It's that time again! My latest read for Manga Monday is The Dawn of the Witch Vol. 1, another comic from Kodansha. The thing I love about Kodansha Comics is that there is a wide variety of stories and plots to choose from. Sometimes they work out – other times they don't.

Saybil may not have any memories of his past, but he does have magic, and that's got to count for something, right? He travels the world with his teacher, Loux, Holt, and Kudo. They're an odd group, given one of them is beastfallen. It's not quite your ordinary field trip!

Eh, I've got to say that The Dawn of the Witch Vol. 1 was not my cup of tea. It had the markings of an interesting or fun series, but there were just too many elements that I didn't enjoy. It made it impossible to get comfortable and enjoy the plot.

There's a lot in this manga, and I don't necessarily know if that's a good thing. We're thrown into the deep end, with lots of dense plots. But there's no character development and even less reason to care about any of the characters.

Throw in a butt ton of fan service (pun intended, sorry), and it just failed to catch or hold my attention. Maybe the next series will do better!

This manga has so many elements yet doesn't really follow through with any of them. A magic school in a manga that doesn't really have much magic. It wasn't a super groundbreaking manga, especially for a first volume. It might get better with time but I'm not sure I have the time to give to it.

Witches, an Academy of Magic, a field trip... Witches, Academy of Magic, a field trip, memory loss... Why did this not deliver?

I was very interested in the magic system the manga had to offer. I wasn't expecting a lot of development in that area, it being the first volume of a manga series, but apart from a bit of info dumping in the beginning, more to do with why the characters were where they were than how the magic works, there was almost nothing. There's not much magic going on, apart from a couple panels, that the Academy could be dedicated to any other subjects. You'd think that a manga about magic and witches would deal with that. You'd think.

I appreciated it going straight to the point and to the action but then it goes downhill from there, not much happens and we just go around in circles. They build up a lot of action that never comes around (there is some action towards the end but by that point I was already bored with the volume and didn't care about it).

I requested this volume because I believed the synopsis sounded interesting and I was curious about it. The idea is very appealing but the execution is not the best. It's mainly all exposition. The main character's past intrigued me, and yet he is so boring. There could have been so many things to explore, given he doesn't remember his past and he's on a quest to stay at this magic school. And the female characters are just... drawn so obscenely that it's a miracle I finished the volume, it's just ridiculous.

I'm giving it 2 stars because I'm grateful for the arc and the volume showed potential.

If you like anime I would ay read this but otherwise nothing great or interesting.. I am not a big fan of anime and this would not change my mind if I just picked it up

As far as manga goes, The Dawn of the Witch is pretty par for the course - it has many familiar stropes, well-used plotlines per volume, and overall doesn't really stand out it any way. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read, and I enjoyed the plot of this first volume, and found myself emotionally invested in the characters - will def be continuing.

Unfortunately I couldn't finish the volume. Apart from the unnecesary fan service there was to much infodump in the first chapter, I lost interest pretty quickly

I really wanted to like this book, gosh I really did. Unfortunately, it just didn’t hit the mark for me. The concept was amazing but it missed something. I know it’s a manga, but the story just felt lack lustre.

I wanted to like this manga but it was sadly very predictable. The female student ends up with the main character, the grouchy student eventually gets along with everyone, the church hates magic ect. If you've ever read a manga where the main character has magic then you're going to know all the plot points in this manga.

While the art is cute and the story is okay, there's a significant amount of loli panty-shots in the art that seem.... well more than a little unnecessary...

An excellent read from start to finish and can't wait for the next book in the series to be available. The cover drew me in immediately and I knew I had to read it.

Saybil, known as Sayb, is a magic student on his way to becoming a mage. At least, he hopes being a mage is in his future because he’s the worst student the Academy of Magic has ever seen. Horrible at magic and unable to remember his past, Sayb’s last shot at not having his memories from the academy sealed away is scrape by with a passing grade in a special class. Unfortunately, he and his classmates may never make it to the class when things go awry, and they find themselves in danger while in transit.

I went into this book expecting magic school hijinks. I supposed you could say there were magic school hijinks, but it was definitely not what I was expecting. We follow Sayb, who is one step away from flunking out of the Academy of Magic. He also suffers from amnesia and doesn’t remember anything from before he was discovered by Professor Los, who is leading the way to the special class.

The synopsis described their adventures as a field trip, but is it really a field trip if the class can last up to eight or so years? I’m not picky about that, but if you’re expecting magic school shenanigans on a field trip, just expect less shenanigans while the characters are traveling to their long-term destination. That said, the book does go back and forth between comedy and serious drama. One of the main plots of the book has to do with witch hunters. How they appear to the characters is quite serious, as expected, so prepare yourself.

I thought that the core story was quite interesting. I loved the world building and learning about the character’s backgrounds. The book is also exposition heavy at times to establish the story, which makes a lot of sense since this is setting up a series, so it didn’t bother me much. I will say that one of the info drops is very text heavy, so if that’s not something you want to see in your graphic novels, this may not be up your alley.

My only complaint about this book is that there is a lot of panels devoted to randomly sexualizing the female characters. Hopefully this is something that gets abandoned because it makes absolutely no sense and just comes out of nowhere every time it happens.

I'm not really sure why there are some many bad ratings on this one, it's really not that bad. Yes, there is a LOT of fan-service, and it's a little creepy because the characters are designed to look very young but there is nothing super dirty or weird going on. Yes, there is a TON of exposition, but I mean, it's the first volume of a series, so there kind of has to be exposition so the reader can understand what is going on.

Couldn’t access title so I can’t accurately rate or review this work. This is unfortunate that I will not be able to feed back anything.

I was positively surprised with The Dawn of the Witch, although the ecchi parts were unnecessary in every way and ate the joy out of reading. The manga actually feels like seinen and is very different because of it. The Church and the Witches were fighting wars for how long until they've finally made peace. Sayb is flunking magic school and doesn't have any memories before he enrolled. There he meets other students and the new professor and mostly we get into the world and political setting. I really liked the fact that the characters are different and not cliched. They actually talk, analyze and are somewhat boring and that's perfect. This is realistic in a weird way. So, not your typical shounen. The volume goes through many things and hardly anything at all at the same time and sets your mind to think you know what happens. I do hope the mangaka pulls the rug under us, since that would be awesome.

The art looks great and fits with the world and setting. It's precise and works well. The ecchiness rubs me the wrong way, since there's no point and need for it. There's a great possibility that this series will be different and I hope it will be and less curvy busty women, we don't need those. The characters are great as themselves.

The story line was good. But I was not able to connect with the characters much. And the illustrations were also not that great. But to know what happened next, will definitely give the next book another chance

While all of the books by this author have had religious themes, this one was a little more overt than I prefer.
Still well written and recommended for those who like this genre and the author's previous works.

Thank you Netgalley for an advance copy of this magical manga!

I was intrigued after reading the first chapter to see what kind of creature Sayb actually is. I did feel like the manga dragged on without a proper start into the story and who Sayb really is. Since this advance only gave the first 3 chapters into the story, I am interested in reading more volumes as they are released.

The story is one that you've read and heard several times over: cliche, predictable troupes, linear plot and magic.
While I enjoyed the art, the unoriginality of this story was disappointing. There's nothing wrong with having a story that someone's read before considering how saturated the manga industry is, but what makes those cases work are the contents inside. This story lacked elements to keep me entertained and ended up getting dropped 50 pages in.

The Dawn of the Witch
⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I received a copy of The Dawn of the Witch from Kodansha through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. I tried to read this volume a few times but could not finish it. I do not think this series is for me. I am not a big fan of fan service. There is probably an audience for this series but I do not think I am it.

Thank you to Kodansha and NetGalley.

I received a copy for an honest review through NetGalley. I had high hopes for this but was severely disappointed by it. I couldn't connect with any of the characters and a lot of the plot points were generic and trope-ridden with no spins on them. Things that were actually interesting were entirely glossed over or speed through. Hard-hitting and real topics were swept away with little conflict which rubbed me entirely the wrong way. While I'm not opposed to fan service in this manga it felt so disconnected by the type of story it was trying to tell and therefore just seemed out of place. I will not be continuing this series moving forward.