By Yanagi and Yoh Hihara. Released in Japan as “Mori no Hashikko no Chibi Majo-san” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Nathan Macklem.

As I was reading this fifth volume, I mentioned online that Misha almost dies, and was warned about spoilers. Is it a spoiler, though? Now, “Misha dies”, that would be a spoiler, and we’d have to find a different tiny witch to take over. But no, if there’s one thing this book shows us, it’s that Misha may have dramatic things happen to her, but she is blessed by the author, and therefore everything revolves around her as it should. She’s on a ship filled with salty old sailors, but she’s so shiny that they all love her. She fishes in the sea for the first time, and the fish all bite. She sees dolphins, they do a little dance for her. Even when bad things inevitably do happen to her, they are part of the action and designed to get her to the next place where the plot demands. Which, and again, this is not much of a spoiler, is not going to be the village of the People of the Forest after all.

Misha and Ryne, along with a seasick Ren, are on a boat headed towards their village. They had to choose between a dangerous land voyage and a dangerous sea voyage, and went with the faster one. For the first third of the book or so, things are great. Misha gets along with everyone, catches some tasty fish, helps out when a sailor falls and breaks a shoulder, and is generally a plucky young girl, in the cheerful sense. Then pirates attack, and she becomes a plucky young girl, in the stressful sense, as when the pirates fail, one tries to kidnap her as she looks rich, and she ends up falling in the sea. Fortunately, ridiculous things happen, and she ends up being helped by a young man in a fishing boat, who takes her to his village that is hidden away from the rest of the world. Which is… bad news for those trying to find her.

I suspect we’re going to be at this village for at least a book or two, and we get introduced to a lot of new regulars. I really liked Ella, the apprentice to the village doctor who is a whole bunch of quirks all at once. She’s a bit hyperactive and ADHD, she has a perfect photographic memory but hates studying, she was a mother at 15, and she both really likes and also feels a tiny bit jealous of Misha, who is a couple years younger than her but already an experienced apothecary. We also get introduced to the village gods, who, it should not surprise readers who recall the last time we met this world’s gods, are not what they seem. Misha, of course, can’t leave this alone, which I think will be both good and bad for her, and I hope she does not end up burned at the stake. And while I joked about it a bit, the village having magical “even homing birds can’t find us, you’re totally stuck” powers made me roll my eyes a bit. Not Deus ex Machina or Diabolus ex Machina, just a “Well, whatever” Machina.

Next time, no doubt, Misha will be plucky, get into trouble, and win people over by medicine and being really nice. Should be fun.

By Yanagi and Yoh Hihara. Released in Japan as “Mori no Hashikko no Chibi Majo-san” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Nathan Macklem.

There’s definitely a shift between the first three books and this one. It’s almost as if the writer was told by their editor that the series is reasonably successful, so go ahead and plot something that will pay off further down the road. Which they definitely do, as this book enjoys setting up things that don’t really pay off in this particular volume. Misha accidentally gets involved in a throne war. Misha meets her uncle’s researcher friend and his very hot not-quite-wife. Misha goes mountain climbing, is drawn off a cliff, and becomes an agent of the spirits. The usual things. The People of the Forest are already by definition very special folks (and they’re still basically elves without the long ears), but Misha is more important even than that, she’s a light novel protagonist. She’s even got the very special set of modern surgical tools in a box, which I’m sure will become relevant once she works out what they are.

Misha is being taken by her Uncle Ryne back to the People of the Forest, where she will spend several years growing up, learning amazing medical things, and not interacting with the outside world in any way. …yeah, you and I both know that’s probably not happening. She promptly gets mugged by a ragged bandit… who’s actually a desperate knight, and finds that he’s leading the remains of a country’s royal family to safety, despite the horrible dangers of scurvy. (Another light novel where folks have to be taught about scurvy, take a shot.) They then go to a hot springs town where they meet Ryne’s friend Ganz, and Misha bonds with a sexy but scarred ex-prostitute whose life was saved the last time Ryne was in town. As it turns out, a terrible carriage accident will allow Misha to assist in saving a different life this time around. Finally, she and Ryne go mountain climbing, and she has to deal with a very ominous fog, a very ominous cave, and a very ominous box.

The amusing part of this book is seeing Misha, an innocent kid who wears her heart on her sleeve and wants to help everyone, contrasted with her uncle, a cynical, world-weary sort who talks to her constantly about not giving away secrets, trying to stay unnoticed, and picking your battles… who nevertheless also ends up saving everyone he comes across, and it’s very clear that most of what separates Misha from her elders is just experience. Which she certainly gets here, I liked some of the medical details we get in this book, such as the operating theatre with the slightly sloping floor. But again, a lot of this book feels like setup to a future payoff. We see Misha helping to rescue and repatriate a prince and princess and their entourage, setting them up at her old cottage she grew up in with her mother, and… TBC, I guess. Which isn’t too big a problem, as this series remains lovely to read, but after the last book it feels a bit less taut.

The book ends with the two of them getting on a boat that will take them to their destination. Again, doubting it will, but we shall see. Good kinda-slow-to-medium life series.

By Yanagi and Yoh Hihara. Released in Japan as “Mori no Hashikko no Chibi Majo-san” by TO Books. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Nathan Macklem.

There’s a famous early episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye tries to save a patient but fails, and is despondent about it. Henry Blake, in a rare serious turn, says that the first thing he learned in the war was two rules. Rule #1: Young men die. Rule #2: Doctors can’t change Rule #1. This third volume of Tiny Witch is very much about teaching Misha that lesson, as she goes through all the worst things a doctor – sorry, apothecary – can go through. There’s a pandemic that she finds near impossible to solve, people blame her for it and even attack her at one point, and even once she helps to find an answer, some people still die from it and her relationship with the survivors will never be the same. Being an apothecary is not just handing out magic medicine that makes everyone better. Sometimes people die. Misha does learn this lesson, but there are a lot of tears and breakdowns afoot here.

Misha is having a lot of fun at the Kingdom of Redford. She’s helped the princess regain some of her health, she’s made friends with the local children, and she even gets to walk around a town festival. Unfortunately, then those same kids come to tell her that one of them is sick. Along with her grandmother. And the sickness turns out to be very familiar – it’s the plague that almost destroyed the kingdom a generation ago. Now she has to try to solve what others couldn’t before, and without any other help… or so she thinks, but fortunately, some allies arrive to remind her that while the elves (cough) sorry, People of the Forest are loners who tend not to get involved in other people’s business, they will actually help her if she needs help. Even more fortunately, friends she made along the way in the first book turn out to be more valuable than she thought.

This is very much both a “Misha grows up” volume and also a reminder that Misha is not grown up yet, and also has had a lot of trauma in the past. As it turns out, and I’m sure this won’t become relevant in a later book, the woman who set up the death of Misha’s mother, who was confined to an asylum, has escaped. Her friend tries to ask if it’s OK to tell her the information, but the mere reminder of the incident sends Misha into a panic attack. Because she’s good at remaining outwardly nice and friendly, it’s hard to tell sometimes how she’s barely holding it together, and the plague absolutely does not help. By the end of the book, she’s the definition of sadder but wiser, especially with the children she made friends with, who now see her and can’t help but think “she promised to save my granny but did not”. Misha, think of those you did save as well.

The end of this book suggests that we will spend the next several books stuck in the People of the Forest’s closed-off village, and I am 100% sure that’s not going to happen, so it will be interesting to see how that gets derailed. Till then, this is a very solid fantasy.