Burn the Witch

Where to begin with this.

First off the characters are all pretty much rehashes of Bleach characters with a new layer of paint on them. Balgo is Kon but more stupid, Spangle Ninii is a worse Tatsuki. The only good character in this is the main protagonist, and even then it's mostly subjective, because I have a soft spot for kuudere characters.

The story is set in London's Soul Society West Branch, which is similar to it's eastern counterpart, except instead of reapers you have witches and instead of hollows you have dragons. However there are some differences between the branches that I cannot say it's just a straight up copy of Bleach.

The art is of course pretty great, as that is Kubo's strongest suit.

The humor and writing is the same type that the end of Bleach had.

All in all it's pretty mediocre.

The "One Shot" Manga was a delightful short experience. I've never read or seen a anything related to Bleach before and I never planned to but this really exited me to get into the specific section of the series. The only lacking feature of the Manga was the character development, which is obvious because it would be difficult to shove a bunch of character background into a few pages. The "perverted" character lacked the placement in the manga, maybe because his connection to the other characters was very brief. He just seemed to be there for a little scene of comic relief, out of place. Overall it was enjoyable and I look forward to the anime film adaptation.

Since nobody will bother to make a fair review of this literal ONE SHOT series (emphasis on the fact that its only a single chapter).

Story: Not the most original in comparison with the rest of Bleach. Just plain fun and interesting. But I like it that way to be honest. Things synch up well and it's an interesting read. Instead of Zanpakutos the British branch has guns. I feel like this could have used in a more creative way with the pistols changing form based on the commands their given like morphing into Shotguns or LMG's.

Art: Great as ever

Characters: I liked Noel's attitude and thought she was pretty damn sexy, Ninnie was kind of a brat but not overly annoying.

Enjoyment: Great. It's a fun story explaining what Bleach would look like if it took place in London.

Overall I think it's a decent series and that you might enjoy giving this a try

This was very fun to read & I like that it feels like it's own thing and doesn't build off of "Bleach" too much. What I mean is that It's a different part of the Soul Society & they are witches & not Soul Reapers. They also don't Reference Bleach a lot which is good because I hate spin-offs that corporate too much of the show it's adapted from. So from my standpoint, this was pretty good due to the art style, lively characters, fun aspects, and it's a casual story. As far as I can tell this will be very interesting to see once it gets adapted into an anime which should be coming sometime this year in the fall of 2020.

Just kill the dude who is talking about panties all the time and it's perfect.

Honestly, he was disgusting. We don't need, or want, another Mel*odas and etc. We don't need these less-than-trash men. We're tired of it, actually.

Why can't they(mangakas) understand it? Wake up. It wasn't funny. It never was. Can you please do a character who respect women? Men can be badass and/or funny AND respect woman.
Come on Tite, you has the skills, you don't need this shit.

Anyway...
Reading this was so nostalgic. Everything is sooo Tite Kubo and sooooo BLEACH.
It was a good balance between Bleach's world and the one which the manga introduces to us. You can see the similarities everywhere, but are also divergences, making the one-shot not just a copy of Bleach. Almost melt my heart.
Almost. Because the less-than-trash men killed the mood. And thats why my score isn't higher.

And the last page? Damn! Tite Kubo never fails in this. That's his mark. Nobody can't deny that. The man is good in this shit.

Some of the things that made Bleach a great series for a short while was it's premise, world-building, and cast of characters. With the exception of the two protagonists that so far work really well together, this story has very little to support what they contribute to the whole of the series. And while Kubo is always going to have a knack for strong characterizations, there is too big of a flaw here with it's premise for an epic battle scene between witches and dragons to overcome. Let's begin with it's setting "Reverse London" (not entirely sure what it means still) the biggest symbol that serves as foundation for the construction of it's antagonists is the London coat of arms which consists of dragons. (Or, maybe ahem, flag of Gryffindor) It's such a hokey plot device compared to something mysterious like the Hogyoku which added an extra layer to the overarching story when Aizen uses it to create Arrancar

There is a very strange mix of modern technology introduced here as well that doesn't seem to fit at all with the tone of the series where we are given little to no backstory on Ninny.

It seems to only serve as a distraction for the more interesting questions about the enchanting and otherworldly aspects. The "Soul Society" in Bleach is a beautiful departure from the stereotypical Death God setting whereas "Reverse London" is, I guess, sort of like London, but not really.

Ugh, well, maybe burn it for real. I have noticed it with other old timers returning to work on new shounen series – they often just can’t or don’t want to grow the story properly, they want to jump right into profitable “coolness”. But the coolness comes from a well-built world, without the foundation it falls flat. Burn the Witch feels way too superficial to me to properly magic and soar in the sky on its broom.

The story is set in an alternative modern world again – this time it’s Reverse London. I have read several mangas with a fantasy London, and none of them were good – neither the mangas themselves, nor the versions of London in them. The same here. The London in this work is postcard-garish and paper thin, like pages of a cheap tourist guide. Some red phone booths, some castle wall textures, a random skyscraper and a coat of arms... Can’t give you more because the backgrounds don’t form a coherent picture – they aren’t even filled on most pages, it’s all just characters striking a pose or cheap action effects. The author tries to play with the characteristic British “cool weird” names – I think – but the end result is Wooly Wally “dragons” eating grass on Ninebrook Pastures, an organization named Wing Bind, and a character called Bang Knife (fine, “Bangnyfe”, doesn’t help) saving the day in a skull bandana.

Speaking about characters, they probably could have worked if they had not shouted and bickered constantly. We have a duo of girls, one red haired, abrasive and loud, the other a black haired ideal Yamato Nadeshiko with Japanese roots. They serve as Pipers – a two person squad of witches tasked with handling dragons, the mystical creatures that inhabit the reverse world. The premise doesn’t sound bad, but the thing is these two lines are it all, the rest is shouting and making faces. The red haired lead is also not endearingly annoying – rude, spiteful, and destructively envious.

The series drops the ball hard with misplaced preemptive humor and bad fanservice. Misplaced humor is, for example, the protags’ lazy boss, who uses them, but can’t do anything without them. I call it preemptive, because I believe you must build your fictional world before subverting anything or replacing important details with jokes, yet here not so good jokes come before the meat, and cream roses before the main dish is a bad dining experience.

The fanservice is ceaseless and corrosive. The third mainstay character, who moves the overall plot in fact, is a human perverted guy, who the witch girls have to keep on a leash and look after because reasons. He has exactly three features: he is creepily obsessed with the Yamato Nadeshiko girl, he is sort of unlucky in their world, he has a cute-dog-with-a-secret he dotes on all the time when he doesn’t beg to see the protag’s panties. And he is on screen a lot, a dated trashy gag, who should’ve left in the very chapter, at maximum in the very arc when he first appeared, but stays for god knows why. There’s also a female character, whose costume is cut out at the crotch in the shape of a heart to show panties, a scarf knotted above and below he giant rack, while everybody else in her group is dressed sensibly. This level of in your face randomness with fanservice is annoying and breaks the little immersion this manga manages to muster.

If I am very honest – I don’t think Kubo is cutting it with Burn the Witch. Bleach dissolved in its later stages, but early on it had a fascinating otherworld full of beauty, strong characters, and symbolism, thriving on Japanese aesthetic sensibilities, spiced up with a bit of Spanish/Latinx detail. And here he thinks he is clever when he shows a bland animal form with a propeller in it and says that witches use dragons for energy or when he adds some flowers on the horns of an otherwise regular poorly drawn deer.

I was stoked for a female-led shounen about witches in a European setting from a mangaka who once shone, but this is a boring mess. The world feels stale and low effort. You can’t just slap the word “dragon” with cookie cutter monster designs on top of a bad caricature of one of the most recognizable and vibrant cities in the world and expect it to work. The action is nonsensical because of the lack of context and because it is random mumbo-jumbo "spells" causing cabooms with no proper system behind it. And the only sympathetic character is the quiet female lead, but she has the worst case of a side kick tied to her hip, quite literally, salivating, blushing, and bleeting “panties” all the time.

They say that the movie adaptation was ok because of its high energy, fun designs, and, mainly, the quality of the animation, thanks to the studio behind it. Maybe this series can thrive as an anime, I dunno. But as a manga Burn The Witch is a bit worse than bland, and unless there’re plenty of people who are very into the specific type of fanservice that plagues it so badly (which I doubt), once the bosses milk Kubo’s name for what it is worth now, I fully expect it to get the axe like Jack the Ripper’s victims and burn down like London in 1666.

Burn the Witch is the third manga released by Tite Kubo, Which just had it's first season (Four 50-ish chapter long pages) concluded.
I'll try to give my thoughts on the first season here.

Story - 6
The story, that starts with the oneshot so reading that first is a must, consists so far of Noel Niihashi, a stoic girl who's also an avid lover of japanese school costumes, and Ninny Spangcole, a celebrity singer with a short temper and spunky attitude, and their work in Reverse London, Where they work at ''Wingbind'', an organisation that domesticates, breeds, protects and hunts dragons as well as keeping them a secret from the people living in normal London.

Along the way they become entangled with Balgo Parks, Noel's avid fan who has quite the hots for her, and Macy Baljure, who is a former bandmate of Ninny that is, like Balgo, quite obsessed with her.
The story, in the first season atleast, is primairly about Noel and Ninny protecting Balgo after he becomes a Dragonclad, someone who regularly attracts dragons, who is then sought out by High ranking members of the Wingbind for his potential danger.

Art - 9
The manga features a variety of cool and unique designs, ranging from the Blonde pigtailed singer who-is-also-a-witch to a cool, thug-like man with a skull bandana and a blue overcoat to a very short dwarf-like old man that can best be described as ''midget santa''.
If you've read Bleach, you should know how good the art is.

One thing that you might quickly notice when reading this manga is the fact that it has alot of backgrounds.
That might sound stupid, but when comparing it to bleach that comes across as a huge surprise, and a plus as well.

Character - 8
The characters so far are good, unique and are all very enjoyable.
as far as a 5 chapter long manga goes, the characters so far have some depth to them, but nothing noteworthy.
There's not alot to go in detail here, as it's still a 5 chapter long manga for season one.

Enjoyment - 7
Up until chapter 3, I might have given this manga a 5 or a 6, but with the introduction of the Wingbind higher ups, The manga has gotten alot more enjoyable for me.
Seeing Kubo's art, his fun but surprisingly realistic characters back is something I missed, and I hope this manga has the same feel Bleach had with it's wild ride, minus the last 40 or so chapters.

Overall - 7
This manga so far has been an enjoyable one, but not something groundbreaking, incredibly refreshing or something bursting with potential.
With the way the story can go, with it looking like it might follow the same structure Undead Unlucky currently has, It might possibly become a more enjoyable manga, or if Kubo once again can't land his airplane well, worse.

Tite Kubo's brand new work after his mega-hit series — Bleach, is quite a story.

[Story 7/10]

After reading the One-Shot, I didn't have much hope about the story as I didn't understand most of it. While I had mixed feelings, I still went ahead and gave it a try. And guess what? It was better. While these 4 chapters are like a short arc of a manga, it still is enjoyable. There are dragons, witches, Kidos/spells, and Pipes too (which Kubo refers to as something witches blow). Hilarious.

One may not find it interesting as first, but after reading it all, they'll surely likely to read more of it as the story takes an interesting turn.

[Art 8/10]

A common interpretation of Kubo's artwork is the lack of backgrounds as seen in his previous work, Bleach. But in this manga, there are a lot of them, which I personally believe to be interesting for the story. The character designs are similar to Bleach Characters but most of them are Original.

[Character 7/10]

The main characters — Noel, Ninny, and Balgo are an interesting bunch of folks. The story so far basically revolves around them as each of them have their own set of powers. On the other hand, a few other notable characters have been shown but so far, they haven't made any impactful presence in this season 1. I believe we'll get to see more of them in Season 2 if there is a proper serialization and not another mini-arc.

[Enjoyment 6/10]

The reason I gave it 6, is mainly because this is a short manga. There is scope for many improvements and a great story ahead. One might enjoy this arc but will surely crave for more in the end. The main thing I found enjoyable was that it was set in London.

[Overall 7/10]

The overall deserves to be 7 points as Kubo has brought out a very interesting story regarding witches and dragons. Everyone has their own potential and if handled properly, this can become a new mega-hit series. What makes me say this is the fact that there are new character designs and so many revelations can be done.

If you want to try this story but are not sure, then I suggest you please do give it a try. I'm not sure if you'll enjoy it but I do can say that you'll like it a lot. Oh, and of course, please do read the One-Shot before starting this as the story initially seems to continue after it ends.