Just the other day, YouTube randomly offered me a short anime-style cartoon named “A Witch and a Crow”, by a certain MaepleTea. It’s under four minutes long (three and a half if you don’t count the credits), so if you want to see it yourself before reading my comments, you can watch it here. It’s atmospheric and cute, with a gentle story of friendship and mild romance: technically child-appropriate (nothing scary or explicit), but it will appeal to older audiences more.
Assuming that you’ve watched it, or that you don’t mind spoilers, let’s move on! So, why did I decide to blog about a short indie cartoon rather than just link it on social media? Here are several things that resonated really well with me and that I think recommend it.
Animal shapeshifting into a human
Popular culture nowadays is full of werebeasts, animaguses, polymorphers and other creatures who are essentially human or humanoid, but can shapeshift into a real or mythological animal. Here, however, it seems that the young man doesn’t shapeshift into a crow, but is an actual crow who shapeshifts into a human, bringing into mind various shapeshifting animals of legend, from the Raven in Native American myths, to Asian Kitsune and Kumiho.
In fact, it is implied that the crow becomes stuck in human form without his magic hat, which is physical and visible while he is in his human form, but intrinsically a part of him while he is a crow, as an outline of it only shines above his head. Perhaps that is a sign of the witch’s magical perception, showing us how she sees her magical friend apart from other, ordinary crows? This, again, resonates with many myths in which a supernatural creature removes a part of themselves to become human or humanoid, like a selkie taking off their skin to walk on land, or a Slavic fae (vila) leaving her wings on the shore when she decides to bathe. It may seem bizarre to a human – but somehow, that makes it appear even more credible and natural.
A touch of magical realism
Which brings me to the second point: the magic in the cartoon is subtle, and not overly flashy, because, of course, the point is an emotional story, and not a display of power. Beyond the crow’s own shapeshifting, the only time we see the witch actually use magic is when she takes out her wand to reach the hat blown away by the wind – and, potentially, when she attaches her bow to the hat in the end. (It might be just implicit normal fastening shown quickly – but it seems to me that the bow becomes completely attached to the hat as a part of it, not just tied to it.) Beyond that, we see the witch engaging in a variety of mundane activities, such as walking through the woods (maybe to gather herbs, maybe just for enjoyment), or cleaning her front porch with a (likely ordinary) broom. Which is just as it should be: shiny magic would just distract from the point.
Subtle humour
An atmospheric cartoon without spoken words is unlikely to make you laugh out loud, though if there is one scene that can make you do that, it is definitely the one where the crow thinks of giving the witch a ring he found – and then blushes in both versions of his identity, obviously thinking how it could be interpreted from a human perspective, while the music stops for a second for dramatic effect.
Still, there are also many other little details that might make you smile, such as various cute scenes with the crow finding and trying to take all sorts of little “treasures” as gifts for the witch, or costumed children coming trick-or-treating on Halloween to the house of an actual witch. I wonder, is it a setting where they know that she is a witch, or is she just implicitly the cute neighbourhood goth girl?
A lovely colour palette
Finally, while the animation itself is quite simple, the colouring is done masterfully. Almost everything, both the characters and the backgrounds, is in autumnal shades of orange and black – everything, that is, except the little gifts that the crow leaves for the witch. From the initial purplish gemstones, over bright red berries, to white pearls and seashells, most of the little gifts are coloured obviously differently from the rest of the scene, but not so drastically as for the effect to be jarring. Thus, our attention is clearly drawn to them and they are singled out as something important – both when we see them individually and when we observe the growing collection in the witch’s house – but they still gently fit into the overall atmosphere of the cartoon.
To sum things up – congratulations to MaepleTea for an amazing project. Should any sequel with these characters come up, I believe it will be met with open arms by the online audience – and I’ll certainly follow the channel either way!
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