Once Upon a Witch's Death

ある魔女が死ぬまで (Aru Majo ga Shinu Made)

7.0(1)

OtakuDen

7.3(21,930)

MAL Score

Ranked #2856

Popularity #3292

Adventure
Drama
Fantasy
Iyashikei
Urban Fantasy

Episodes: 12
Duration: 23 min per ep
Aired: Apr 1, 2025 to Jun 17, 2025
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Meg Raspberry has grown up with magic as her everyday life, raised by Faust, the Eternal Witch, and dreaming of one day matching her mentor’s greatness. That future is thrown into doubt on her 17th birthday, when Faust reveals a devastating truth: Meg is bound by a congenital curse that will trigger after she turns 18, causing her to age at an impossible rate and die within days.

There is a single chance to break the spell. Meg must obtain a seed of life—but creating it requires gathering a thousand tears of joy in just twelve months. Faced with an almost unimaginable challenge, she sets out on a journey to extend her life, crossing paths with many people and the stories that shape their happiness.

Otaku Consensus

Once Upon a Witch's Death lands best as a gentle, melancholy urban-fantasy road series: Atsushi Nigorikawa's direction and EMT Squared's soft visual approach give its episodic encounters a soothing iyashikei texture, and reviewers repeatedly singled out the visual presentation as part of the appeal. Its weakness is equally consistent: the series' slow pacing and lightly sketched supporting cast make the emotional design feel pleasant rather than devastating, leaving it better suited to reflective casual viewing than to viewers expecting a tightly escalating fantasy drama.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Once Upon a Witch's Death if you want a fantasy anime that treats magic less like a combat system and more like a way to observe grief, kindness, and small recoveries. It scratches the same contemplative itch as Natsume's Book of Friends or the quieter side of Violet Evergarden, but with witches, modern-world landmarks, and a deliberately soft episodic rhythm. The appeal is not in lore density or high-stakes spectacle; it is in seeing a goofy, emotionally open heroine move through encounters designed around healing rather than victory. Viewers who like iyashikei with a visible melancholy edge, primarily female casts, and urban fantasy that can place the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower inside its magical worldview will get the most from it.

Key Characters

M
Meg Raspberry
Meg is remembered by viewers as the series' emotional pressure point: a goofy, approachable young witch whose openness keeps the show from becoming purely funereal.
F
Faust
Faust's role as the Eternal Witch gives the story its found-family weight, functioning less as a standard mentor figure and more as the personification of long-lived magical responsibility.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
The series uses a semi-episodic structure across 12 episodes, a choice noted positively by viewers who liked meeting new characters and negatively by those who wanted stronger forward momentum.
2
EMT Squared's adaptation emphasizes soft fantasy atmosphere over action spectacle, aligning with the show's AniList tags for Iyashikei, Urban Fantasy, Female Protagonist, Witch, and Coming of Age.
3
Akiyuki Tateyama handled the music, a notable fit for a wistful fantasy series because the soundtrack supports the show's melancholy-comfort tone rather than pushing it toward melodrama.
4
The setting is not a sealed-off medieval fantasy world: early commentary highlighted real-world iconography such as the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower, giving the magic a foreign, urban-fantasy frame.
5
The cast profile is unusually specific for a gentle fantasy: AniList users tagged it as Primarily Female Cast, Found Family, Orphan, Bisexual, and LGBTQ+ Themes, signaling character emphasis beyond the central magical quest.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Once Upon a Witch's Death aired as a complete 12-episode TV anime from April 1, 2025 to June 17, 2025, finishing the Spring 2025 season with a MAL score of 7.36 from 21,446 votes.
Fun fact 2: The anime is based on Saka's original story, with Chorefuji credited for the original character designs and Yukishizuku adapting the characters for animation.
Fun fact 3: The main production team pairs director Atsushi Nigorikawa with series composer Keiichirou Oochi, while EMT Squared is the animation studio behind the TV version.
Fun fact 4: Episode 7 has a visible cluster of credited animation support from Chinese-named staff: Peng Guan on key animation and Kai Peng, Jin Hu, and Yang Yang on in-between animation.
Fun fact 5: Its reception is notably split across platforms: MAL places it at rank #2779 and popularity #3295, while AniList lists a 71/100 score and 513 favourites, matching the broader pattern of warm but restrained approval.