Helen: Mika is keeping busy in her new life in a fantasy world — she hasn’t found a spell to take her home yet so she’s still organizing future iterations of Magiket and running a small press printer on the side. Besides, if Mika was to stop doing Magiket now there’d be an outrage; the event attracts people from all walks of life and Mika never imagined that running this event meant that she’d have to deal with rival publishers and even demon lords!
If you enjoyed the first volume of A Witch’s Printing Office then you are in luck because volumes 2 and 3 both continue down the exact same path with no real surprises. There is a bit of a surprise when Mika runs into another person who was isekai’d from her world but, while Mika’s driving motivation is “I need to find a spell to send me home,” exploring why she ended up in this fantasy world has never been a major part of this story and even adding Yamamoto to the reoccurring side character cast doesn’t change this.
But it is a fun detail, although not as fun a detail as the chapter where Mika is accidentally summoned to another town on the continent, that’s almost a double isekai!
My favorite chapter of these two volumes was one where Mika has to go to the headquarters of the Suei faction; observant manga readers have probably already noticed that the names of important factions are references to major Japanese manga publishers, in this case Shueisha, and there’s a brief author note about how the editors had some concerns about this chapter (for those curious, A Witch’s Printing Office is published by Kadokawa). This reminded me of an author’s note in a volume of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san where again, coming too close to talking about actual publishers, distributors, etc seems to be a no-no and I had to roll my eyes at it.
It was a fun chapter — the Suei faction also publishes magical tomes and the beleaguered editors wondering where the manuscript was, the critical consultants tearing down overly derivative ideas, and the final gag at the end, were simply really funny as an avid manga fan who got the “references. And, if Shueisha higher ups were offended by a chapter that doesn’t paint them in a negative light at all, well, it would certainly ring true to my own, limited interactions with the Japanese anime/manga industry.
In a year without many conventions, A Witch’s Printing Office truly makes me miss shows like SPX and hope that they return soon. However, if you can’t make it to a convention, A Witch’s Printing Office is the next best thing to recapturing the humor, and stress, that comes from being a nerd among other nerds.
Helen’s rating: 3.5 out of 5
Justin: In the continuing escapades of Mika starting a Magiket in order to find the tome that will be capable of sending her back home, would you believe she’s found some clues yet still feel like she’s further away from that goal? That’s about the case in volumes 2 and 3 of A Witch’s Printing Office. She manages to discover there’s another person who’s been summoned from another world, while also learning of a group of mages aiming to summon people from another world. I say aiming because rather than actually do that they summon Mika from Akivalhalla, which is already where she’s at. Meanwhile, the other person summoned into another world got grifted into taking over an unpopular shop.
Mika’s still got a ways to go…
Anyways, that’s not what we’re totally interested in, let’s be honest. We’re reading to see how Comiket continues to be brought to life in this fantasy world. And we do! We continue to see many types of beings flock over to take part as an attendee or as an artist — this also happens to include the Demon Lord! We find Mika traversing to many locales, ranging from a reportedly endless maze, a land where the Lord of the Depths resides, and a lair featuring a massive dragon.
And we also see Mika tackle potential threats to Magiket (aside from the Demon Lord). There’s a case of someone stalking an artist, a faction learning about the event, and a typhoon that requires sacrifices…and magicless Mika being the cornerstone of stopping it from hitting Magiket.
So there are many general things these two volumes explore, but one obvious element you notice is what Mika manages to improve upon on her brazen quest to return home. As you know, isekai generally have whoever is summoned enrich a place that’s full of strife and discord, and this manga is no different in that regard. It of course is really about how much better she can make Magiket and her publishing house. This ranges from one locale suddenly becoming the go-to spot due to bad luck and someone using magic to see what Mika’s actually doing (eating), to a legendary sword being reduced to cutting spines, to being able to procure dragon hide because that dragon loves to read. So note that every positive life improvement only serves to make you laugh.
We also get to see the usual common tropes that occur when one’s attending Magiket. We follow a young girl who wants to abandon her family due to constant strictness, but makes a huge discovery within said family due to mythical figures Tetoul & Hashin having funky times via doujinshi tomes. We see an attendee attempt to slay the Demon Lord, but manages to fail spectacularly in part because he couldn’t stay in line. And if you thought this manga wouldn’t have found the chance to introduce multiple Street Fighter characters and “Sethiroth” in this fantasy world somehow you’ve completely fooled yourself! Because it does and brings great shame to their long and storied history!
The art continues to stick out, mainly for the better than worse over these two volumes. Yasuhiro Miyama makes sure to draw everyone — girls, guys, creatures, backgrounds — super well, and handles each comedic or action heavy panel without major issues. There’s a character in this series who appears in the faction chapter that I like a lot, and from how Mika and her crew are drawn in distress due to Mika’s daring to the skeleton lying inside the cursed maze, it’s good to look at.
There are two chapters that occur in volume 3 that do need to be noted — first the factions. That one was more or less intriguing because it’s clearly alluding/modeling publishers, and I’m sure some of the subject matter regarding how publishers, or in this case factions, handle how Magiket operates, is what led to higher-ups eyeing this chapter a lot more closely than usual. (I wonder if it had to do with how it ended.) The second is the stalking chapter. It could’ve been a good commentary on this being an actual thing, but it mostly involves someone masquerading as someone else — and looking way too exaggerated, especially compared to others. So it was definitely not one of the better chapters.
Despite that, these two volumes were an upgrade over its first volume. The humor, the trouble Mika gets into, the trouble she brings to many people and objects, and how she manages to save the world despite being possessed was entertaining. To get the inside track of Comiket knowledge, but using fantasy terms, A Witch’s Printing Office is a manga to check out.
Justin’s rating: 4 out of 5