This series, Guardian of the Witch by Sakano Asahi, had a lot of promise and potential. It was good in the beginning, but the story tapered off somewhat until its abrupt ending. Our focus this time is on Fafner, a guardian knight kind of guy, and Manasfa, the witch. Fafner is the one who guards Manasfa and it is his duty, when the time comes, to kill her...
(SPOILER WARNING! START)
In this world, there are these monsters called "Evils" who attack the city-states and the people in them. Witches are then "recruited" to fight these Evils and keep everyone safe. The witches are assigned guardians to watch and protect them, just one per witch, and when the time comes, it is their duty to kill the witch. What is unknown to the public is that the witches gain their powers by having the seeds of the Evils implanted into them, giving them their magical abilities. When a witch has used up a lot of their magic, they then in turn become Evils themselves. And so, it is a guardian's duty to execute the witch before they turn...
Fafner is the guardian of the witch, Manasfa, in the city-state of Berne. Fafner had joined the guards so that he would be able to kill Evils, due to the fact that when Fafner was younger, an Evil had somehow gotten into the city-state and killed his family. Ever since then Fafner has had a strong hatred for Evils and has been training to destroy them. He was at the top of his class and was considered and even had become captain, from what I remember, but he got transferred and became the witch's guardian, a glorified babysitter.
He is told by his higher-ups that he has to execute Manasfa soon, they tell him the truth about witches: the fact that they get their magic from Evils and must be killed before turning themselves. And to try and add more fuel to the fire, they tell him that the Evil who got inside the city's walls all those years ago, the one that killed his family, was a witch who tried to escape and turned.
Fafner is conflicted, having spent so much time with Manasfa, he knows how she is, not a killer but a very sheltered girl who wasn't allowed outside after becoming a witch. In the end, he protects her instead of executing her, along with her maid whose name I simply cannot remember right now, and the three of them become fugitives. The manga follows them a bit on their adventures, they meet three other witches and three other guardians, not all of them paired, before the manga comes to a close. The last chapter hits you with a five year time skip and the answer to their problem all in one go. It just happens... no warning, no nothing, personally I thought it was going to last longer.
(SPOILER WARNING! END)
This manga had a promising start but I feel like the ending was a cop-out. It was a very short series that could've lasted longer in my opinion. The ending happens very suddenly and I wasn't expecting it in the slightest. As I had said previously, I thought this manga was going to last longer, there was no indicator that the series was going to end as abruptly as it did. I wouldn't recommend this series, the beginning was okay... not astounding but the concept was pretty interesting, but the middle of the story started to stagnant. There was nothing impactful with the story, in honesty the weird witch doctor that they meet, I think, was the most interesting character in the series. I want to read more about him and his witch, and what they had gone through.
Anyways, that is really it, the manga wasn't all that eventful and ending left much to be desired. Unfortunately, other than the concept of the story itself, the execution of it wasn't really great.
Thank you all for reading and I hope you are all staying safe! It is currently July as I am typing this and even though things are opening back up, please stay safe and be careful! There has been another surge of infections of COVID-19 and I hope you are all okay. Hope you will all be back next week! Happy reading!
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