When I first started watching Witch Hat Atelier, I was hit with an immediate sense of deja vu. Where else had I watched a show about a quirky human girl raised by a single mom who dreams of becoming a witch and then unexpectedly finds herself with the opportunity to pursue that dream with a mysterious white-haired mentor?
It clicked immediately: Witch Hat reminded me so much of Disney Channel’s The Owl House, a three-season animated series.
The similarities go beyond the initial setup. Both shows introduce audiences to a wondrous world full of magic and intriguing worldbuilding — before slowly revealing that something’s off about the way magic works.
Misfits and magic
Neither Witch Hat’s Coco or The Owl House’s Luz ever expected to become witches. Their reasons are different, granted. Coco believes witches in her world are born with innate spellcasting ability that she lacks. Meanwhile, Luz comes from the modern world where witches are just fairytales, before finding herself in the mysterious Boiling Isles.
They both get a chance at their dreams — even if it means doing magic a little differently than everyone else.
Each world contains standard regulations about magic, represented by certain characters like Witch Hat’s Agott and Owl House’s Amity (both start as initially standoffish rivals to our main characters before becoming close). But Luz and Coco’s unorthodox approach to magic encourages their more misfit friends to embrace the quirks that make them special. And even Agott and Amity find themselves learning from their eclectic new friends.
Ultimately, each show is about defying norms. Magic doesn’t have to look a certain way or only be practiced by certain people: it can be for everyone, actually.
Mysterious mentors
Unlike Coco’s put-together mentor Qifrey, Eda is bawdy, sassy — and openly rebelling against the Boiling Isles’ system of law and order. She seems like the antithesis to Qifrey, but after I learned more about Qifrey’s motives and past entanglements with the Brimmed Hats, I realized they’re actually super similar.
Both of these mentors are deeply entangled in something about the way their world currently works. Something in the past went wrong, drastically altering the way magic works. Both of them are dealing with the (albeit very different) ramifications.
They’re more aware of the darkness in the world than their young charges. But as threats mount and secrets unravel, the mentors and students alike are pulled into greater conflict, which just might irrevocably alter their entire worlds…
But don’t just take my word for it
I absolutely loved The Owl House. And I’m loving Witch Hat Atelier. They play with similar themes and character journeys, while tackling different stories and conflicts. They’re beautiful mirrors of one another — and it’s not just me who sees that.
Both The Owl House showrunner Dana Terrace and Witch Hat Atelier creator Kamome Shirahama are fans of each other’s work. So if you’re a fan of one and need more motivation to check the other out, just know the creators totally want that.
