Witch Hat Atelier shows off the rather extreme misconduct of the local magical police in Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis”. Honestly, it looks more and more like magic society in this world is run more or less like a police state, with the police having the ability to just erase people’s memories on a whim without even the benefit of a trial by court. Alas, Coco and Agott are among the ones caught in the judicial/legal crossfire here.
Witch Hat Atelier Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis”: Details in Brief
Witch Hat Atelier Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis” is the eighth episode (you can read my reviews for Ep. 1-2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, and Ep. 7 here) of this dark fantasy anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Kamome Shirahama.
Bug Films (Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead) is the animation studio behind this anime. Ayumu Watanabe is the director of this anime, with Jun Shinohara as the assistant director, Hiroshi Seko as the writer, and Yuka Kitamura as the composer for the music.
The opening theme song for Witch Hat Atelier is “Kaze no Ansemu” by Eve ft. suis from Yorushika. Meanwhile, “Tada Utsukushii Noroi” by Nakamura Hak is the ending theme song.
Witch Hat Atelier Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis”: The Good
Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis” starts off the episode with a good dose of police brutality and/or misconduct on the part of new character Easthies (voiced by Junichi Suwabe (JP) and Sean Letourneau (EN)) and his Knights Moralis squad. The result is an amazingly dramatic and deep story showing the viewers the downsides of a police force that is judge, jury, and executioner all in one.
With those downsides being quite evident when the magical police are about to perform a memory erasure spell on Coco (voiced by Rena Motomura (JP) and Anjali Kunapaneni (EN)) and possibly Agott (voiced by Hibiku Yamamura (JP) and Madeleine Morris (EN)) as well on extremely shaky grounds. Look, Easthies was basically about to mentally execute and physically exile someone without any tangible evidence at all, and only on vibes. Without a single trial by any of Coco’s peers, or even the pretense of an investigation.
Magical Vigilantism?
Qifrey (voiced by Natsuki Hanae (JP) and Joshua Waters (EN)) along with Coco and Agott’s fellow apprentice witches stepping in to stop the mental execution doesn’t actually change the situation. Indeed, a later scene with Easthies shows that he has determined that Coco is guilty and is determined to find anything to prove that his vibes about her are accurate. This is the view of an authoritarian leader, not someone who is serving the magical public as law enforcement.
The result is that this episode is a great political thriller, complemented by Qifrey’s actions at the end of this episode to preserve the secrecy of what he found. You can’t even blame him for erasing someone’s memory like that. He doesn’t trust the magical police, but he also doesn’t want to kill the person he’s magicking. Memory erasure is the happy middle ground here, no matter how morally dubious it is in the end. It certainly makes me eager to see what the fallout of that will be in the next episode of Witch Hat Atelier.
Oh, and kudos to the story for including a colorblind character and depicting their struggles in a field that definitely relies on normal vision. It’s a nice, subtle reminder that this show is all about showing how the outcasts in a society does when that society is extremely rigid and unaccepting of anyone different.
Witch Hat Atelier Ep. 8 “The Misgivings of the Knights Moralis”: The Bad
Honestly, my only real complaint is that the wounds depicted on Coco’s leg are the typical anime depictions of such wounds. Mainly: just a series of red lines smudged with dirt. For wounds described as “cuts”, it’s not particularly realistic in the slightest. To be fair though, most anime do just depict wounds like that, and this anime doesn’t seem to like depicting realistic wounds. The most we see is blood soaking the bandages of a wounded bystander, and that’s it. It might very well be that realistic wounds are not this anime’s style, even if it otherwise mars an exquisitely animated anime.
Anime Recommendations
Fortunately, we do have alternatives if you want to see bloody action in an anime. If you want that, then you might like Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, Blue Box, Solo Leveling, Black Butler, Nyaight of the Living Cat, May I Ask for One Final Thing?, TRIGUN STARGAZE, and/or Daemons of the Shadow Realm. However, if you want a more calm anime or one that is story-driven rather than action-driven, then you might want to check out Spy x Family, Senpai is an Otokonoko, Apocalypse Hotel, Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, My Dress-Up Darling, This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Hana-Kimi, and/or Journal with Witch.
What did you think of this week’s episode of Witch Hat Atelier? Tell us your police brutality thoughts in the comments section below.
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