REVIEW: ‘Witch Watch’ Episode 8 — “Kanshi’s Part-Time Job Diaries: The Superhero Show/ Kanshi’s Part-Time Job Diaries: The Side Job”

Witch Watch Episode 8 is the funniest episode in the series so far and one of the most entertaining by a long shot. It focuses on Kanshi, his boisterous yet careless personality, and odd decisions. Witch Watch Episode 8 begins with Kanshi (Kôhei Amasaki) needing to skip a rent payment because he’s bad at managing money and begging Morihito (Ryota Suzuki) to cover for him.

Morihito refuses and insists that he take a part-time job. Despite being resistant to the idea and showing that he never wants to be a working adult, Kanshi earns a part-time job as a superhero kids’ actor in a play called Ottoman. This begins a whole episode segment dedicated to this superhero, who was presented through an oddly detailed backstory. While a bit sad, the backstory showing his rocky marital life is also surprisingly hilarious, the more we learn about the hero.

This includes his masochistic tendencies, such as liking it when his wife treats him like an Ottoman leg rest or his co-worker who had a crush on him for weeks being a monster. Kanshi’s accurate and understandable reactions to all the absurdity enhance these hilarious moments in the first half of Witch Watch Episode 8. He makes several loud comments chiming into these scenes that try way too hard to seem more serious than they are.

Witch Watch Episode 8 leans into absurdity, creating some truly hilarious moments.

“Kanshi’s Part-Time Job Diaries: The Superhero Show” also shows how kindhearted Kanshi is. He purposely gives up his position to the previous actor who played Ottoman just so the actor can impress his son, who looks up to him. The fight scene, showing Kanshi acting as a monster inferior to the hero, showcases some short but excellent choreography and fluid motion animation from Bilbury Animation. However, it is unfortunate that the scene is so short, considering it is the most exciting part of the entire Witch Watch Episode 8

The next part of Witch Watch Episode 8, “Kanshi’s Part-Time Job Diaries: The Side Job,” essentially continues Kanshi’s occupational woes. This time, he’s tasked with repacking screws from several boxes. Unfortunately, as Kanshi is naturally averse to hard work, he asks Nico (Rina Kawaguchi) to put a spell on him to speed things up.

As Nico’s magic always has a caveat, the spell has several conditions. The spell will cause psychological distress and can’t be undone for three days. However, as Kanshi is not the sharpest tool in the shed, he ignores these conditions and proceeds regardless.

This promotes the funniest event in the entire anime so far, as Kanshi has to struggle with being ten times faster than everything and everyone in the world. He can’t communicate with everyone because they speak and move ten times slower, his metabolism changes, the three-day limit feels like thirty days, and even his clothes don’t dry fast enough after a wash.

Magic goes awry between Kanshi and Nico, leading to complications.

Watching how he reacts to this situation and how Nico and Morihito try to help him in the little ways they can is absolutely hilarious. The narration from Morihito describing Kanshi’s day-to-day life and all his struggles was especially humorous. Additionally, it shows a shockingly accurate and intricately realistic display of how things would be if you suddenly became ten times faster.

Your brain would work faster, other people would speak incredibly slowly, time, or at least your perception of it, would become warped, and your metabolism would make you eat every thirty minutes. It’s all the more impressive that the episode also shows how Kanshi learned to speak and walk considerably slower to adjust, and the hilarious part of how he had to readjust when the effects of the spell eventually wore off.

These specific details make Witch Watch Episode 8 incredibly entertaining and highlight Kanshi’s personality. He doesn’t pay attention to details, overlooks everything, speeds through life, and gets punished. Oddly enough, this makes him the most entertaining character in the anime, as he’s unequivocally himself, and every dumb thing he does is funny.

While not as flashy as previous episodes, Witch Watch Episode 8 is incredibly entertaining, genuinely hilarious, and well animated. It would be interesting to see future episodes focus on the other main characters, especially in such a similarly entertaining way.

Witch Watch Episode 8 is available now on Netflix and Crunchyroll.

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