---
title: 'The Anime That Won Winter 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=_drEM3ZsyV4'
video_id: '_drEM3ZsyV4'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 962
---

# The Anime That Won Winter 2026

> Source: [The Anime That Won Winter 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=_drEM3ZsyV4)

## Summary

The video reviews 'Journal with Witch', an anime from winter 2026 that focuses on two people living together without fight scenes or magic. It highlights the show's honest depiction of grief and its quiet, introspective nature, which the reviewer finds superior to other original anime that season.

### Key Points

- **Best anime of winter 2026** [0:00] — The best anime of winter 2026 had no fight scenes, magic, or powerups; it was 13 episodes of two people living in a messy apartment talking.
- **Title misleading** [0:36] — The English title 'Journal with Witch' is misleading; the Japanese title 'Ioku Nikki' translates to 'Diary of a Strange Land', which is more metaphorical.
- **Main characters introduced** [1:34] — Makio is a 35-year-old novelist who avoids people; her apartment is messy, and she broke up with her boyfriend because his emotional stability exhausted her.
- **Plot setup** [2:13] — Makio's sister and brother-in-law die in a car accident, leaving behind their daughter Assa. Makio takes her in with no preparation.
- **Quiet and chill series** [3:19] — The series is aggressively quiet; the most dramatic thing is Makio staring at a blank document. It shows ordinary life as worth taking seriously.
- **Makio's character depth** [5:55] — Makio is not a cruel person but can only offer acceptable guardianship, not a mother's love. She fears projecting her feelings about Assa's mom onto Assa.
- **Assa's grief** [7:27] — Assa keeps a journal and wants to write lyrics but feels she has nothing to say. She imagines walking through a desert alone, representing her loneliness.
- **Honest depiction of grief** [9:34] — The show depicts adolescent and adult depression and grief honestly, without stereotypes. Assa responds with muted anger rather than sadness.
- **Adaptation caveat** [10:03] — The anime adapts 32 of 54 manga chapters, so some subplots are missing, including Assa's relationship with her dad. The ending lands but differs from the manga.
- **High praise and ratings** [11:08] — The series scored 8.75/10 on MyAnimeList, ranking 49th best anime of all time, surprising for a quiet drama without a built-in audience.
- **Caveats and audience** [12:42] — The slow pace and introspection may cause some to drop off, but those who appreciate its warmth will find it rewarding.
- **Bottom line** [14:27] — The show respects your time and rewards engagement. It's not a perfect adaptation but is more than enough.

### Conclusion

Journal with Witch is a quiet, introspective anime that honestly portrays grief and everyday life, making it a standout of winter 2026 despite its slow pace.

## Transcript

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