[0:00] The best anime of winter 2026 was one
[0:03] that had no fight scenes, no magic
[0:06] systems, no dramatic powerups. It was 13
[0:11] episodes of two people living in a messy
[0:14] apartment talking to each other. And in
[0:17] my eyes, it beat out all other original
[0:20] anime from that season comfortably.
[0:24] Sure, it didn't touch the sequels like
[0:26] Jiu-Jitsu Kaizen or Frierin and so on,
[0:29] but the fact that we're even having it
[0:30] in the same conversation, making that
[0:32] comparison, it says something. This is
[0:36] Journal with Witch. It's a series that
[0:40] you should not judge based on its title
[0:43] because if you went in completely blind
[0:45] to this series, like many people did to
[0:48] be fair, you'd probably expect something
[0:50] completely different. Is there a
[0:51] journal? Yes, several. Is there a witch?
[0:55] No, actually no witch at all. You're
[0:57] going to need to go to a different
[0:58] italier for that. The Japanese title for
[1:00] this series is Ioku Nikki, which better
[1:03] translates to Diary of a Strange Land. A
[1:07] title which still does not accurately
[1:09] describe the show, but it's at least a
[1:11] lot more metaphorically similar. It just
[1:14] doesn't prepare you for what this show
[1:16] actually is. Perhaps I'm just too
[1:18] isachide pill where the light novel
[1:19] titles are very exact to what the
[1:21] synopsis is. So, welcome back ladies,
[1:24] gentlemen, and others. My name is
[1:25] Tristan, and this is Glass Reflection,
[1:28] where today we are talking about Journal
[1:31] with Witch. Let's jam.
[1:34] Makio is a 35-year-old novelist who has
[1:38] arranged her entire existence around not
[1:41] having to deal with other people [music]
[1:43] if she can avoid it. Not in a hikamorei
[1:46] type way, more of a people are a pain
[1:49] and I don't want to deal with them type
[1:50] way, which is fair. Her apartment is a
[1:53] mess. She forgets to eat. She has so
[1:56] many introverted traits built up that
[1:58] she broke up with her boyfriend because
[2:00] his emotional stability exhausted her.
[2:03] He seemed to have his whole life figured
[2:04] out. And you know that was a problem.
[2:07] Makio is a lot, but she knows that she's
[2:10] a lot and she's fine with being a lot.
[2:13] And then her sister and brother-in-law
[2:16] die in a car accident, leaving behind
[2:18] their young daughter, Assa. Assa is a
[2:21] girl that Makio doesn't know. She's the
[2:24] daughter of a woman who Mchio was not on
[2:27] the best of terms with. And since no one
[2:29] else in the family seemed to want to
[2:31] deal with this girl, Mchio takes it upon
[2:33] herself to bring Assa home. With zero
[2:36] preparations and no instruction manual
[2:39] on how to be the guardian to a teenager.
[2:42] That's the setup here. It is a series
[2:44] about two people from modern Tokyo who
[2:46] are trying to figure out how to exist in
[2:49] the same place, preferably without
[2:51] breaking one another. It's not as if
[2:53] they fight a lot. Quite the opposite,
[2:56] though things might have gone a lot
[2:57] faster if they did. Assa is a good kid,
[3:00] a very good kid. One who doesn't know
[3:02] how to process that her parents are
[3:05] gone, nor how exactly she can deal now
[3:08] with living with her aunt, an aunt who
[3:11] speaks somewhat negatively about her
[3:13] mom, the same mom she remembers loving
[3:16] so much. And if overall the show sounds
[3:19] quiet and chill, that's because for the
[3:21] most part it is. By design, this is a
[3:24] series that is almost,
[3:27] I want to say, aggressively quiet at
[3:30] times. It's a series where the most
[3:32] dramatic thing that happens in an
[3:33] average episode is Mchio staring at a
[3:36] blank document and a deadline looms
[3:37] overhead. It's 2:00 a.m. in the morning
[3:39] and she's living in a kind of despair
[3:41] that is common for someone in her
[3:44] writing profession while her teenage
[3:46] niece sleeps on a cot in the corner of
[3:48] her office. It would not surprise me if
[3:51] a lot of people out there would use the
[3:53] word boring to describe this series. I
[3:56] mean, I would use it as well, except I
[3:58] would use it as a compliment because
[4:00] Journal with which is in some ways
[4:03] boring, but it is doing it in a way that
[4:05] feels natural. It's trying to show us
[4:08] that an ordinary life is one worth
[4:11] taking seriously. Boredom and all. And
[4:14] also, as tragic [music] as it is, losing
[4:17] a sibling or a mother, those life
[4:20] experiences are more common than we
[4:23] think. And how people deal with that in
[4:25] different ways is not something that I
[4:27] see explored often. A lot of the
[4:29] episodes here are splitting our
[4:30] attention between Makio's adult
[4:33] storyline and Assa's more teenaged one.
[4:35] With Makio, we get her new
[4:37] responsibilities. Uh, we have the ghost
[4:39] of her sister putting her down. We have
[4:41] the book that she's working on. For
[4:43] Assa, we have this girl attempting to go
[4:46] through her normal teenage life, but she
[4:49] still tries to present herself in a way
[4:51] that no one would know. She just lost
[4:53] her parents. She can hide it, and she
[4:56] does, though sometimes not as well as
[4:58] she thinks. [music] Mchio isn't a messy
[5:01] person in like a cute or quirky way.
[5:03] She's messy in a way where like things
[5:05] ended up in her apartment where they are
[5:07] because everything was just placed
[5:09] off-handedly. She would have dirty
[5:11] clothing spread out everywhere because
[5:12] it just needed to be moved out of the
[5:14] way at some point and not because she
[5:16] has some system for how she handles
[5:18] laundry. Laundry is something for future
[5:20] Mchio to deal with. She's socially
[5:23] awkward. She doesn't like talking to
[5:24] people. She finds it exhausting. And any
[5:27] competency that she has in that regard
[5:29] is more of a like a survival mechanism
[5:31] that she's developed rather than a
[5:33] natural personality trait. And yet, when
[5:36] AA needs someone to explain something
[5:39] about what she's going through, Mchio
[5:41] can do it. She is a novelist. So,
[5:43] despite how she personally acts, she
[5:47] does understand people quite well. She
[5:49] just can't always apply what she knows
[5:52] in her own life. But what really makes
[5:55] her work as a person, a real person,
[5:57] [music] and not just a character, is she
[5:59] has this level of fear underneath it
[6:04] all. Like Mchio is very upfront with
[6:06] both Assa and the audience that she is
[6:09] someone who really shouldn't be taking
[6:11] in a teenager. She's not really capable
[6:14] of loving her the way that Assa needs.
[6:17] Makio is not a cruel person, but she can
[6:20] only offer what is like acceptable in
[6:23] the role as a guardian, not as a mom.
[6:26] She can't be Assa's new mom. That is not
[6:30] and cannot be her role. So, with all of
[6:33] that, Makio is just terrified about
[6:36] [music] projecting all of the feelings
[6:38] she has about Assa's mom back onto this
[6:41] kid. This kid who is oblivious [music]
[6:44] and has nothing to do with any of that.
[6:47] Makio is fairly set in her ways, but
[6:50] she's still trying to get a handle for
[6:51] how best to care for Assa in her own
[6:54] way. And Assa just keeps [music]
[6:57] wanting direction. She wants help from
[7:00] people, but everything that she gets is
[7:03] vague. Either because people don't know
[7:05] how to help her or they don't want to
[7:07] say the wrong thing. Perhaps she gets
[7:09] this from like her therapist who just
[7:11] asks her to talk about whatever she
[7:14] wants or like when Makio texts her
[7:16] saying, "Oh, well, she's drained, so can
[7:18] you just pick up whatever you want from
[7:20] the grocery store." Whatever you want is
[7:23] what she keeps being told. But Assa
[7:25] doesn't know what she wants. [music] She
[7:27] has her journal full of scribbles and
[7:29] notes of things that people have told
[7:31] her, things that have stuck into her
[7:33] mind, but she desperately [music] wants
[7:35] to write something here. She wants to
[7:38] make lyrics for a song and then sing it
[7:40] to people. She keeps feeling like she
[7:43] has nothing to say. Throughout her grief
[7:45] process, Asa constantly imagines herself
[7:48] walking through a desert alone. [music]
[7:50] It is vast. It is empty. and it works
[7:53] really hard to showcase just how lonely
[7:55] Assa has become, even if she doesn't
[7:57] realize it at first or can't vocalize it
[8:00] later. So, between the pair of them,
[8:02] like Makio could have had like some kind
[8:04] of development on becoming a proper
[8:06] mother figure to this young girl with
[8:08] Assa being the child she never had. And
[8:11] like AA could have some big inspiration
[8:14] moment about how she now wants to handle
[8:16] her life, but none of that really
[8:18] happens. These two don't have some kind
[8:21] of like big reconciliation to get them
[8:23] closer as a family. At no point do they
[8:26] tell each other, "I love you." Even if
[8:28] their actions might say otherwise,
[8:30] though, to be honest, I think I find it
[8:31] hard for Makio to for me to imagine
[8:34] Makio saying that to anyone under any
[8:36] context. There's a layer of warmth to
[8:41] the series, but also an occasional bit
[8:43] of friction. Like the show is helping us
[8:46] to have a sense this relationship, the
[8:48] relationship between these two
[8:49] characters is the most interesting thing
[8:52] here. And it really is because if you
[8:53] had a child teenager who hears their new
[8:56] guardian speak with apathy toward their
[9:00] parents' death, that would be a kind of
[9:03] freakout moment and deservedly so. But
[9:05] Assa doesn't do that. Instead, we get
[9:07] the emotional writing that proves the
[9:10] show is earning its reputation. Assa
[9:13] doesn't respond to her parents' death
[9:15] with sadness. She actually responds with
[9:18] anger, but it's not anger in the
[9:20] traditional way. She doesn't scream or
[9:24] yell or get upset. But the anger is
[9:27] still there. It's just buried, muted,
[9:30] and hidden for the vast majority of the
[9:32] series until it's not. It is without a
[9:34] doubt one of the more honest depictions
[9:37] of both adolescent and adult depression
[9:39] in grief that I've seen in anime. like
[9:42] period. It's not a stereotypical
[9:44] depiction because well, how someone
[9:46] deals with this situation can't really
[9:48] be stereotypical. We all handle these
[9:51] things in a different way. And I really
[9:53] do appreciate how this series has taken
[9:55] a a different path from the norm. But
[9:57] then again, I feel like the norm is to
[9:59] just not talk about it at all. So
[10:01] instantly, this is better. From a story
[10:03] perspective, there's only one real
[10:04] caveat that I need to add here because I
[10:06] think it would be wrong of me to not
[10:08] mention it. This anime is an adaptation
[10:11] of, if my counting is right, 32 of the
[10:14] manga's 54 chapters, so only like 2/3 of
[10:18] it. If you watch this without having
[10:20] read the manga beforehand, it does land
[10:23] exceptionally well. But as with most
[10:25] incomplete adaptations, there is always
[10:28] missing threads, a subplot about Assa's
[10:31] dad that is more or less completely
[10:33] gone. We don't get much of their
[10:34] relationship at all. The show has an
[10:37] ending that well, it lands, but manga
[10:40] readers will argue that it didn't do it
[10:42] as well as they'd hoped. But to me, the
[10:45] story that made it here to our screens
[10:47] is about as honest and human as anime
[10:50] got this year so far. And so, at the end
[10:52] of the day, is it worth it? Short
[10:55] answer, yes. The longer answer is also
[10:58] yes, though with some caveats attached.
[11:01] The caveats will end up being, you know,
[11:02] what determines if this show is a new
[11:04] favorite of yours or just something that
[11:06] you're going to bounce off of within
[11:07] three episodes. I am quite surprised
[11:08] though at the amount of high praise that
[11:10] the show has gotten since it started. I
[11:12] mean, this is the kind of show where I
[11:14] expected a level of cult following. But
[11:17] at the time of writing the script for
[11:19] this video, the series had a score of
[11:21] 8.75 out of 10 on my anime list, and
[11:24] that put it at number 49 on their chart
[11:27] for the best anime of all time. This was
[11:29] also like over a month and a half after
[11:31] the season ended. Like, if it's still
[11:33] airing and people are still talking
[11:35] about it, that's one thing. But I would
[11:36] have expected it to be kicked off the
[11:38] top list by now. But for a quiet little
[11:40] 13 episode drama series about a novelist
[11:42] and her niece in a season that was as
[11:45] stacked as winter 2026 was, I always
[11:49] shocked and surprised. Journal with
[11:51] Witch did not have like a guaranteed
[11:54] built-in audience like the sequels did.
[11:56] It was a new adaptation of a manga that
[11:59] itself didn't see much chatter within
[12:01] the wider discourse of the fandom. And I
[12:03] mean, on paper, the synopsis might not
[12:06] be considered all that special to a
[12:07] majority of people. And despite all of
[12:10] that, I mean, it won the season for me
[12:12] anyway. Sure, the sequels and the larger
[12:15] franchises will win the war of discourse
[12:18] in the long term. Yeah, okay, fine. But
[12:20] if I'm just talking about shows that
[12:22] started in that season, Journal with
[12:24] Witch was at the top for me. It's on my
[12:26] short list for anime of the year
[12:28] already, though, you know, the
[12:30] competition is getting pretty stiff as
[12:32] the year progresses, but you know, I
[12:34] don't feel like I'm alone with this
[12:36] opinion. I normally am, but this time
[12:38] I've got backup, and that just feels
[12:40] great to be honest. When it comes to
[12:42] like caveats, the slower pace and the
[12:45] introspectionheavy nature of the series
[12:47] is going to make people drop off. That's
[12:49] fine. That might end up being something
[12:51] that stops it from like truly reaching
[12:54] [music] uh more mainstream success
[12:56] because this is a series that asks for
[12:59] your patience and it wants you to meet
[13:01] it where it is rather than it rushing up
[13:05] to meet you. The show's not going to
[13:06] drop you with a cliffhanger to try and
[13:08] bring you back next episode or beg for
[13:11] your attention. But if you can handle
[13:13] that, if you can appreciate the warmth
[13:15] that it offers, you know, within the
[13:18] depths of loneliness that the show
[13:20] explores, you're going to find it all
[13:22] the more rewarding. If you have seen
[13:24] comments from people who have bounced
[13:25] off the show complaining or lamenting
[13:27] that it was too slow or too quiet, they
[13:29] are just looking for something else. And
[13:31] that's fine. There's plenty out there
[13:34] for them. Even my my biggest personal
[13:37] criticism against the series is
[13:38] something that I don't really think is
[13:40] fixable. so I can forgive it. And as I
[13:43] mentioned earlier, this doesn't cover
[13:45] everything from the manga. There are
[13:46] plot threads that got cut, subplots
[13:48] dropped, and the ending is a bit
[13:50] different from the original material
[13:52] because things are missing. But with how
[13:55] long anime seasons are, I'm not sure how
[13:59] best we could have fixed that without
[14:01] then introducing new problems. A second
[14:04] core of the series would have made
[14:06] things drag even with the extra
[14:08] material. There's not enough or full 24.
[14:10] and then doing these episodes but then
[14:12] having an OVA to cover everything else
[14:14] afterwards would have still left this
[14:17] without an ending. One that would
[14:19] probably have been worse than the one we
[14:20] got. So really I just feel like it's a
[14:22] limitation on what the series can do
[14:24] with only 13 episodes. So here's my
[14:27] bottom line with it. Journal with Witch
[14:30] is the kind of show that that reminds me
[14:32] why I started watching anime in the
[14:33] first place and why I've been talking
[14:35] about it since 2009. And it's not just
[14:37] because of like how much I relate to
[14:39] Makio as a character, though that is
[14:41] certainly part of it. This is the kind
[14:43] of show that I won't say treats you like
[14:46] an adult, but it definitely is one that
[14:48] respects your time. You don't have to
[14:50] interact with it, but if you do, you get
[14:53] rewarded for it. This is a show that
[14:54] believes that 13 episodes showcasing the
[14:57] small moments of two people trying to
[14:59] navigate grief is worth it. It is not a
[15:02] perfect adaptation, but I don't think it
[15:05] needs to be. And what we got is more
[15:07] than enough. So the real bottom line, if
[15:10] you haven't watched it yet, you probably
[15:13] should.
[15:14] And that's it for our show today. Thank
[15:16] you for watching if you haven't seen
[15:18] Journal with Witch. It's available for
[15:19] streaming over on Crunchyroll. And I
[15:21] urge you to do that at your earliest
[15:23] convenience if you haven't already. I
[15:25] also wanted to give shoutouts to
[15:26] supporters [music] of this channel over
[15:28] on Patreon. This video is not sponsored,
[15:30] and the more support that we get over
[15:32] there, the less sponsors that Glass of
[15:33] Flection will need at any given time.
[15:35] [music] So, an immense thank you
[15:36] especially to patrons like Siri Yamako,
[15:39] Ryen Bonapart, Omar Showman, Ross
[15:41] [music] Emerson, Hector Montto, Mayor
[15:44] Geekwig, and Aiden. We can't continue
[15:47] this without your support. So, however
[15:48] much you are able to help, I am
[15:50] eternally grateful. So, subscribe if you
[15:52] haven't, hit the like button if you
[15:53] enjoyed the video, and until next time,
[15:55] whenever that happens to be, watch more
[15:58] anime and stay frosty.