The Klutzy Witch: Fukka and the Witch of Darkness screened at the 2024 New York International Children's Film Festival as a double bill with the short film Magic Candies. Despite the festival's name, many of the anime movies screened there have also held strong interest to older viewers — multiple films from Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda, and Studio Ghibli have had their American premieres at NYICFF. The Klutzy Witch isn't on the level of such an esteemed company. If you're not a kid and don't have kids to take with you, you'll probably not get much interest out of the film.

This hour-long Production I.G anime — too long to be short, too short to feel like a regular feature — was made to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Klutzy Witch children's book series written by Satoko Narita and illustrated by Senno Enaga. Seventeen novels and one short story collection have been published in this series, and while information on the books is scarce on the English language internet, comparing titles leads me to believe that this movie is primarily based on the second book in the series. That may account for some of the weirdness of the script.

The story is simple enough that newcomers to this franchise won't be confused. Still, lots of important information is delivered by telling rather than showing, creating the impression we're being given catch-up explainers rather than reasons to care. All the main characters are introduced by voice-over narration describing their personalities as if we don't have time for more organic introductions. It's one thing to do this at the beginning when we're meeting the protagonist Fukka and her friends Chitose and Karin, but it gets awkward when the love interest Keith shows up out of nowhere halfway through the movie. Suddenly, the film narrates how these people know each other. The timing of information also leaves little room for suspense: we learn that Fukka doesn't know the identity of her dad seconds before the antagonist, Lilica, shows up to tell her about her dad.

The gold standard for this sort of cute G-rated not-Harry Potter not-quite-a-full-movie fantasy adventure anime would be the Little Witch Academia OVAs, which succeeded not just through charming storytelling but through exceptional action, humor, and character animation. The style of The Klutzy Witch is cute (NYICFF is hosting a "Science of Kawaii" talk following the showing on March 2), but in a much more generic way, with character designs suffering from Same Face Syndrome. There are some fun moments of slapstick involving Fukka's magic powers going out of control, and I smiled at the unexpected image of an alligator stealing a Nintendo Switch. Still, the humor fades as the film goes on, and the action is never particularly impressive or memorable.

I can get a sense of what made this franchise so successful from Fukka's character arc. People judge Fukka for her klutziness; there's fear that the chaos her poorly controlled power creates will lend itself more to dark magic than light magic. The evil witch Megaira, whom Fukka's parents defeated long ago and is now seeking to return, was once a good witch who succumbed to darkness because of the judgments of others. Fukka works to overcome the judgments she faces and be better than what the world expects of her; she doesn't wish to destroy her enemies but rather help them overcome the same problems. These are positive messages for kids, and that target audience might enjoy The Klutzy Witch (one thing for parents to be wary of content-wise: an extraneous "Orange you glad we aren't blood-related?" moment that comes out of nowhere towards the end). There's not much here for anyone else, at least for those who haven't read the books.