Creator of Witch Hat Atelier praises Champignon Witch's fairytale charm

The fantasy shoujo Champignon Witch, endorsed by Witch Hat Atelier creator Kamome Shirahama and admired by Chica Umino, centers on Luna, a girl who lives alone in a mushroom-shaped poison house in the forest. Poison weeps from her skin and she is literally toxic, yet she still ventures into town to deliver handmade medicines accompanied by Minos, a button-nosed calf who turns into a respectable cow on command.

She even does chores like shearing Merino, the bipedal sheep with wool like meringue, and leaves poison mushrooms like cupcake sprinkles wherever she goes. Despite the townspeople's whispers, Luna buys romance novels and draws tender portraits of the very people who recoil from her.

One sketch of a boy tears open in a supernatural moment, his soul stepping through the paper to hold her hand, and the pair dance barefoot beneath a full moon—an image that calls to mind films such as Don Bluth's Thumbelina and Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service.

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