Witch Watch, which follows the shenanigans of Nico the witch and her familiar Mori the ogre, has garnered much attention for its whimsical cast of characters, striking visual designs, and impeccably timed humor. At Anime Expo 2025, Anime Trending had the honor of conversing with director Hiroshi Ikehata on his experience of bringing Witch Watch’s abundant magic to life.
This interview was conducted through an interpreter and has been edited for clarity.
Anime Trending: How did you come about directing this project? What about the original story by Kenta Shinohara drew you in?
Hiroshi Ikehata: The company, Bibury Animation Studios, actually approached me and said, “Hey, there’s a title called Witch Watch, and we’d like to bring you on.” This was during very early pre-production, and they also asked if they could announce that I was attached to the production. I read the manga, which was very full of jokes and gags, and I thought, oh, this is something I’m very drawn to and would like to direct. We were up against other Jump title [adaptations], so it was really, really competitive, and we weren’t completely sure if it would be greenlit. So I was really excited when it was — I had the realization that “Oh, I’m actually working on a Jump title!” And that was a big deal for me.
Sometimes, other titles’ comedy can come off kind of corny, but Witch Watch executes its funny moments flawlessly. How did you walk the line between funny and corny?
Hiroshi Ikehata: The comedy in the manga is based on a Japan-specific style of comedy — your manzai, or duo comedy groups. Even if you don’t understand Japanese and you watch, let’s say, a comedian duo, you can tell there’s a certain rhythm. In the original manga, the story is on paper, so the comedy has to work in that world on paper. But when we made it into the anime, it was all about the rhythm, since comedy lives in the rhythm and the timing.
We were really focusing on the rhythm of the scenes, especially during the editing portion, because we made the anime first and then the voice actors came in. Once we figured out the timing and the rhythm of the dialogue, we could direct the actors accordingly. So that was a big focus. You can have the same piece of dialogue, but depending on the timing and the rhythm, it can fall flat, or it can garner a laugh. It’s that fine-tuning, that nuance.
Because each of the main characters is a magical being of some sort, there are a lot of intricate elements to their character designs. What aspects of the characters did you focus on the most when animating them?
Hiroshi Ikehata: Overall, I’d say because Shinohara-sensei’s original work is already quite solid, it was a challenge to take that original manga base and then convert it into the anime. We did what we could within our power to try and match it. Our character designer, Haruko Iizuka, draws the main characters with a certain softness, and it was a little hard for some of us to follow and really capture that softness. It’s a lot. And I think this [challenge] is the same for any anime, you know, that is adapting a manga. In the manga world, you’re creating a “3D” world within the two-dimensional parameters. As animators, we have to lift the world off the page and legitimately try to make it more 3D than 2D.
Especially when it came to colors, we were really, really careful. If you look at any of the original [manga] that has color versus what we have [in the anime], it’s actually quite different. For example, with Nico, her hair could be pink, salmon pink, orange — whatever we choose. We treated all the characters with their initial colors and then lined them up to observe for consistency. And that’s when we actually decided that, instead of the pink hair color that’s already kind of present in the anime world, we wanted to change Nico’s hair to be more of a salmon pink, to make it a little bit different.
Another example is Keigo/Wolf. Wolf’s hair in the original is more grayish. The mangaka’s hypothesis was that the back part of Keigo’s hair would become Wolf’s hair color. Since that part is pure white [in the manga], that means his hair turns white when he turns into Wolf. So we were bouncing back and forth about whether Keigo’s hair should become gray or whitish. Some might find it a bit weird that Keigo’s hair transforms into white when he becomes Wolf [in the anime], but we wanted to tip our hat to the original with the color.
The first cour has a refreshingly beautiful OP sequence, directed by Megumi Ishitani. Another series you directed, Magical Destroyers (2023), also had a very striking opening that went viral. What goes on in your head when planning these OPs and looking for potential collaborators for them?
Hiroshi Ikehata: Actually, our [animation] producer, Taniguchi-san, happened to know that Ishitani-san was a big fan of Witch Watch. So the opening was kind of planned to include her involvement. However, Ishitani-san is an employee of Toei Animation — so therein lay the negotiations, because we essentially had to borrow her from Toei for this! But she told us that she really wanted to do it. So everything other than the negotiation part kind of fell into place, and we’re really fortunate for that.
These days, when it comes to OPs, a lot of well-known artists have been getting involved, and we’re seeing openings that are more music-video-esque. If you look at anime from around 10 years ago, the focus of the OP was actually the song, and the anime intro was created to match the song. That’s changed now, and we’re seeing more of that music-video style that really represents the title.
There’s a really great animator, Koji Nanke, who made a lot of great works, especially in the ’80s. He actually used a lot of different approaches. Inspired by that, I thought, okay, what would that approach look like now, in the 2020s?
[Hiroshi Ikehata pulls up a YouTube video]
This is [an ED] Koji Nanke did for [the original] Ranma ½. Especially in the ’80s, it was all about the song, so this one really stood out from all the themes [of that time]. So, I went to the producer again and asked, “What do you think about having more of a Nanke-san-style opening?” And he said, “Oh, I actually wanted to try something like that, too.” So that’s what led to the opening.
Special thanks to director Hiroshi Ikehata and GKIDS Films for the interview opportunity! Witch Watch is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
