Like many people, it isn’t uncommon for me to find myself feeling a bit down at the start of the year. January is known as the longest month for a reason, with the comedown from the Christmas break giving us all sorts of feelings to sort through and the urge to reinvent ourselves constantly hitting us. I find the best way to spend January is to simply cry it out, usually with a show or book that is suitably depressing. This season, my choice for overtly depressing anime is Journal with Witch, which offers up plenty of reasons to love it even in the first few episodes.

The premise of Journal with Witch is already set to make my emotions get messed up. Makio is a writer in her mid-thirties who is deeply introverted and focused on her work. She lives in filth and doesn’t look after herself, but she’s happier this way. Then, Asa, Makio’s teenage niece, comes to live with her after her parents die in a car crash. The twist here is that Makio is not a doting auntie who happily takes in her niece. She admittedly hated her sister and bluntly told Asa that she didn’t feel any more emotion for her than she would for a stranger on the street.

It is a rough start to their relationship, but that honesty is at the heart of the story here. Makio isn’t the ideal guardian for a teenager, particularly one in the depths of grief and trauma, but she also recognizes the need for somewhere to call home. Asa’s world has been destroyed in a moment, and she’s looking for somewhere to call home; Makio offers that.

Perhaps my favorite thing about the first episode of Journal with Witch is how it doesn’t inflict that drama and pain right from the start. In fact, there is something wonderful about the way this show opens up. The first episode is told in a non-linear way, mixing scenes in the early days of their relationship with each other. But the very first thing we see is Makio and Asa more fully settled into their new routine. Asa cooks and cleans while Makio takes breaks from her work so they can eat together. At night, Asa sleeps in Makio’s office, listening to her aunt work late into the night.

I love this little detail because I imagine Makio’s presence, as cold and distant as it is sometimes, is a huge comfort to Asa. The clacking of keys on the keyboard. The gentle light of the laptop fills the room. It is all a constant reminder that Makio is there. She is weird and selfish, but she is there. Right then, that seems to be enough for Asa.

That non-linear story is especially important in a story like this. Asa is a girl deep in grief, and healing from that pain doesn’t happen on a straight line. Every day is not a little better than the previous one. Some days suck and others you almost feel like your old self. I cannot think of a more appropriate use of this storytelling technique than in a story about trauma.

Journal with Witch handles grief beautifully, by which I mean it allows it to be devastating and uneven. Asa’s recovery from her trauma isn’t linear. The emotions swell and fade depending on the situation. The episode she goes back to school is particularly painful to watch; she had found at least some balance in her life before she tried to go back to her old world. Her friends all know. Her teachers all know. She isn’t Asa to them anymore. Now she’s the girl whose parents are dead. The realization that your old world is over, that you can’t go back, is one of the most difficult when dealing with loss, but it is necessary. Painful and devastating, but necessary.

What makes Journal with Witch feel different from many other stories of loss is that it lets the characters (and by proxy the audience) just sit with their feelings at times. There isn’t a dramatic twist in every scene to push the story forward. Sometimes you have to wallow in your sadness before you get through to the other side. 

So, if, like me, you’re looking for a good cry this January, you’ve still got time to get caught up with Journal with Witch. It is streaming right now on Crunchyroll, and I can’t wait to let each episode emotionally destroy me every week. 'Tis the season to have a good cry, and this anime delivers exactly what I need.

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