Journal with Witch Episode 1

2026, Episode Reviews

3–5 minutes

I was not prepared for how quietly heavy this first episode would feel. There is no dramatic hook and no raised voices, just a slow, uneasy settling into grief and shared space. Journal with Witch (Ikoku Nikki) is the kind of premiere that asks you to lean in rather than sit back, and if you do, it offers something intimate, restrained, and quietly unsettling.

What is Journal with Witch about?

Makio Kodai stands in a dark jacket and scarf facing Asa Takumi, who sits on a couch in silence, both separated by physical distance and emotional tension in a bare room.

Journal with Witch follows Makio Kodai, a reclusive 35-year-old novelist, and Asa Takumi, her teenage niece, who are brought together by sudden tragedy. After Asa loses her mother, Makio impulsively offers to take her in, despite openly disliking people and struggling with basic social interaction.

Rather than focusing on dramatic grief, the series centres on uneasy cohabitation: two emotionally isolated people sharing space, routines, and silence. It is a domestic character drama about loneliness, emotional distance, and the slow, awkward process of learning how to exist alongside another person.

I stream Journal with Witch on Crunchyroll

Journal with Witch Episode 1: Overflow

Episode Score: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4/5)
- A restrained, emotionally precise opener that trusts silence and observation over exposition.

Makio Kodai and Asa Takumi sit facing each other at a wooden kitchen table, quietly eating and pouring a drink in a warm but subdued domestic space.

The episode opens with a brief flash-forward of Makio and Asa already living together, Asa cooking and softly singing while Makio writes nearby. The calm almost feels deceptive, because the narrative soon pulls back to the hospital and funeral that brought them together. That contrast does a great deal of emotional work, grounding the story while allowing the discomfort of their beginning to sit quietly rather than explode.

Makio’s blunt awkwardness is immediately striking. She admits, without softening the words, that she disliked Asa’s mother, her own sister, and her decision to take Asa in feels more reactive than noble. Yet this bluntness becomes a strange form of honesty. Her social ineptitude, anxiety, and immediate regret feel recognisable rather than eccentric, particularly in how she disrupts her own carefully maintained routines without fully understanding why.

Asa, by contrast, is defined by numbness. She moves through scenes with distant calm, tuning out voices, accepting changes without protest, and describing her inner state as a vast emotional desert. The episode resists forcing her to explain herself; instead, it relies on silence, posture, and small reactions to communicate her grief. It feels specific rather than performative, and the show allows it to exist without judgment.

The funeral scene is quietly devastating, not because of the loss itself, but because of the surrounding hypocrisy. Relatives speak in empty platitudes while subtly avoiding responsibility, until Makio abruptly cuts through the performance. That moment establishes one of the episode’s central contradictions: a woman who claims to hate people, yet cannot tolerate emotional dishonesty, especially when a child is involved. This tension carries through every interaction that follows.

Visually, the direction leans into intimacy. Muted colour palettes dominate the hospital and funeral scenes, giving way to warmer but cluttered domestic spaces that reflect Makio’s internal chaos rather than comfort. Still, framing and small, hesitant movements convey exhaustion more effectively than dialogue could. Kensuke Ushio’s score supports the melancholy with restraint, knowing when to step back and let silence carry weight. Miyuki Sawashiro’s performance as Makio is particularly effective, flat without being cold, while Fūko Mori gives Asa a fragile steadiness that never tips into melodrama.

The introduction of the journal as a coping tool feels organic rather than symbolic, a quiet suggestion instead of a narrative device being pushed into place. It hints at growth without promising easy healing, which fits the episode’s refusal to rush emotional payoff. I was also unexpectedly struck by the physicality of the journal itself: a book already used, with pages torn out and rough edges still visible. Watching Asa struggle to write in it was quietly devastating, a small, hesitant act that captured her grief and isolation more clearly than any spoken explanation could.

Verdict

Makio Kodai sits hunched at a cluttered desk, wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by stacks of books and papers in a softly lit room.

Episode one of Ikoku Nikki sets clear expectations. This is a slow, introspective character study about grief, isolation, and shared silence, one that prioritises emotional truth over explanation. The pacing may test viewers looking for immediate catharsis, but the specificity of its quiet moments earns that restraint. It feels less like a story about healing and more about learning how to sit with pain alongside someone else, and that makes it quietly compelling.

This is not a series that rushes toward comfort, but one that lingers in the difficult spaces where connection has not yet learned how to form.