Loss, Grief & Finding Yourself —Thoughts on Journal With Witch
It’s such a simple, difficult thing.
This is one of the lines spoken in an episode of Journal With Witch. It spoke to me. As does most of this anime, being completely transparent. Loss and grief are two of the hardest things to tackle. Is it too heavy-handed? Is it handled with care, or done insensitively? Is it making light of what most would consider serious subject matter?
Journal With Witch comes at a time where I absolutely needed it. Having experienced four losses in roughly a year’s time, it can seem like grief will just swallow you whole if you aren’t careful. Anime, books and close friends have helped weather what has been a tumultuous time in my life, and if I had to choose an anime that stood out from the pack that I’ve seen as of late, Journal With Witch is without a doubt one of them.
I see myself in Makio, first and foremost. She’s awkward to most, hard to understand at times, and feels most comfortable alone. Looking at Makio is like looking in a mirror. It’s uncomfortable, but oddly satisfying. Things that come easy to others, don’t to her; things most people understand with little effort, require her to think them through meticulously before she can act on them. It’s like a curse no one else can see. And then there’s her sister.
Pulling the curtain back a bit, my relationship with my older brother started off great. I don’t know when it happened, much like Makio and her older sister, but a sort of hatred had developed. A deep-rooted confusion as to why someone I looked up to and wanted to emulate would begin to hate even being in the same room as me. That confusion then morphed into something akin to hatred for me too. Did I do something to deserve their ire? Am I that much of a nuisance that most of what I do sets them off? Are my dreams of being a writer that nonsensical that they should be shot down at every given moment?
You see this and more in Makio’s interactions with her sister; it’s affected her to the point where her older sister’s ghost appears every now and then to remind just how much of a failure, or disappointment she is. Even when death occurs, Makio can’t escape the taunting, the derision she suffered at the hands of her sister. But despite that, she decides to step up for her niece, Asa. Despite that fact that she isn’t sad that her sister is gone, she doesn’t want Asa to be passed around by family who can’t even wait until they’re out of earshot to complain about how much of a burden the child who just lost her whole world would be to them if they were to take her in.
Makio was like a fresh breeze, another person in the desert of loneliness Asa in that moment, imagery that’s revisited throughout the show. Having lost her mother, Asa feels alone, feels as if she’s traversing an endless desert with no support. Then comes Makio, someone who shows her that it’s okay to feel however she feels, and no one has the right to tell her otherwise. She learns that it’s okay if doesn’t feel sad, or feels betrayed or angry, or even if she feels nothing at all.
This is something I’ve always struggled with, because how are you supposed to feel after losing someone? Who’s to say? One person may be swallowed by sadness, another could choose to lean on the happy times they experienced with the person they’ve lost. Some foster anger or confusion, and then there’s people like me, who feel nothing. And I used to feel like crap because some of the people around me invalidated my feelings and made me feel like I was grieving “wrong.”
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Makio helps Asa navigate her feelings, despite not being the most equipped person to do so. Her lack of ability to see things like most people, you would think, would prevent her from being able to help a teenager who is basically a stranger to her navigate the complexities of grief. It would be a difficult thing to do for someone you know well, even more so for the daughter of a woman you hated.
There are bumps in the road, and both Makio and Asa both begin to learn more about themselves (and each other) with every awkward interaction they share with each other and those around them. Asa has to learn to live without the one who helped her make choices that formed the person she is today; Makio has to learn to live with someone else, and what that means for her comfortable life of solitude and occasional interaction with others.
Boundaries are set, lines are crossed, unintentionally in most cases, but things are able to be smoothed over with communication. It just goes to show that even when the conversations are difficult and stilted, you can still come to understand others. Journal With Witch doesn’t pull any punches, and that’s appreciated. Losing someone affects people differently. That’s okay. Not knowing to handle that loss or the grief that follows? That’s okay, too.
