a broad definition, Qifrey distinctly mentions that it did away with magic used for healing. In fact, the twinning spell the Brimmed Cap used on Coco's jar is one that originated in medical magic: it ensured that apothecary witches could keep hospitals and doctors in constant supply of the medicines they needed. It's no surprise that the witches who worked as healers objected to the Pact. They were overruled and had their memories wiped, but I can't help but feel that this was short-sighted. Why not make an exception for doctors? They've clearly made one for the Knights Moralis, and I'd argue that they do a lot less good than a healer who could knit Custas' legs back together would. Is it some form of anti-Outsider bias? Did someone believe that non-magical families deserved to run out of life-saving medications and medical technology? Or was it just overzealousness, a burning desire to raze the land and salt the earth to kill a single plant?

We've seen plenty of evidence thus far that the policing of magic is about deciding who gets to have power. The Knights Moralis are the clearest evidence of that, but even Agott's trauma is linked to it. Her mother, in refusing to take her as an apprentice, determined that Agott wasn't worthy of the Arklaum family power. Agott's entire existence since then has been laser-focused on proving her mother wrong, and she takes Coco's presence in her life as both proof that her mother was right and that some people shouldn't be allowed power and as a sign that maybe her mom was right about her, because if someone like Coco can use magic, maybe it, and therefore the Arklaum lineage, isn't as exclusive as she needs to believe and she really isn't a worthy successor. Because if she and Coco are the same, doesn't that mean that she's not special?

Everyone in this story shows a different attitude towards magic and its power structure. Agott needs to believe she's worthy, Tetia wants to help others, and Richeh resents rules and adults' adherence to them. Olruggio just does his thing without thinking about how it looks to others, Tartah resents the rules that keep him from apprenticeship (and even plays with Outsiders, showing that he feels on the outside himself), and Qifrey is more than happy to bend rules. Only Coco loves magic for what it is, and that's both as it should be and what draws the Brimmed Cap to her. The Knights Moralis have inflicted too many strictures and adhere to them far too closely, but there has to be a balance somewhere. If adults would stop trying to use Coco, maybe she could find it.

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Witch Hat Atelier is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.