Witch Hat Atelier is at once one of the most beautiful fantasy manga series of all time, one of the most remarkable new additions this season, and one of the most inventive and innovative dubs of all time. The last of those is of particular importance. The dub makes critical decisions that differentiate it from a lot of other dubs, such as the decision to have characters that live in witch society speak with a variety of European accents. This choice, while adding subtle flair to different characters and reinforcing elements of the fantasy setting (something often paired with a high English sort of accent), also contributes to storytelling, reinforcing the seemingly inherent divide between witches and non-witches in the world of Witch Hat Atelier. Even more, the English dub is just remarkably well done, with a clearly incredible amount of work going into making every lip flap count and keeping the spirit of the original work intact even after translation and some level of localization. Add to all of these structural elements the strong, natural vocal performances and you have a legendary dub in the works.
If you haven’t heard of Witch Hat Atelier at all or have heard but just haven’t heard details about the story, it follows a young girl Coco in a world filled with magic that only witches are able to cast. They cast magic in secret, keeping the methods of magic fully hidden from ordinary people. Coco has spent much of her life daydreaming about becoming a witch and performing magic herself, thinking it’s likely impossible. Then, one day, a witch visits her village and, through a variety of events, Coco discovers the “absolute secret” around magic and becomes an apprentice of the witch Qifrey.
As Witch Hat Atelier continues to air in both dub and sub, we had the opportunity to have a quick conversation with Anjali Kunapaneni, voice of Coco, Joshua A. Waters, voice of Qifrey, and Madeleine Morris, voice of Agott. The trio talked about different elements of how they approach the anime and gave us some insight into what makes it as wonderful as it is.
Portions of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Q: Anjali, within the very first episode, you present a myriad of emotions to the audience, from childish wonder to abject terror. What was it like making those switches and making sure each was a clear element of Coco’s character?
Anjali Kunapaneni: How was it to make those switches? I mean, she goes through so much in the course of that episode that I think a lot of it felt very organic to the scenes that we were in. Where she starts in that episode feels very everyday and mundane. The curiosity and wonder that comes from feeling — it’s almost like grass is greener on the other side, except this time it’s a little bit true. It’s pretty true, actually. Magic is magic. It’s cool. She’s living on the outskirts of this incredible, incredible thing.
So even though she’s just living her regular life, that curiosity and wonder, I think, like, it sort of underlies everything that we see of her in that episode. But, of course, when, like, things go crazy, you know, like, she gets her opportunity, she gets her hands on, like, this chance to really explore magic, and it leads to the unimaginable. I think the terror and the guilt and the frustration and anger at herself — a lot of that is, I think, very organic from just the incredible storytelling and dialogue writing.
In the same sense, she isn’t defined by being the curious girl. She isn’t defined by being the traumatized girl. All of these elements add up to her experience as a whole. It is quite the journey. But, luckily, there’s a lot to work with from the scenes that help inform that.
Q: Definitely. And one unique part of the dub is the use of accents. Different kinds of accents — different European accents — and Coco not having an accent. For Joshua and Madeleine, what was the process for incorporating those accents, and what was your original reaction to learning they’d be used?
Joshua A. Waters: That’s all our incredible, incredible director, Emily Fajardo’s, decision. During the audition process, we had auditioned with both a general American and a British Isles accent of any kind that we had chosen. And when we auditioned, we didn’t know which one they had picked. So when we went in to do the trailers and we went in to do Episode 1 is when we sort of figured out what choices were going to be made there. And I think that the creative decision to other Coco more from this world with these accents is such a strong one that was made. And it’s such a unique experience being able to do that in an anime dub, especially alongside such an incredible cast and such a wide array of accents as well. Usually you don’t get the opportunity to do something like this. So it’s been really fun working together as a team with the director, the engineer, everybody in that booth, such a collaborative effort to make all of that accent work happen. And it’s just so much fun.
Anjali Kunapaneni: And a huge compliment to all these actors and to Emily, because dubbing is already arguably the most difficult form of voiceover. You are spinning plates, and then also those plates are full of food. And then doing accents on top of that, now you’re on rollerblades. There’s just so much going on. I’m very jealous getting to hear them all do accents. I’m like, “That sounds real fun, guys.”
Madeleine Morris: It’s tremendously fun. I didn’t know that we were doing dialect until I went in to record the trailer. And I was standing in front of the microphone, we were about to beep in, and I went, “Oh, wait, are we American or English?” And Emily goes, “Oh, did I not tell you? No?” And yeah, Emily has been very, very on the ball with making sure that we all feel confident in what we’re doing, like Josh has mentioned that she’ll write things out for us sometimes. If there’s a particular word that somebody’s getting stuck on, a particular vowel sound, she is super accommodating. And often I think at least once so far we’ve rewritten the line because my mouth didn’t want to say it. It’s like, “It’ll roll off my tongue better if I say it like this. Can I say it like this?” “Yeah, no problem.” It is incredibly collaborative and a fun new challenge. I love plate spinning.
Q: It’s definitely very impressive. And this next question is for Joshua. Qifrey instantly captured fans’ attention for both personality and as a member of the white-haired sensei club — but has some darker moments. How did you approach those scenes that make him seem a bit more morally gray than he otherwise might appear?
Joshua A. Waters: It’s two sides of the same coin, right, where you can’t go too far in a direction to make this a completely different character. You have to make this still Qifrey on both sides of the coin where he has to be this person who cares about these kids so, so much. He wants them to learn. He wants them to grow into witches. He wants them to be safe in this world that he’s finding is becoming more and more dangerous around him. But he also does have his own set of goals, that he is willing to do some pretty nefarious things for, things that he has actively said on a few occasions are against what he is teaching. I believe in Episode 8 he says to Agott and Coco, “Hey, erasing people’s memories is a big deal. We would have had to do this to these people at the river if you guys showed off magic. And memories make up a person.” But then later that same episode, he erases somebody’s memory. So he’s willing to go into the depths of what he’s saying is bad to accomplish these goals. But as long as it doesn’t go against his character and his want to keep these kids safe and make this world better for them. Because as soon as he’s done erasing memories, right after that, there’s a fun switch-up moment that he has where he yells at Mr. Nolnoa at the end of that episode. He’s frantic, he’s desperate, and then seconds after that scene is done, he’s going over and going, [as Qifrey] “Coco, I got your bag, don’t worry about it.” And it’s the two sides of his character where he will do anything to keep them safe, but also do anything to make these goals apparent. And we don’t know what goes on yet.
Madeleine Morris: To me, the far more alarming moments are when you are just cute Qifrey, which is what I say in my head, cute Qifrey. And it’s those very disarming moments. And here it’s most obvious because it’s directly following a crazy scene. But I think that shows you’re putting on a little bit of a performance for the girls too.
Anjali Kunapaneni: It comes from a genuine place.
Madeleine Morris: You’re absolutely right.
Joshua A. Waters: It’s a genuine place to make them feel safe. Because if he went there and looked nervous, or looked like something bad had just happened, that would make Coco worried. And that’s the last thing he wants. He’s going to keep this away from them as much as he can. But he’s going to solve whatever he wants to solve.
Anjali Kunapaneni: We don’t really know a lot about what’s going on with Qifrey or his motivations, but the one thing we do know is he really cares about these girls.
Joshua A. Waters: He very much does.
Q: Amazing. And then one final quick one. Would you be a pointed cap or a brimmed cap if you were in this world?
Joshua A. Waters: I’d be a brimmed cap.
Madeleine Morris: Honestly probably a brimmed cap. I love infinite soup magic.
Anjali Kunapaneni: They look real good too.
Joshua A. Waters: Those brimmed caps look cool as oh my gosh. Plus a lot of the spells that are forbidden, as the series has continued, we’ve seen a few things show up that are concerning as to why they are forbidden, but they make sense. Healing magic is fully forbidden in this universe, and we see the want of some people to use healing magic and the active saying, we cannot do that. Like when Custas is injured after the river, they’re like we can’t do anything with our magic — when they could. But we see sort of the line being treaded there of what makes this forbidden, the temptation even from the audience to be like “You could do it.”
Anjali Kunapaneni: But it’s also I think just in the framing of that question — which would you be? — is so interesting because it makes it seem like this is black and white and that there are two singular sides to this when it’s a sea of gray. And I’m so interested to explore more of that.
We’d like to thank the voice actors of Witch Hat Atelier for taking the time to speak with us as well as Crunchyroll for coordinating the interviews. Witch Hat Atelier is available to stream now on Crunchyroll every Monday at 7:00 AM PT / 10:00 AM ET. Episodes premiere with same-day dubs.
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