Morihito Otogi's family is descended from a long line of oni familiars, and he has the inhuman strength to prove it. One day, his father comes to him with the life-changing news that he's to become the familiar of his childhood witch friend Nico, living under the same roof with her and protecting her from anything and anyone that may attempt to harm her. Meanwhile, Nico is excited to get to live with the love of her life, even if her crush is one-sided--Morihito is so serious about his duties to protect her that any romance is going to be an uphill battle. But he has every reason to be serious, as Nico has a prophecy of doom hanging over her head.

Are you telling me there's THREE anime about cute teenage witches this season and two of them are about one who's destined to die in a year?

Witch Watch is just one new entry in the long history of series about young witches whose powers get them into hijinks and situations, an idea about as old as the medium of the sitcom. Nico has more enthusiasm than sense, and her excitement at trying out new spells evokes the image of a young hobbyist eager to show off new skills. The problem is that messing up actual magic has much higher stakes than making an error with your sleight of hand or playing a note off-key. The episode's vignettes balance out their silliness with a hint of tension, both in the moment and with the end-of-episode revelation that Morihito has been asked to protect Nico because of a prophecy that she'll die within a year.

This certainly isn't without potential. Oh, its premise is fairly routine, right down to an opening scene that shows us Morihito and Nico were childhood friends who separated on a promise and a reunion that involves a highly contrived reason why the two of them must live together. Nico is a well-meaning, perky disaster of a person to contrast with Morihito's more stoic personality, and nearly all of their character interactions are something we've seen before in other shows. But once its story is established, there's a real chance that Witch Watch could branch out and become something much more.

Part of that comes down to the setting. At first I thought it was plain old urban fantasy, where everyone is aware of the existence of supernatural beings in an otherwise ordinary world, but as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that only Morihito and Nico know this, as an oni and a witch respectively. The rest of humanity is totally unaware of what's going on, and that makes for a swift shift in the way they interact with the world. Bully Momota has no clue that Morihito is strong because he's an oni, he just thinks he's some jerk with a good right hook. The old man is startled not because someone smacked into his window, but because a giant talking paper doll did. From the moment Morihito tells Nico she should be careful about using her magic in public, our entire understanding of the story changes.

There are two secrets to Witch Watch's success, with the first being the chemistry of its leads. Morihito is one of those serious-but-devoted anime protags whose overwhelming strength has forced him to develop a serious sense of self-discipline, lest he do an acrobatic motherfucking pirouette off the handle and into the deep end. This discipline and levelheadedness is going to come in extreme handy now that he's been appointed the familiar of Nico, a girl who answers the daring question of "What if Kiki was too stupid to live?" Thankfully, Nico's tendency to accidentally mangle and abominate anything she casts a spell on (including herself) is something that Morihito can handle, and that steadfast dedication is exactly why Nico chose him to be her partner in magical crime (and also definitely her boyfriend eventually).

The other secret to the show's success is that it isn't just cute, it's funny as hell. Usually my rule of thumb is that any comedy that can get me to laugh out loud more than once is an automatic recommendation, and from beginning to end, this premiere had me doing everything from giggling to having a good burst of laughter from deep within. Witch Watch has at least one perfect punchline waiting for its audience every few minutes, but the best bit of the premiere is the scene where Nico almost kills herself by impulsively transforming her body into a giant paper doll, only to immediately get blown out of the window and stuck in a crack between buildings. The voice acting, the change in Nico's character model, the classic "bluhbluhbluhbluhbluh" sound she makes when she vomits up a cloud of confetti, it's all great. And don't even get me started on the spell that makes things lighter, which it turns out makes people it's used on act like they're high as a damn kite.

The visuals are also really damn good in general, particularly details like how Morihito has one hair-horn and his dad has two, and I really like that Nico's wand and broom are the same object in two different forms. My only problem with this premiere is that the sound feels very unbalanced, abruptly and constantly going from soft-spoken to loud and back, requiring me to constantly adjust my TV's volume so I didn't wake anyone up. I hope they fix that issue in the coming episodes.

Y'know that one meme image of Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove, where he's talking about when the sun hits the side of the hill just right? If I could give that for a score, I absolutely would. Instead I'l have to settle for telling you all that Witch Watch is really, REALLY good so far. I cannot recommend it enough.