Izetta: The Last Witch

終末のイゼッタ (Shuumatsu no Izetta)

7.0(1)

OtakuDen

6.8(73,417)

MAL Score

Ranked #6206

Popularity #1480

Action
Fantasy
Historical
Military
Urban Fantasy

Episodes: 12
Duration: 25 min per ep
Aired: Oct 1, 2016 to Dec 17, 2016
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

In 1939, as Germania’s invasion ignites a wider European war, the empire turns its attention to the small alpine nation of Elystadt. Outmatched by Germania’s proven military might, Elystadt faces the near certainty of conquest just as its leader, Princess Ortfiné “Finé” Fredericka von Eylstadt, travels to a vital meeting with Britannia.

Finé’s situation worsens when she is captured by Germanian troops—until a transport mishap allows Izetta, the last surviving witch, to break free. Recognizing Finé from their shared childhood, Izetta intervenes with her magic and rescues the princess. Reunited, Izetta vows to defend Elystadt from Germania, offering the beleaguered country a rare chance to resist an overwhelming war machine.

Otaku Consensus

Otaku Consensus: Masaya Fujimori’s direction and Ajia-do’s set-piece craft make Izetta: The Last Witch most persuasive when it treats magic as a battlefield variable alongside aircraft, guns, and tanks. As a 12-episode original, it earns goodwill through spectacle, wartime iconography, and the Finé/Izetta bond, but Hiroyuki Yoshino’s series composition draws consistent criticism for a story that becomes crowded and an ending many viewers find messy rather than cathartic.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Izetta: The Last Witch if you want alternate-history military fantasy without a long franchise commitment or a dense strategy-game rulebook. It scratches the same broad itch as Valkyria Chronicles and Saga of Tanya the Evil: European-war imagery, uniforms, aviation, and battlefield escalation filtered through an impossible supernatural advantage. What separates it is the emotional center: a female-led wartime drama where loyalty, propaganda value, and sacrifice matter as much as firepower. The appeal is not intricate geopolitics; it is seeing Ajia-do stage a witch concept inside a hardware-heavy war anime, with tanks, guns, and aerial combat treated as part of the texture rather than background decoration. If you can forgive an uneven final stretch, the ride has real spectacle and a devoted cult following.

Key Characters

I
Izetta
Izetta stands out because fans often read her not as a simple power fantasy, but as a visibly vulnerable heroine whose devotion turns every magical victory into a question of cost.
O
Ortfiné “Finé” Fredericka von Eylstadt
Finé is the series’ idealized but compelling political anchor, admired for embodying national resolve while also giving the show its strongest interpersonal charge.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Ajia-do’s production leans into military spectacle rather than generic fantasy staging; AniList’s tag profile is unusually hardware-heavy for a witch anime, with Aviation at 82%, Guns at 79%, and Tanks at 68%.
2
The setting’s appeal comes from deliberate anachronism: the show uses a 1939 European-war framework while inserting magic into a world defined by modern logistics, aircraft, and mechanized invasion.
3
BUNBUN provided the original character designs, with Yuu Yamashita credited for character design, giving the series a lighter anime character aesthetic against a more martial historical backdrop.
4
The visual pipeline credits both Ayumi Satou and Mika Nakajima as art directors and both Takahiro Mogi and Natsuko Ootsuka for color design, reflecting how strongly the show depends on controlled atmosphere and battlefield readability.
5
Its 12-episode structure is part of its identity: the compact run keeps the action moving, but the same compression is also where the most common criticism of the rushed, messy ending begins.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Izetta: The Last Witch aired as a finished 12-episode TV anime from October 1 to December 17, 2016, placing its entire run inside the Fall 2016 season.
Fun fact 2: The core creative staff includes director Masaya Fujimori, assistant director Hiroki Negishi, and series composer Hiroyuki Yoshino, with Haruo Miyagawa credited for prop design.
Fun fact 3: Its reception is split across platforms in a revealing way: MyAnimeList lists it at 6.77/10 from 73,123 votes, while AniList lists it at 69/100 with 1,814 favourites.
Fun fact 4: Online criticism consistently praises the art and action spectacle, while recurring viewer complaints focus on a story that loses control near the end.
Fun fact 5: Fan discussion frequently highlights the yuri-tinged Finé and Izetta dynamic, even though AniList’s Yuri tag sits at a modest 20%, indicating subtext and chemistry rather than a romance-first structure.