WELCOME TO THE VOID

The Witch Hat Atelier anime adaptation during the Spring 2026 Anime Season completely won me over. Of course, that inevitably led to me stocking up on all 14 volumes of the manga, and then ploughing through the digital chapters on K MANGA to get fully caught up. Boy, am I glad I did! Because I love having my heart ripped out (and then stepped on,) and that’s exactly what Shirahama Kamome does with pretty much every chapter. There is something magical and enchanting in Shirahama-sensei’s art. She vividly tells a story without words, which, in turn, serves to make every actual word that much more impactful. Witch Hat Atelier is magical and dark, with every beautiful panel capturing the radiant but twisted world main protagonist Coco exists in. I am not writing reviews of the manga here, so much as I’d like to write a series of essays exploring my thoughts on the story and characters. I haven’t been writing here as much lately, due to work taking up a lot of my time, so, this is something I want to do for myself because Witch Hat Atelier has easily become one of my favorite manga series this year. The fact that one of the first things it reminded me of was one of my favorite video games of all time feels like the first thing to explore, so, let’s do this thing!

It’s been a minute since I had time to sit down and write here. My contracted position at CBR.com changed again recently, which means a heavier workload and less time to write outside the job. This is a good thing, but I do need to make some time to write over here, just for me. Especially since I haven’t even talked about the Spring 2026 Anime Season at all, yet. I’ve missed my outlet, for sure. There’s been some amazing new anime I’ve been watching during the Spring 2026 Anime Season. Not taking time to talk about them here has been weird. So I thought I’d drop in and give a brief overview of everything I’m watching now.

I sure took my sweet time getting to my final thoughts on the series finale for shojo anime Anyway I’m Falling In Love With You. I think after Jujutsu Kaisen was over, I feel into a word coma, spending most of my time writing for work instead of myself. But I’m here now. After almost two weeks to think it over, I definitely have thoughts about Mizuho’s journey. Overall, I like Anyway I’m Falling In Love With You as a whole. The animation is cute. The colors are shojo vibrant and exciting. I especially like the shimmering essence from the sea that always seems to make its way onto the screen. I like the premise of a group of childhood friends trying to find their way in life after a pandemic. That’s what kept me hooked. So, here are my thoughts on the anime series as a whole.

The following contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, currently available to stream on Crunchyroll. I am going to start out by noting up front, I loved all 12 episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can say that I am thoroughly disappointed in the news from TOHO Animation on Friday, March 26. Fans spent all of Season 3 expecting a mid-season break, Cour 2 dropping later this year. Unfortunately, there won’t be a second cour. Instead, we will now get a fourth season sometime in 2027. Disappointment is kind of understatement. After delivering an incredibly powerful third season with top notch animation from Studio MAPPA, it was definitely too much to hope for. The bummer for me is that the first two seasons were packed with episodes. I’m greedy. I say this all the time. All I can do now is not let this news ruin how much I enjoyed Season 3.

This post contains spoilers for Alien Headbutt Chapter 6, currently available for U.S. readers from VIZ Media Last week’s chapter of Shonen Jump‘s Alien Headbutt left Shirokiba the Hellhound and his friends in a tight spot. Trying to reach Shirokiba’s younger sister, Yuki, at the bathhouse, a swirl of nasty flying aliens block the way. No longer in the world of Pro Wrestling, Shirokiba Ouga doesn’t need a ring or another wrestler to drive his moves home. All he needs is a little leverage to latch onto those flying fiends. With Tatsumi’s hunter skills giving Ouga the backup he needs, the alien-smashing dynamic duo has nothing to fear. Or do they? Those gross, Pitch Black-looking aliens flying around might have a trick up their wing no one saw coming! Fortunately, Shirokiba the Hellhound is real good at thinking on his feet.