Witch Hat Atelier 1×6 and 1×7 Review – “A Light on a Rainy Day” and “Who Is Magic For?”

Witch Hat Atelier anime season 1 episode 6, titled ‘A Light on a Rainy Day’, and episode 7, titled ‘Who Is Magic For?’, expanded on the show’s magical lore as yet another threat neared Coco.

With how things panned out with Coco and the other young witch apprentices trying to survive being trapped in a labyrinth with a dragon, ‘A Light on a Rainy Day’ understandably showed Coco wanting to improve her magic casting skills. She appreciated Qifrey praising her as the team’s idea gal, but as far as Coco was concerned, she couldn’t help but feel she didn’t contribute much because Agott and the rest were the ones who cast the necessary spells.

Coco’s determination was a positive thing. However, she was clearly overworking herself, resulting in her losing focus while practicing her casting. Also, the fact that Coco still hadn’t selected a pen that suited her style didn’t help matters.

Qifrey stepped in to assist Coco with her current emotional predicament. Even though seeing Qifrey unleash incredible spells is exciting as heck, I do enjoy the scenes where he’s operating as a teacher. Instead of asking Coco to continue practicing spells in her room, Qifrey encouraged her to involve magic in her daily routine. Doing so was supposed to help make spellcasting feel natural instead of classwork.

I liked how Qifrey related to Coco by mentioning how he used to dislike casting water spells because he wasn’t a fan of getting wet. However, he was able to become incredibly skilled at water spells through cooking and utilizing water spells without getting wet. Dude’s got an enchanted sword, called the Raincleaver, meant to part the ocean, again, as a way for him not to get wet. Ha!

For Coco, he instructed her to figure out the right kind of fireball spell to draw to ensure a particular food ingredient was perfectly cooked. Doing so would not only require the right amount of heat from the firespell, but also combining the right amount of air pressure to keep the ingredient floating instead of letting it fall on the spell and ruining it. Again, I’m so here for Teacher Qifrey. Also, that particular scene did a lot to showcase how much detail went into proper spellcasting in the world of Witch Hat Atelier.

While Coco’s busy in the kitchen with Qifrey, Agott’s busy trying to polish a spell that shot a tall beam of light toward the sky. At first, I thought it was supposed to act as a signal to someone Agott might be trying to communicate with. But episode 7 revealed that said spell was a distress signal (which I will talk about in a bit). Agott’s determined to prove herself to the adult witches around her because of her backstory, which, again, I will talk about shortly.

‘A Light on a Rainy Day’ introduced us to a male witch named Olruggio. Due to Qifrey and other witches running ateliers to train young witch apprentices around the world, witches like Olruggio acted as atelier supervisors and reported directly to the Great Hall. Of course, Olruggio wasn’t a fan of Qifrey refusing to erase Coco’s memories of magic, but also making her his apprentice.

The conversation between Qifrey and Olruggio helped Coco (and the viewers) learn more about the supervisory position and how the laws of magic were upheld by a group of witches called the Knights Moralis. Reporting Coco to the Great Hall would involve the very strict Knights Moralis. And due to Qifrey’s resolve to capture the Brimmed Hats, he told Olruggio that the Knights Moralis weren’t getting to Coco unless they passed through Qifrey. Uh-oh!

I’m excited to see just how far Qifrey will go to protect Coco. His stubbornness to keep Coco around does make me think Qifrey’s past is somehow linked to the Brimmed Hats.

Olruggio’s disdain toward Coco was swept away due to a very sweet moment that revealed how Olruggio was responsible for creating the light-up pavement blocks that a kid Coco fell in love with. Her backstory made Olruggio aware of Coco’s love of magic. I wasn’t expecting Coco to share such a link with Olruggio, but it did help establish some welcome groundwork between the two characters.

‘A Light for a Rainy Day’ concluded with a man named Dagda arriving at the atelier for help to save his caravan from the flooded Staircase River. And with Agott wanting to prove herself, she asked Qifrey to take her with him!

‘Who Is Magic For?’ focused quite a lot on Agott. Apparantly, apprentices needed to take the second test to prove they could spellcast without people learning about the secret behind magic. Turns out, witches wore long cloaks to hide their spellcasting work in front of onlookers. That also meant witches had to rely heavily on muscle memory while they drew spells with their hands hidden under the cloaks. This particular piece of lore helped add context to how we have seen Agott and the other apprentices practising spells by “drawing” symbols in the air before drawing for real on pieces of paper or other surfaces.

Teacher Qifrey was aware of Agott’s desire to prove herself. He was also aware of how her need to prove herself might cause her to make a serious mistake in the process. Teacher Qifrey wanted Agott to focus on what she could do and find the joy in spellcasting to help others instead of always being frustrated about the things she needed to improve.

I liked how the rescue mission was handled. It encouraged Agott to move the focus away from her need to accomplish something and instead focus on helping Dagda and the others. Even the smallest of tasks played a role in saving others. And I’m glad Agott quickly learned such a lesson when she decided to cast her lightbeam spell to create a glowy bird to distract the people from Coco’s spellwork instead of wanting to play hero and save the young boy named Custas herself.

As for Agott’s backstory, from what I could understand, it seemed as if her mother was a high-ranking witch from a family of exceptional witches. However, Agott’s not considered to be on the same level as her family members and was looked down upon by others. So, of course, Agott wanted to prove her spellcasting prowess to the grownups.

A major development near the end of episode 7 dealt with the Knights of Moralis arriving on the scene and immediately capturing Coco and Agott. The leader, named Easthies, wanted to know which of the two apprentices was working with the Brimmed Hats and had used forbidden magic to save the people. I was as surprised as Coco and Agott when it was revealed how Coco’s simple spell to turn rock into sand to save Custas had actually resulted in transforming the riverbanks into sand and even vaporizing a portion of the river.

I was wondering if the Brimmed Hat witch had planted dark magic into Coco’s mind after how he talked to her in episode 5 about wanting to teach her things Qifrey wouldn’t, and I’m so glad to have an answer so soon. Our girl Coco is likely a walking-talking dark magic grimoire without even realizing it.

I’m very excited to see what Qifrey will do to prevent Easthies from erasing Coco’s memories.

Did you watch Witch Hat Atelier anime season 1 episodes 6 and 7? What did you think of them?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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