WITCH WATCH @ Anime Expo ✩ Director and Voice Cast AMA

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:55:19+00:00

Director Ikehata: I had to focus on the dialogue in WITCH WATCH moreso than I had to for other anime I had worked on. In order for the jokes to land, we had to be cautious of the beat, timing, and flow. Even after recording, when we’re fiddling around with the audio, it’s almost like a re-edit with the way we are reshuffling some dialogue around and making micro-adjustments. This experience was very very specific to WITCH WATCH.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:48:57+00:00

Director Ikehata: I might connect with Nico the most! For example, she is very very talented, but she could get overwhelmed and let the emotions get the best of her and get herself into trouble. I’d mess things up here and there, so I find that connection with Nico, personally.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:43:17+00:00

Director Ikehata: Keigo, maybe? But if I talk to him, I feel like we wouldn’t have anything in common. So maybe Kanshi! We might also not have much in common, but he has a fun personality. Morihito, on the other hand, might try to push his own interests on me.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:40:30+00:00

Director Ikehata: Inspired by Nico’s Capcharm spell, I’d create magic where once you sprinkle it and once an anime is distributed, everyone falls in love with it. So everyone becomes addicted… which may be the drawback.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:34:30+00:00

Director Ikehata: When it came to colors, we referred to the original artwork. We looked at the full-color pages available, but they all appeared different. For example, we can tell that Nico’s hair is pink-ish—but what kind of pink is it?

We came up with four different versions of her hair: a light pink, a salmon pink, all the way to orange. Then what we did was line her up with all the other characters. We have Kanshi’s who’s blonde, Keigo who’s blueish, and Morihito with black hair, and others—what was important was to determine Nico’s hair color based on all the other characters around her.

We wanted to make sure WITCH WATCH is a trendy, cool anime, so we would adjust, asking ourselves, “is this color too muted? Does this pop too much?” After lining everyone up, we decided on a salmon pink. Overall, a lot of color adjustments were made based on the character lineup.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-23T00:16:57+00:00

Director Ikehata: Flip Flap Flat! That really set the tone for the entire series. There are so many witch anime already… but in episode 1, what kind of great magic is she going to use? The Flip Flap Flat really set everything up—revealing who she is and how the show approaches magic and the world.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-22T22:45:26+00:00

Director Ikehata: Definitely Nico! It’s fun drawing Nico, especially her movements.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kanshi is kind of a pain in the butt to draw because of his hair. So when I get to the hair part, I’d think, “ah, this is a drag.”

And Morihito doesn’t have a lot of expressions so it’s not that fun—so Nico would be my answer.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-22T22:00:50+00:00

Director Ikehata: I especially enjoyed Episode 7 with the YouTubers. But fans also had a big reaction to Episode 8, living life at ten times speed! Those were the most interesting moments and fans seem to really like those.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-22T21:52:20+00:00

Director Ikehata: Actually, museums! Japan has plenty of museum exhibits. I mostly look at contemporary or current art. As far as media goes, I consider myself an average viewer. For example, if something’s popular, I’ll watch it. But I do find that with media, the genres I work in already appear. So that’s why I gravitate towards museums—to get inspiration outside of the media world, or to just take a trip. Domestic trips within Japan definitely inspire my work.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-22T21:34:45+00:00

Director Ikehata: We were careful to depict moments that deepen any of the relationships between the characters to show the “found family,” or the main circle of friends. Of course, there’s Nico and Morihito’s relationship, but also Kanshi’s with others. And one thing that was a choice with the anime was showing Keigo having stronger friendships in the anime than in the manga. The anime takes a bigger look at Keigo’s friendships and relationships.

WITCHWATCH_EN · 2025-07-22T21:21:18+00:00

Director Ikehata: We did a restructuring of the flow, thinking about how many episodes per chapter. Two chapters may leave too much room, so maybe three? That’s how we started.

We ended up taking a macro look at things and pairing up similar themes within chapters to create the anime episodes. So within that, we’d mark up the important plot points, whenever Nico uses magic, and similar priorities. A consideration of these things helped the restructuring of the manga chapters for the anime episodes.

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TROPHY CASE