What Journal With Witch Is Actually About
Journal with Witch adapts Ikoku Nikki, an 11-volume manga by Tomoko Yamashita that ran in Shodensha's josei (women's) magazine Feel Young from 2017 to 2023. The story opens with a death. Fifteen-year-old Asa Takumi loses both parents in an accident, and her aunt Makio Kōdai, a 35-year-old novelist who struggles with people, takes her in almost on impulse. What follows is a two-person household drama about grief, identity, and two very different people learning to share a life.
The 13-episode series was produced at Shuka and directed by Miyuki Oshiro, and it aired in Japan from January 4 to March 29, 2026. Miyuki Sawashiro voices Makio, with Fuko Mori as Asa. Crunchyroll streamed the show internationally under the Journal with Witch title.
The Numbers Behind the Headline
The Jujutsu Kaisen comparison comes from entertainment sociologist Atsuo Nakayama, whose April analysis of data from the anime review site MyAnimeList was re-featured this week in a PRESIDENT Online roundup on why Japanese anime resonates worldwide. PRESIDENT Online is the website of the Japanese business magazine PRESIDENT, and its anime coverage reads more like market analysis than promotion.
Per the figures cited in Nakayama's original piece, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End Season 2 led the winter 2026 season on MyAnimeList at 9.0, with Journal with Witch right behind at 8.8. Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 landed at 8.7, Oshi no Ko Season 3 at 8.4, and Hell's Paradise Season 2 at 8.3. Nakayama also notes that Journal with Witch's MyAnimeList membership grew from roughly 20,000 to 90,000 over the season, and that reviews were almost unanimously positive.
The reviews he quotes single out the show's delicacy in handling identity, family, and healing. One reviewer called it a grounded human drama more than a typical anime and compared it to Welcome to the N.H.K. Nakayama's larger argument is that overseas fans pay close attention to what creators are actually trying to do, so a show with no flashy battles can still land a top score. He reads Frieren's second season the same way, describing it as a series more interested in time, loss, and life remembered than in its fights.
The Other Two Pieces: Sawano and Demon Slayer
The roundup pairs that analysis with two more re-published essays. Composer Hiroyuki Sawano, who scored Attack on Titan, recalls that even when the series' soundtrack sold nearly 100,000 copies, he could not bring himself to simply celebrate, and says that lingering dissatisfaction is exactly what keeps him motivated for the next project.
The third piece comes from Mayumi Tanimoto, a Japanese writer based in the UK, who argues that Demon Slayer's record-breaking theatrical run reflects something she finds missing from recent Hollywood movies: characters like Tanjiro who mirror the hard circumstances young viewers live in and give them someone to connect with. Her article's headline goes further, framing the face of Japanese animation as having passed from Ghibli to Demon Slayer.
Looking Ahead
All 13 episodes of Journal with Witch are available on Crunchyroll in supported regions. Readers who want the source material have a wait ahead: Inklore, Penguin Random House's manga imprint, licensed Ikoku Nikki at Anime Expo 2026, with the English print edition starting in summer 2027. All 11 volumes are already out in Japan, where the series wrapped in 2023.