One of the underrated shonen sub-genres is what I like to call “Boss Lady”, something that Witch Enforcer aims to fix. Basically, the setting always revolves around your character serving under some kind of powerful entity- usually a woman, and the adventures revolving around that.
Shun Akagi’s Witch Enforcer, available now on MangaPlus, is one such story, following a boy named Elliot who’s contracted to the Witch Natalia. As of this writing only the first chapter is ready to be read, though it’s more unique setting makes it a potential manga to keep an eye on.
Because naturally, Natalia is not just any Witch- she’s a Witch Enforcer, a Witch-cop sent to hunt down other Witches and send them back to the moon (one of the first panels in the manga is very blunt in telling you that witches obviously come from the moon).
Natalia and Elliot are both after the same witch- Elliot is contractually bound to serve Natalia to keep said Witch’s curse at bay, while Natalia is after her for currently unexplained reasons.
A lot of Boss Lady-type stories like Chained Soldier or xxxHolic, it doesn’t look like there’s an inherent focus on a romantic relationship between Elliot and Natalia- Elliot is basically a manservant, cleaning up after the irresponsible and messy Natalia who really couldn’t care about anything other than her mechanical inventions and hunting witches.
As far as eye candy goes Natalia has a lot going for her- in a field full of cuter, rounder heroines Shun Akagi does a good job of making Natalia look cold and bored- there is no attempt on Natalia’s end to be a better person, to the point it’s almost endearing.
Despite that, there’s some warmth to her personality, as you see in the chapter’s end where she ends up doing one good thing, albeit in an incredibly roundabout and tsundere way.
It’s not clear what kind of schedule the manga is going to go for- but assuming it keeps this pace it’ll be a fun read. The idea of Witches being moon fugitives who come to the Earth for tourism and commit crimes is entertaining, and the fact that we do explore the ideas of a functionally immortal race and how they view human lives seems like the building blocks of a fun time.