Majo to Yajuu
The Witch and the Beast

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For the past two months, I found myself in a reading slump regarding manga, but "The Witch and The Beast" helped me overcome it.

Plot: 7/10. Objectively, this manga does not introduce anything novel: it presents a fantasy world populated by witches, vampires, mages, and humans, who are predictably at odds with each other. At the center is the ultimate evil, somehow linked to our fierce female lead, Guideau, who's got quite the attitude. Alongside Ashad, they tackle various gruesome murder cases to find clues about the witch who cursed Guideau. The full story of the curse remains a mystery, but I'm crossing my fingers that ... the hiatus ends soon, giving us some answers. Even though the plot doesn't break new ground, the dark and intense atmosphere kept me INVESTED.

Characters: 10/10. I must award the characters the highest marks! Regardless of their relevance to the main plotline, each character undergoes noticeable development, enriching the overall narrative. I can't relate to anyone in this story, and that's why I appreciate that I could enjoy the characters' stories from a distance (even though I mostly fancy the stories, where at least one character can be relatable). The pure chemistry between Ashad and Guideau, Phanora and Johan, Dunward and Oscar, is compelling. The characters bring depth and complexity to the story, making it much more than just another fantasy tale.

Art Style: 100000/10
The artwork is next-level. My gallery is now packed with frames from this manga. The fight scenes are intense and gripping, and the details in the horrifying deaths are so vivid they gave me nightmares ngl. The beauty in each character, especially in their eyes, is extraordinary. Satake Kousuke's attention to gazes and stares perfectly captures a range of human emotions. The art draws you in and makes you feel every moment, from quiet, reflective scenes to high-stakes battles.

By combining these elements, "The Witch and The Beast" offers a captivating reading experience. Although it may not be groundbreaking, it elicits a whirlwind of emotions.

And to stop being academic. PLEASE ENOUGH OF HIATUS, I'M EAGER FOR MORE

The start of the manga is really good, both of the protagonists are great and their relationship evolve nicely. The art is impeccable, simply put. However, it's a shame that the mangaka lost the plot, direction, and seemingly didn't know where to go next, much like other reviews have pointed out. It's all true.

At some point, it goes into an arc that indicated that the mangaka wanted to force in a story, setting and characters that didn't really make sense with the trajectory that the main characters were following. The manga tries do some out of pocket worldbuilding, introduces (frankly unlikable) characters out of thin ... air and expects the reader to care about them, while completely ignoring the fact that the major part of why we're still reading is because we really like the two leads. It felt like a bait and switch, and it continued that trend until it hit the hiatus.

I do recommend reading it, but when you notice that the manga has shifted drastically, don't be afraid to drop it even if you like the two protagonists. The story doesn't pick up its quality after it drops.

The plotline/premise is a lot like Dorohedoro and Undead Girl Murder Farce, except this is incredibly generic shonen action cringe that takes itself way too seriously while failing miserably to actually be seinen. It's a 1-note storyline to kill the generically evil witch yet lacks direction filling its story with pointless and repetitive magic baddie shonen arcs and numerous irrelevant sidestories and oneshots of irrelevant non-characters.

And the characters (especially the MCs) are all cardboard cutouts we learn almost nothing about and what we do learn amounts to: generically evil witch, generically persecuted good witch, generically evil executioners, generically good mages, generically angry MC, etc. ... Shonen trope hell. If it weren't shonen it would actually put effort to have meaningful character depth to give any of it emotional weight.

The worldbuilding is generic fantasy trope cringe. The interactions are contrived. The pacing is terrible with so much pointlessly drawn out action and cringe dialogue to overexplain exposition and feelings stretching out everything with filler within filler.

The plots are juvenile. If you actually consider any of the situations the author sets up you'll realize that it's often contrived as hell and what little information surrounding the character motivations/interactions is idiotic at best and often riddled with plotholes.

Some people claim that the art is good, but past the first few color pages' bait and switch, the manga art is mostly terrible. The way the mangaka draws black haired MC is often hilariously bad, there are meme-worthy low-effort shit faces scattered around the mangaka clearly didn't intend. The art during action also often poorly conveys what is happening.

It's mile-wide inch-deep multiworlds of generic fantasy cringe story, vampire world turned out exactly as cringe and jumping-the-shark shonen trash as I expected it to be.