Flying Witch is about a 15-year-old girl who moves to the country to live with her cousins. She's a witch, but also a high school student. Despite vast magical knowledge, she's socially oblivious and comically bad at directions. These drawbacks are moe staples, and I worry that, despite on all other fronts seeming to be a calm slice of life show that happens to have magical girls, Flying Witch will lean too heavily on the appeal of its character.
After so many First Glance posts about older shows—and after twelve episodes of Dragon Ball—Flying Witch looks downright gorgeous, but I think it might actually be on the low end of modern anime. The backgrounds are nice, and shading is okay, but characters' bodies and motion are actually not good at all. Add to this some bizarre sound design choices and a few strange scene cuts, and the production feels pretty lame. (Maybe they blew their money on the clapping dance in the ending credits.)
Shows like Flying Witch have one job to do in their first episode: charm the viewer. Atmosphere is important, as is having at least one heartwarming character interaction. Without this kind of hook, without showing the viewer what will be special about the show, even the most pleasant slice of life show can sink itself in banality. Recent smash hit Laid-Back Camp accomplished this in spades, and went on to prove itself as one of the most enjoyable slice of life shows in the history of the genre. Flying Witch really didn't do this, at least not for me. The best moments are the mandrake (which is honestly super trite, though they did make it particularly creepy) and when the cat is lying on the cousin's shoulder. Cats are cheap emotional material. You gotta bring more than cats.
This is hard for me, because this is the kind of show I love, and I'm going to keep watching it. But it really seems mediocre based on the first episode.
Recommend: No.