The Witches’ Marriage Volume 3 Review
Melissa and Tanya are both witches, partnered up to enter a Witches’ Marriage contract and open the Doors of Truth – the ultimate goal for any witch. Melissa’s true goal is to see her former mistress again, who went through the Doors of Truth many years ago but she has yet to tell Tanya this. As the couple’s feelings grow, the truth will have to eventually come out, but is their relationship strong enough to overcome this? Or will they fail at the last trial?
This magical yuri series started back in August 2023 and has now finally come to its close in its third volume. So far, I’ve been surprised by the quality of this series, originally expecting a standard comedy with repetitive jokes, only to have layered character arcs and lovely art to boot. I’m pleased to say that the series ends on a high note, and I’m sad to see it go, but also feel the series ended rightly before it had the chance to go stale.
Melissa and Tanya are a classic case of opposites attract: Melissa is a curvaceous beauty, prideful and only caring about having power, contrasting with the short, cute, happy-go-lucky but less magically-skilled Tanya. But instead of it being a relationship between rivals, Tanya is always sweet, caring and supportive of Melissa, naïve of Melissa’s true intentions but also accepting Melissa’s faults – like her proud nature and when she wasn’t completely honest in the first trial back in Volume 1. Over time, this thawed Melissa’s cold heart and opened her up to love, respect and companionship, making her realise that ‘being stronger’ isn’t just knowing the most powerful spells, or being able to be tough by yourself, but open to being vulnerable with others and become stronger together. Their relationship has seen many tests, with Tanya developing rare powers in the second volume, and Melissa experiencing jealousy, but the pair once again communicated and worked together through it.
At the start of Volume 3, you can see how far the pair have come, Melissa supporting Tanya’s attempts to learn to fly instead of using it as an excuse to show off her own power as she would have done before. In turn, Tanya learns with Melissa’s guidance that she has her own talent that is different from others, and therefore isn’t weak or useless, and the pair complement each other. So, when we get to the happy ending (spoilers I suppose, but I think the wedding gowns on the cover spell it out for you) it feels earned and satisfying. It’s a feel-good ending overall.
As for the magical side of the story, it’s been a slow build-up of the world they live in, not going too deep into the mythology but jusr enough to show off cool spells and excellent witch-y outfits too. This continues here; there are a few repeated spells that call back to Melissa’s and Tanya’s journey together as they grew as witches and as a couple, with a few new ones mixed in. I liked the section with the broomstick race, not just for the character development but you can see/feel the aerodynamics of the pair racing through the sky, and then it becomes neck-and-neck to see who wins; it’s drawn very well too. My own personal gripe is the Sentinels, there are three across the series who are meant to hold the keys to the Doors of Truth, and they set trials for the witches to earn said keys. The first Sentinel back in Volume 1 was a dragon, and a cool designed one at that, and we got no Sentinels in Volume 2, so both are crammed into this book. Sadly, the last two Sentinels are humans, and I was hoping for more creative mythical creatures/beasts to be shown in the series. We got brief glimpses of elves in Volume 2 and fairies in this book but that’s it. I was hoping to see Studio HEADLINE expand their character designs a bit more with the Sentinels here but sadly they didn’t.
That’s not to say their art is bad, far from it. As mentioned, the spells look fantastic and the broomstick race is really thrilling on the page, but one of my favourite chapters is when one of the couple’s trials is to have to suddenly sing (musical theatre-style) in glorious costumes – Melissa in a full suit and Tanya in a big dress – and there’s several Revolutionary Girl Utena style panels with the roses in the corners and 2D style of the characters for a brief moment. It was a cool shout-out and worked with the comedy of the manga too as we’ve had many outlandish trials for the pair to work through in order to build their powers.
Eleanor Summers finishes her work on this series and provides a continuously good and easily readable translation. No translation notes are provided but we do get a few bonus comics at the end of the series plus a last hurrah from HEADLINE on the last page.
The Witches’ Marriage is a short but sweet series with a happily ever after that will please any yuri fan looking for a feel-good fantasy series that doesn’t drag on for too long. I hope we get more of Studio HEADLINE’s series published in the UK, they’ve got a lot of talent and hope to see it applied to a long-running series in the future.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
