I never watched an episode of Witch Craft Works when it aired in Winter 2014. However, I have a certain fascination for anime openings and endings where there are adorable chibi characters singing and dancing. For example, my favorite ED in 2012 was Kill Me Baby, with that unforgettable song and dance. The Joshiraku ED and Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita OP were also worth mentioning in 2012 for my 12 Days of Anime, too. With that in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising to learn that when Witch Craft Works first aired, I was positively curious about the ED song and sequence that managed to charm its criticizing audience and received a disproportionate amount of praise compared to the rest of the episode.
Really, it’s not hard to see why this ED became so popular. The song is upbeat, heartening and catchy. The colors are radiant and cheery. And the girls singing it are cute chibi characters who are happily singing and dancing through the whole… wait. Wait, what? They’re not happy and dancing and having fun like every other chibi ending theme? They’re what???
Yeah, so unlike every other chibi anime song where everything is jovial, uplifting, vibrant and funny, this ending theme has the five Tower Witches being tortured and executed in various horrific ways. However, the various scenes do fit within the theme of the anime, considering these are witches and these scenes are witch hunts, but it’s still bizarre to see chibi characters singing a J-pop song when they’re tied to the rack, being crucified, walking the plank, being immersed in boiling water or being burned alive at the stake. It’s this atypical combination of a likeable song with delightful chibi characters being tortured that makes this ED sequence so memorable, even if I haven’t seen one minute of the anime series itself. Still, despite the horrible violence against chibi witches, it’s a very sanguine ending theme which is distinctive among anime, and a significance reason why I enjoy watching it so much. It might be odd to reserve a spot here for an ending theme to an anime I didn’t watch, but it really is one of the highpoints of the year for me. And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch that video again and again and again and again and again…
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