''Burn the Witch'' (stylized as ''BURN ☩HE WITCH'') is a Japanese

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...

series written and illustrated by

Tite Kubo , known professionally as , is a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He is best known for his manga series ''Bleach'' (2001–2016), which had over 130 million copies in circulation as of 2022. Biography Kubo was born on June 26, 1977, ...

. It was first published in

Shueisha (lit. "Gathering of Intellect Publishing Co., Ltd.") is a Japanese company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The fol ...

's ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly Shōnen manga, ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump (magazine line), Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many Action (fiction), action scenes and a fair ...

'' as a one-shot chapter in July 2018. A serialized continuation of the one-shot is being published in the same magazine with a seasonal release schedule. The 4-chapter first season was published from August to September 2020. A second season of the manga has been announced. An

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening o ...

film produced by Studio Colorido premiered in October 2020. The series' title comes from a 2016 song by the English band

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass); ...

Synopsis

The story of ''Burn the Witch'' takes place in the ''Bleach'' universe and follows two witches, Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole, working for the Western Branch of Soul Society, located in Reverse

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

Characters

; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; :

Media

Manga

''Burn the Witch'' is written and illustrated by

. A 62-pages one-shot was first published in the 33rd issue of

's ''

'' on July 14, 2018. In March 2020, it was announced that a miniseries would be published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' as a companion for the also announced film. ''Burn the Witchs "first season" is a continuation of the one-shot chapter, and ran in the ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' for four weeks, from August 24 to September 14, 2020. A "second season" was announced with the release of the first season's final chapter. Shueisha published the series' first season in a 260-page ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or m ...

'' volume, that included the one-shot chapter, on October 2, 2020.

Viz Media VIZ Media LLC is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ ...

published the one-chapter in ''

Weekly Shonen Jump Weekly, The Weekly, or variations, may refer to: News media * ''Weekly'' (news magazine), an English-language national news magazine published in Mauritius *Weekly newspaper, any newspaper published on a weekly schedule *Alternative newspaper, als ...

'' on July 16, 2018. Viz Media simultaneously released the English-language version of the series. In February 2021,

announced that they will release the first volume of ''Burn the Witch'' in English. It was published on October 19, 2021.

Volume list

Film

In March 2020, it was announced that the series would receive an anime film adaptation by Studio Colorido, directed by Tatsuro Kawano. The film is distributed by

Shochiku () is a Japanese film and kabuki production and distribution company. It also produces and distributes anime films, in particular those produced by Bandai Namco Filmworks (which has a long-time partnership—the company released most, if not al ...

and premiered on October 2, 2020, in Japan. The theme song for the film is "Blowing", performed by Nil. The film also streamed in other territories outside Asia, with a different version from the Japanese theatrical release. Crunchyroll streamed the film in a 3-episode format on October 1, 2020.

released the series on

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming m ...

. In Southeast Asia and South Asia,

Muse Communication Muse Communication Co., Ltd. (also known simply as Muse) is a Taiwanese distributor and licensor that specializes in the distribution of anime. Based in Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City, the company also distributes Asian and European films ...

has licensed the film and released it on YouTube.

Other media

In October 2020, the series collaborated with mobile game '' Bleach: Brave Souls'', featuring Ninny and Noel as playable characters. ''Brave Souls x Burn the Witch'' collaboration merchandise was also given out to 150 random people who interacted with the game's Twitter account. A year later, a 2nd round of the collaboration debuted, introducing Bruno Bangnyfe as a new character with the previous two returning; it was followed by a 3rd round. The series had a crossover event with Oasis' mobile game ''Bleach: Immortal Soul'' in May 2022, featuring Nini and Noel as characters.

Reception

''Burn the Witch''s first volume sold 86,066 print copies in its first week and 68,810 print copies in its second week. Skyler Allen of ''The Fandom Post'' wrote that despite lacking the same "spark" as ''Bleach''s beginning, the ''Burn the Witch'' one-shot is still enjoyable and has plenty of potential for growth in a full serialization, but too much time is spent on its setup to work as a standalone story. He had strong praise for Kubo's art and memorable character designs, but criticized the one-shot as "unfocused" for ideas that did not get properly fleshed out.

References

External links

* * * * {{Studio Colorido 2020 anime films 2020 action films 2020 fantasy films 2018 manga 2020 manga Action anime and manga Animated films about dragons Animated films set in London Anime action films Anime films based on manga Bleach (manga) Books about dragons Comics about magic Comics set in London Crunchyroll anime Fantasy anime and manga Films about witchcraft Japanese animated fantasy films Japanese fantasy action films Muse Communication Shochiku films Shueisha manga Shōnen manga Studio Colorido Viz Media manga Witchcraft in anime and manga Witchcraft in written fiction