Burn the Witch, Vol. 1: Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

Kubo has worldbuilding ideas and style to spare. He does not knit these ideas together into anything substantial. The characters are underdeveloped paper puppets. The plot progresses through contrived twists rather than emerging from character actions or thematic threads. For example (avoiding spoilers), an perfectly normal coincidence advances both a character's backstory and the current plot. Kubo later reveals that event was not a coincidence but the result of absurd (not in a fun way) sequence of events that exposes inconsistencies at the heart of the setting.

The setting is fun. The book is a quick read. That offsets these shortcomings somewhat.

It's hard to recover from an opening scene that has a creepy character trying to peek up the skirt of one of the main characters. It's even harder when that creep becomes the ongoing comic relief and possible romantic interest. Ugh.

I didn't realize this was part of the Bleach universe when I got it from the library. I tried that series once a long time ago and dropped it fairly quickly. This one is no improvement -- it's all bickering and battles -- and I'm dropping it now.

Actually, I'm just realizing there may not be anything to drop. It's been five years since this first volume, and there is currently no sign of a second on the horizon. Same difference to me.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: #0.8. Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover -- #1. Witches show more Blow A New Pipe -- #2. Ghillie Suit -- #3. She Makes Me Special -- #4. If A Lion Could Speak, We Couldn't Understand show less