Review by Karl Verhoven

Witch of Thistle Castle began with the novel premise of a powerful witch, Marie Blackwood, in disagreement with the magical elite’s ruling principles. Iconoclastic and likeable, she carried the first volume, agreeing to act as mentor for the shy, but powerful Theo. In Witch of Thistle Castle 2 there was a trip to Paris, and the final chapter had Theo starting at a new school. Theo’s experiences there form the bulk of this volume.

John Tarachine started with something relatively original, and has taken a disastrous turn into Harry Potter fan fiction. The character names are different, aspects of their personalities have been switched around, and named spirits are required for spells, but this is still a shy kid in spectacles at a school for magic challenged because people know he has a destiny.

The art is still technically well drawn, but Tarachine is increasingly moving into more common manga storytelling not placing any priority on clarity. What’s happening in the sample art could be more clearly defined in so many ways, yet it isn’t. That continues with other occasions of magical action shown as swirls of ink and sound effects accompanied by threats such as “If you touch him I don’t know what the Blood of Righteous Anger will do”. It really fails to maximise the potential of what’s going on.

Tarachine is much better with the small moments dropped to great effect, such as revealing a previous relationship, and despite the earlier dangers the best chapter by far is the final one. It’s a glimpse back to Marie’s childhood, raised by her mother and grandmother in the family estate with Marie’s father absent. It reinforces sympathy for Marie and moves away from the magical school, and that’s a really good thing.

Mention should be made of a cover wilfully not representative of the content, suggesting instead an intimacy between Marie and Theo, who’s a teenage schoolboy in the UK, and therefore under the legal limit for the relationship the cover suggests.

Surprisingly, the series concludes with Witch of Thistle Castle 4.