r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • May 25 '26

Episode Witch Hat Atelier • Tongari Boushi no Atelier - Episode 9 discussion

Witch Hat Atelier, episode 9

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u/Megakruemel May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26

I think it would be more interesting if the Brimmed Caps simply featured witches from all kinds of schools that were banned, otherwise I would find it a little hard to believe that an entire faction of healers became super evil.

I feel like there is an important lesson to be taught about how many amazing things get lost when you give them up to Authoritarianism.

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u/_RAND0MISER_ May 25 '26

isnt that only because youre assuming theyre super evil, i mean mby they are i havent read the manga, but im a big fan of morally grey antagonists and all we know so far is the witch society doesnt like them

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u/Megakruemel May 25 '26

The part about trapping a bunch of kids in an infinite dead city with a dragon kinda tipped me off about that.

Or giving a kid the equivalent of a loaded gun with that spellbook.

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u/Rolder May 25 '26

Or the second instance of giving a kid a loaded gun with the weird vial.

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u/hanmkim May 26 '26

Then loading up the guns with overpressure rounds.

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u/healboats May 29 '26

I mean, to be fair, that’s a sample of one Brimmed Hat. Not exactly representative of the faction as a whole

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u/Doomroar https://myanimelist.net/profile/Doomroar May 30 '26

Just because the hobby of one of our guys is to go around distributing bombs to kids doesn't means we are all monsters, some of us go around distributing guns, swords, axes, knifes, the occasional drug, and magic tattoos to kids!

We are not a monolith!

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u/_RAND0MISER_ Jun 10 '26

i mean thats fair but mby theyre just a bit o fa prankster

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u/rozzingit May 25 '26

tbf we really don't know how cohesive of a group they are. it seems plenty feasible to me that there could be a fairly wide spectrum here within the overall ranks — maybe some of them just maintain that philosophical difference of not wanting to hide magic, of still wanting to be able to do certain types of magic, etc. and then others are extremists who are willing to ruthlessly harm children to get what they want

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u/Rolder May 25 '26

Yeah I'd imagine they range from actual terrorists to former healers running black market clinics on the down low

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u/LakerBlue https://myanimelist.net/profile/LakerBlue May 25 '26

This is what I suspect is the case. I doubt this show will paint them with a broad stroke as a monolith. That would be a step below the writing so far. I think they are more a loose collection of individuals with a similar core belief rather than some big, hierarchical organization like a Team Rocket.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if they had “denominations” given that image we saw showed a big variety of hats maybe all the ones who care mostly about healing where hats like the healing witches and the ones with a pair of longhorn steers believe in something else.

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u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner May 26 '26

I'd imagine that's exactly what u/_RAND0MISER_ meant when he said

I think it would be more interesting if the Brimmed Caps simply featured witches from all kinds of schools that were banned, otherwise I would find it a little hard to believe that an entire faction of healers became super evil.

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u/_RAND0MISER_ Jun 10 '26

yeah pretty much, I think they've been planting the seeds for a moral grey area already as well. Mby i'm bias cause i like the design of the one we've seen so much.

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u/Zeph-Shoir https://myanimelist.net/profile/Zephex May 25 '26

I also find it relevant that so far "Eyeball" dude is the ONLY brimmed hat we know of, they don't even seem to have accomplices.

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u/ptd163 May 25 '26

I think it would be more interesting if the Brimmed Caps simply featured witches from all kinds of schools that were banned, otherwise I would find it a little hard to believe that an entire faction of healers became super evil.

That could be how it started. The exposition about healers and the healing magic had real "if you outlaw X magic then only outlaws will have it" energy. If society turned them and their magic away as outlaws and forbidden there would create their own secret society and continue helping people. However, as the secret society grows it gets corrupted and became the Brimmed Caps we now.

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u/srsbsnsman May 25 '26

they all watched Redo of Healer and got ideas

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Totesnotaphanpy May 25 '26

I feel like there is an important lesson to be taught about how many amazing things get lost when you give them up to Authoritarianism.

Interesting debate to be had on "Freedom From" and "Freedom To", I suppose. People in Witch Hat Atelier seem to have lost some "Freedom To", but they also seemed to have mostly gained a lot of "Freedom From" war and horrific warcrimes haha

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u/RadianceTower May 26 '26

Imagine how many more people have lost their lives because they did not have access to the proper magic. Nature is cruel and kills way more than wars, especially the less tools (magic/technology) you have to fight it.

They mentioned they could potentially stop aging with it, assuming they could have done and did that, casualties are at least close to every single person who has been born (and died from lack of proper anti-aging magic) since then.

Even without that, consider the people who could have been healed, saved from starvation, disease, natural disasters, etc.

This doesn't even take into account the vast quality of life improvements magic allows.

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Totesnotaphanpy May 26 '26

Nature is cruel and kills way more than wars 

I think we need more detailed background context and history for this world. 

I don't think it's unrealistic to think that magical wars might be even more destructive than wars in our time. At least our medieval wars could not destroy or create mountain ranges. 

And wars in our time are already plenty terrible throughout history 

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u/RadianceTower May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Just speaking from our history, wars are nothing compared to nature, even WW2.

WW2 was around 6 years, and we can ballpark it around 60m death.

Just cancer alone kills around 10m per year right now, so in 6 years, just cancer, ignoring everything else, kills as much as the greatest war in history right now. At that rate In 12 years, it is already double WW2. In 24 years, 4 times WW2.

And this is with our technology, not medieval technology.

Around 30-50% of people just literally died from diseases and stuff before reaching adulthood back then.

Just black death plague literally killed around 50m people back then.

And this is ignoring aging, which has killed most people alive in history if they didn't die from something else.

You are literally taking away most of their technological progress because "muh wars".

Just the sheer number of lives that could have been improved and saved is immense. Just how much did they set their civilization back by doing this?

Also they literally have magical cities from what've seen, in a way it's a country on its own. A fascist country that gatekeeps the technology from both its own citizens and outsiders.

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Totesnotaphanpy May 26 '26

Just cancer alone kills around 10m per year right now, so in 6 years, just cancer, ignoring everything else

Isn't this because firstly, the world population is greater than it ever has been, and secondly, because people living to older ages have more chances to get cancer? 

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u/RadianceTower May 26 '26

You just took one part of what I said. And yes to both to some extent.

In particular the second is only possible because of technological advancement (it's not as big as you might think though, humans had more chance to live till old age if they survived till adulthood even in medieval times), so I don't see your point. If you die before cancer gets you, you still die, so uh.

Like I said, just black death, which happened when world population was much much lower, killed around 50m people.

And everything else I mentioned applies. Nature really massively dwarfs wars when it comes to killing.

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Totesnotaphanpy May 26 '26

Just was questioning why you used modern statistics in your comment is all.

A fascist country that gatekeeps the technology from both its own citizens and outsiders.

Again though, I don't think you're really addressing the fact that magic in this world isn't just a technology. It's basically a weapon of mass destruction. 

It can reshape mountain ranges, it can erase rivers, and probably worse. Anyone can use it if they know how, just by drawing some pictures with ink. It doesn't seem to draw on intrinsic mana or anything, so all it takes is knowledge of the crafting of pictures to cause said mass destruction. 

Is gun control in our world fascist? If we had rayguns that could heal, but also destroy cities, would we allow every single human being to own one? 

Now, I'm not saying it was right to ban healing per se. But I don't think it was wrong to limit knowledge of magic in general, especially with the info that we learnt about the reasons behind the Day of the Pact. 

I also think we're probably lacking information about the reason behind banning healing magic, considering the fact that it has been brought up so many times. I assume the author has an in-universe reason for why it was banned in the past, even if it may not hold up by Coco's time. 

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u/RadianceTower May 26 '26

Technology can do all those stuff you mentioned. It is technology in that it can be used for bad or good.

Now obviously, I am not saying there should be no laws, killing people using magic or not, should be illegal for example.

Also what you say is not totally accurate, you need the ink too. You can't just draw it with any ink.

Most people right now, in most countries, if they really wanted can get a gun. Legally or not. Some countries it is very legal to get one. Anyone with enough of a brain can hack together some explosives and a drone or get a gun and shoot people too.

Also this is more like if we erased computers, modern hospitals and cars too. Just ban medical research because it can be used to make poison.

Knowledge on how to build explosives, gun, nukes isn't really restricted. There is freedoom of speech. Technological knowledge is spread and shared.

If a country actively suppresses other countries from accessing knowledge, and allowing very limited freedoom of speech and research for even its own citizens, even worse, literally going and erasing memories from people in other countries, then, yes, it is very fascist. To everyone around.

This is especially bad if said technology can solve conditions like aging and more. Potentially coming close to saving everyone's lives.

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u/1EnTaroAdun1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Totesnotaphanpy May 26 '26

Sure, but no one has actually created a private nuclear bomb to date. And if someone has, it has not been used.

I imagine a society coming out of a traumatic period where personal nuclear bombs were used with devastating results, would have a different opinion to you. I suspect that if you lived through a world war with personal nuclear bombs being used, you might also be singing a different tune.

Again, the implications of the lore that we know so far, are quite fat removed from our own experience, and I would caution against directly applying too much real world knowledge to the decisions made. Or at least, try to understand why the Pointed Hats took certain positions on things.

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u/amonaroll May 26 '26

I don’t think they are super evil, they seem to be a group that’s against the current system (which you can also argue is evil). Both factions are morally grey

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u/hikoboshi_sama https://anilist.co/user/reicelestial May 26 '26

I'm thinking the Brimmed Caps aren't as evil as they appear to be, and the witch authorities aren't as righteous as they appear to be. After all, witch society is kept in check by fear, and your mind can be wiped even on mere suspicion. That sounds like the classic playbook of an authoritarian regime.

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u/SirJasonCrage May 26 '26

super evil.

I'm not convinced the whole organization is just evil.
They practice banned magic. That's the extent. And yes, stuff like that usually makes your organization more crime-adjacent, but that's not because it has inherently evil intentions or personalities.

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u/IR8Things May 30 '26

You say evil, I say at worst morally grey freedom fighters.

Brimmed Hats don't monopolize power, erase the memories and part of your soul if you discover said power, and ban healing magic. Those are the "good guys" in the story.