The Spring 2024 Light Novel Guide

Once Upon a Witch's Death

What's It About? 

"You're going to die. One year to go." 17-year-old apprentice witch tries to lift the curse of death.

On Meg's seventeenth birthday, she learns she only has one year left to live. Her mentor—the Eternal Witch, Faust—explains that she is cursed and the only way to save herself is to grow a seed of life using one thousand tears of joy. Of course, such tears aren't easy to come by. As Meg begins her quest, she finds herself drawn into the lives of her friends and neighbors in ways she never imagined. By sharing their burdens and using her magic to comfort them, she learns how precious those moments of connection can be, even in the face of death.

Once Upon a Witch's Death has a story by Saka and art by Chorefuji. English translation by Richard Tobin and published by Yen On. (April 30, 2024)

Is It Worth Reading?

Lauren Orsini
Rating:

It may have a buzzkill premise and sketchy worldbuilding, but I can forgive nearly all of the sins of Once Upon a Witch's Death thanks to the protagonist alone. Meg Raspberry is a breath of fresh air: a mouthy, at times crude, witch who isn't afraid to make herself the butt of the joke—and be confident afterward that we're laughing with her, not at her. Her outspoken flights of fancy remind me of classic heroines like Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking, and her memorable name has icon potential. Or it would be better if she were starring in a better book.

It took me time to comprehend Meg's humor because the book introduces her at the lowest point in her life: right after her teacher, Lady Faust, the Eternal Witch, informs her that she is cursed with one year left to live. Unless—and this is a long shot—she can collect 1,000 tears of joy from people she assists over the year. This is a pretty big ask, and Meg doesn't seem to be in a hurry; I think she has collected a total of eleven by halfway through the book. But by that point, Meg's doom falls into the background as her hijinks ramp up and take center stage. Meg is always clowning around, champing at the bit to be the boke to anyone else's tsukkomi. She has a couple of recurring bits, like when she pretends to want to eat her cuddly familiars (and vice versa! Before a big punishment, she tells Lady Faust, “My only request is that if you're going to kill me over it, please feed my body to my two familiars.”) Sometimes she pretends to be a grouchy middle-aged man. Translator Richard Tobin did a fantastic job bringing Meg's witty dialogue to life with colloquial British slang.

Meg finds a willing audience for her daily comedy routine in the friends she meets along the way: her “BFFL” named Fine and prominent witches Inori and Sophie, who both visit her sleepy British hamlet of Lapis. This bucolic country setting, with the added fantasy detail of witches and familiars and magic, feels as cozy as the settings in The Ancient Magus's Bride or Little Witch Academia (and in the illustrations, Meg looks a lot like Akko). But the more we learn about Meg's world, the more we see the cracks in its world-building. Witches can create portals to parallel worlds, leading to foreigners like beast folk (and, weird detail: contagious diseases from across the universe) visiting Lapis. In some ways, witches are like scholars, having conferences and helping the townsfolk; in other ways, they're like celebrities, and occasionally, we realize that they have such incredible powers (they can easily slice through time and space!) that there's no way Meg's world would be so similar to ours. At several points in the book, I wondered, “Why didn't THAT cure Meg's curse?” It's only in the last few pages that the twist was revealed, one I found to be pretty disappointing. Meg Raspberry, you rascal, I wish I had met you in a different story.