The first season of Wistoria: Wand and Sword began airing in July 2024 and introduced us all to Will Serfort. Unlike many protagonists in fantasy anime, he doesn’t start the series with an incredible magical power. Instead, he focuses all his time and energy in learning to use a sword. Wistoria: Wand and Sword Season 2 is currently airing on Crunchyroll, we sat down with Hideaki Nakano, the director for this season, to discuss the challenges the series presents, how he’s putting his unique stamp on the show, and why fans are excited for the return of Wistoria.

This interview was conducted via email and with the help of a translator.

Popverse: Wistoria: Wand and Sword’s first season gave us our first introduction to Will and his attempts to succeed at Rigarden Magical Academy despite having no magical talent. Why do you think fans have connected with his story so far?

Hideaki Nakano: Unless you're exceptionally fortunate, life is something you have to endure through hardship from the very start and keep pushing forward regardless — and I think that tendency is especially strong among manga and anime fans. If that's the case, it's only natural to find both inspiration and a sense of kinship in Will, who struggles and claws his way up from a place of persecution and adversity in the story of Wistoria.

You changed roles ahead of this season, becoming series director. How does that change your approach to this season? How do you balance consistency with putting your mark on the anime?

Nakano: My approach to Wistoria hasn't changed. I'll continue chasing Chief Director Tatsuya Yoshihara's "Yoshio quality." (Note: "Yoshio" is Chief Director Yoshihara's nickname.) That said, a perfect copy is impossible, so the parts that inevitably seep through may end up being reflected as my own personal touch.

The Wistoria manga is currently ongoing. Is there a specific challenge that comes from making an anime when you don’t know the ending yet?

Nakano: Due to the differences between anime and manga as mediums, there are times when we need to add or cut material to adjust the length. When the ending hasn't been fully decided yet, it's hard to know which parts will turn out to be important foreshadowing, so we need to work closely with the author — factoring in both plans and projections — to make those decisions as we go.

Is there a scene in season one of Wistoria that was particularly challenging to adapt? Is there something coming up in season two that you can tell us about that was similarly challenging?

 Nakano: There were so many action scenes that it was incredibly difficult to make every single fight sequence look good, so I had Yoshio storyboard some of them, entrusted all of Usui-kun's assigned episodes entirely to him (storyboard/episode direction) because I believed in his abilities, and had Isuta-kun and the others polish things up on the production floor. Without their talent, there's absolutely no way we could have... (Note: Isuta — action key animation, animation director, etc.)

Are there any new characters being introduced in Wistoria season two that you think fans will enjoy? What makes them stand out among the growing cast of characters?

Nakano: Saying "characters that fans will enjoy" sounds oddly presumptuous, so speaking in terms of characters that I personally find exciting — there's someone called Kreutz who appears. He had a real appeal as a persistent, hateable antagonist.

With Wistoria, the characters already stand out so strongly in the source material that it really comes down to how you handle them — but whether it's facial expressions or acting, I'm always checking my work against who that character fundamentally is. And for example, when we need to trim the runtime in editing, you could technically build a scene using only the dialogue that's necessary for the story, but even when cutting explanatory material, you have to preserve the parts that express who the characters are.

Wistoria: Wand and Sword Season 2 is currently airing on Crunchyroll.

Each week, Popverse's resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say "greatest," in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included... 

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