Season aired: Summer 2025

Number of episodes: 13

Watched on: Crunchyroll

Translated by: ???

Genres: Fantasy, Comedy, Drama

Thoughts: Secrets of the Silent Witch was an easy anime to get into since it features a protagonist similar to the beloved leading lady of Bocchi the Rock! Monica is a prodigal witch who invents the ability to cast spells without needing to speak, but her reason for doing so isn’t in search of recognition, reputation, or even a job title. The truth is that she hates chanting spells out loud in front of people and would rather faint than engage in any form of public speaking. Her unique magic abilities earned her a spot with the top Seven Mages and the moniker, Silent Witch. She spends her days sequestered away in a forest to study more magic rather than engaging with the people who look up to her. Her idyllic days are disrupted, however, when she is forced to infiltrate a magical academy to guard the enigmatic second prince, Prince Felix, without him knowing. Unfortunately, it turns out his life is constantly in danger!

This anime spans multiple genres, but the element that undoubtedly works the best is comedy. It’d be too easy to wave off Monica as another extremely socially anxious protagonist who’s secretly overpowered, like many copycats had done after Bocchi the Rock!’s success, but the true secret to Monica is her devotion to numbers. Her love for numbers started way before the concept of anxiety existed for her, and that devotion to numbers constantly shows up in the funniest and most useful of ways. One of my favorite gags is how fascinated she is with what she sees as “perfect body proportions from a numerical angle” when it comes to Prince Felix’s body. The reason she’s always able to find him when the willful prince sneaks away has nothing to do with intuition, a special connection, or even seeing through his disguise. Monica literally memorized his body proportions and could identify him out of a crowd of thousands. I find that explanation so quirky and unique that I can’t help but laugh every time it shows up.

Monica, The Silent Witch

The comedy works even better because Monica’s obsession with numbers is also tied to something deeper. As the series progresses, we learn that Monica’s murdered father was also a magical researcher who believed in uncovering magic through numerical calculations. Therefore, her skill with mental calculation are also tied to a greater emotional core, as it is one of the few things she has held on to from her memories of her father. Ironically, some of the best comedy stems from tragedy, and nothing showcases that more than this particular quirk of our protagonist.

If I had one real complaint about the show, it’s how the conflicts are resolved and how the antagonists are handled. Prince Felix’s life is constantly in danger, so throughout the show, Monica is trying to remain undercover while simultaneously using her overpowered magic to save him without the observant prince noticing. Every time this happens, however, I find myself disliking how the actual perpetrator is handled. One was a twist villain whom I thought the series did a pretty subpar job of setting up — the reveal was so left-field with so little setup that I was more confused than shocked by the twist. Another arc introduced an antagonist from Monica’s past, and again, the resolution of him changing his tune toward her and covering for her secret identity felt wholly unsatisfying. So much time had been dedicated to his cruelty and none to his heel-face turn. In fact, the only antagonist I found satisfactory was in the introductory arc, where enough setup was done to lead up to the reveal.

Felix and Monica

Where Secret Witch flounders in plot, the show makes up for it in its characters and their relationships. Monica’s budding friendship and potential romance with Prince Felix is electrifying from beginning to end — especially with the reveal that Felix is a huge fanboy of her mage persona. This is my personal bias, because I’ve always loved the Clark Kent/Superman dynamic, but I also objectively think that the show does a good job of weaving their growing bonds. Throughout the show, the writing cleverly never reveals too much about Prince Felix’s childhood, yet shows enough to tie his similarities to Monica without either of them fully knowing. It’s a great setup for the eventual reveal that Monica has been Felix’s idol this entire time, and that Felix knows exactly the kind of trauma that Monica has been struggling with throughout the show.

A large part of that chemistry, however, has to do with Shogo Sakata voicing Felix. I haven’t heard Shogo Sakata a lot in my anime, but I am especially impressed with his performance in this anime. Prince Felix hides a lot of secrets, and while he fits perfectly into the stereotype of a blond, charming prince, he also shows in scarce glimpses a capability to be manipulative and even cruel. All the while, he’s also a teenage fanboy who’s a big nerd for reading. Shogo Sakata perfectly captures the many facets of Felix’s character, and I especially like that while he never loses the mature smoothness in his voice, I can still hear when he’s teasing, angry, or even childish. Saya Aizawa, as the titular Monica, also does a great job with all her stumbling, mumbling, freaking out, and numerical rambling. Again, this is another voice actress I have not heard often, but hearing how good she is in this series, I am hopeful to hear her more in different roles.

The Silent Witch

I also need to gush about the music. It’s truly fantastic. One thing about magical academies I’ve noticed throughout the years is that, with the exception of Mashle, almost all of them sound generically similar. There’s always some kind of magical tune that resembles the Harry Potter movies a little too much, and there are a lot of repeated scores. This does not happen with Secrets of The Silent Witch. The magical soundtrack sounds more like Scotland and Irish music than generic European, and its emotional scores cut me every single time. In fact, it’s so powerful that I think it’s reminiscent of how the music of Frieren and Fruits Basket was enough to make me cry without any dialogue.

This leads me to the finale, which is one of the most satisfying endings to a series this year. There’s an emotional core to this story of this scared, numerical witch, and her connection to her father. Whether it’s her social anxiety, her skills with numbers, and everything else that happens to her afterwards, it all routes back to the father she traumatically watched burned to death and his hard work destroyed. This pain collides with bittersweet joy in the finale, bringing me to actual tears when Felix unknowingly takes her to an indie bookstore where a final book of her father’s had managed to survive. Everything she suffered that led to her troubles started with his death, but every improvement and courage she has absorbed to better her life has led her back to his greatest gift: the knowledge he left behind.

Secrets of The Silent Witch works because it understands comedy stems from emotional tragedy and heart. With such a good grasp of the genre thesis, the anime has effortlessly blended them together to create a satisfactory anime. It thoroughly deserves a second season, but even if it doesn’t get one, I certainly cannot complain about how this first season ended.

Rating

Plot: 7.5 (Multiplier 3)

Characters: 7.5 (Multiplier 3)

Art/Animation: 8 (Multiplier 2)

Voice acting: 8

Soundtrack: 9

FINAL SCORE: 78