For reasons that even I’m not quite sure about, I spent some time a few years ago in the corner of Reddit that deals with navigating toxic family relationships (primarily r/raisedbynarcissists, but also some focused more around other familial and romantic relationships). I wasn’t “raised” by any narcissists, but I think like most of us I’ve dealt with individuals in my life who I’ve suspected had some narcissistic traits, and learning about what that all entails has helped me to unpack some things about the challenging interactions I’ve had.
I think what’s interesting to come to know is that, in many of these cases, the overriding emotion being experienced by the person posting is grief. When dealing with someone whose perception of the world lacks grounding in reality, there’s often not a way to have a genuine interaction with them. Whatever relationship you think you have with them is always filtered through their illness; they often aren’t in a state of mind to see you as an equal existence with your own thoughts, feelings, and desires. The grief comes from mourning a relationship that was never really there, and the reality that you may never get the opportunity to say what you need to say to these people in a way that they will acknowledge. It’s forever suffering a lack of closure.
Journal with Witch was one of the stand out anime of the Winter 2026 season; even though its somewhat mundane, realistic drama wasn’t as flashy as what typically makes a splash in the general anime fandom space, its sensitive grip on the emotional truth of its central characters seems to have really struck a chord with a lot of people, myself included. The story it tells is simple – Asa is a teenager whose parents die in a car accident. She’s taken in by her aunt, a woman named Makio, who is a working author and has thus far made her way in the world on her own terms and without a ton of other responsibilities. As the two live together they navigate what these deaths mean to them while they attempt to live the new life that’s been placed at their feet.
I would enthusiastically describe the series as “getting to listen to interesting people talk to one-another,” which is a glowing endorsement from me even though it may not seem like it on the surface. But for all of its exquisite characterization and pithy dialogue, what’s lingered in my mind the most about this series is its handling of Makio’s relationship with her late sister (and Asa’s mother) Minori.
Makio and Minori weren’t on speaking terms; while I don’t recall if it’s ever made explicitly clear how long they’d been estranged, it was at least nearly as long as Asa has been alive. The unfolding story makes it clear that this was, at least from Makio’s perspective, for good cause. The occasional flashbacks to their past interactions paint a vivid picture of Makio’s reasoning, because Minori’s judgments of Makio’s life goals are snide and unfiltered. Makio’s present success doing exactly what she’d set out to do as a writer is the sort of spiteful victory that I’ve sometimes fantasized about, as someone who has often felt underestimated by others.
What I’ve personally found, though, is that spite is a great motivator in the moment, but it can’t really take the place of being acknowledged in the long term by the people whose actions initially sparked those spiteful feelings. However, the bitter truth is that as desirable as that acknowledgement is, in reality it’s vanishingly rare for the same reasons that these relationships falter in the first place.
In Journal With Witch, Minori disrespects aspects of Makio’s personal identity, seemingly without good reason other than that Makio goes against various societal and familial expectations to which Minori has held closely. We later learn, in a roundabout way, that despite appearing successful and put together, Minori’s life isn’t as clear-cut as one might assume. Her marriage is definitely mediocre; her husband was clearly unenthusiastic about being a father and in the few glimpses we get of him he seems mostly checked-out. She also just seems as much disillusioned with her nuclear family life as she is committed to keeping up appearances.
It’s through these flashbacks that Minori becomes a more sympathetic character – to us, the audience. But one of the real tragedies here, which I would bet is something familiar to many of us watching this story unfold, is that these revelations were never made fully apparent to Minori’s loved-ones while she was alive, in a time where an understanding of her situation (and her own acknowledgement of them) may have done some real good to help repair her broken relationship with her sibling.
I often quip that “everyone could use a little therapy.” I’ve been seeing the same therapist for about 12 years now, and in that time I’ve worked through several external personal crises and gotten some good tools to figure out what the heck is even going on in my own head (most of the time, anyway; it’s forever a work-in-progress and some things are never really cured, just adequately mitigated). I think it’s simple for someone like me, who has easy access to talk therapy and has had some success with it (not to mention, who doesn’t feel stigmatized by it), to say “these people need family therapy, like yesterday.” But leaving aside the fact that Japan’s access to and attitudes toward therapy are completely different, the reality is that therapy is the vehicle, rather than the solution; it requires self-reflection and truthfulness on the part of the patient. Even if someone’s life isn’t tragically cut short, there’s no guarantee that they may arrive at a place that allows them to repair relationships.
With all this talk of grief, one thing that struck me about Journal With Witch was the way in which it allowed Makio to demonstrate a lack of grief toward Minori’s death. I think a lesser story might play up the tragedy of it all and center the story around her grieving and coming to terms with being denied the opportunity to reconnect with her sister. Instead, it allows for the fact that Minori’s critiques of Makio’s life were enough to damage their relationship beyond repair – a situation with which I’m positive many more people are familiar than would be comfortable sharing. Experiencing that kind of relationship break down is troubling not just due to the emotional damage it inflicts while it’s happening, but because so many cultures are focused to a fault on the importance of familial relationships above all else, and to walk away from that due to conflict often stigmatizes the victim more than the perpetrator (assuming the situation wasn’t mutual, but that’s not really what we’re talking about here).
Speaking as someone who’s dealt with a couple of relationship breakdowns in my life, what I can say is that even though outward appearances might say one thing about my boundary-setting or strength of character, internally the dialog in my mind has always been so much more uncertain. The urge to blame myself (often for simply being who I am and holding true to how I prefer to interact with people) is ever-present, and I often find myself too willing to entertain the negative accusations lobbed my way, even if they’re far from truthful.
It would be difficult to speculate about whether or not this same state of mind is true for Makio, since the information we’re provided is all we’re going to get. However, in those moments where her very obvious neurodiversity shows itself, like her default toward a cluttered home, or her earlier inability to deal with her relationship with Kasamachi (which gets better), I like to wonder if our feelings might be more alike than different. And in fact, this is one of those vanishingly rare moments where I’ve genuinely felt represented by an anime character. Whether that’s good or not probably has something to do with whether or not you have an irritating ADHD person in your life (or whether or not you are that person).
Returning to the broader world, grief is so much more complex than simply feeling sadness about a loss. It’s wrapped up in the way we interact with others, and whether or not we’re able to express our truths to them in a way that they can receive before that’s no longer an option. When connections are severed, whether through death, or through conflict, or perhaps the most frustrating and painful of all, through untreated mental illness or personality disorder that leads to estrangement, the opportunity for connection is lost. How that void is filled is as unique as each person who experiences it.
I think the true genius of Journal With Witch is that it’s truthful about what can happen in relationships, including ones that end before potential repair can take place or which are actually unrepairable. But it also allows its characters to deal with things in their own way. Makio doesn’t grieve Minori, but in taking care of Asa I think she feels that there’s an opportunity to carry something forward on Minori’s behalf. She allows Asa the space to grieve in her own way, even participating in the joint birthday celebration Asa throws for her late parents, continuing a tradition that she held dear. The series acknowledges life’s complexity without becoming cynical about it, allowing good things to grow out of the soil fertilized from the ashes of emotional conflict. The series was sort of a surprise hit this past season, but when you think about it it’s not really that much of a surprise; it touches on feelings that are so common among us in a way that doesn’t shame anyone for having them. The fact that the show is so well-crafted in addition to its handling of emotional truth should make its appeal obvious.
As I consider the losses in my life and continue to struggle with feeling as though I’ve said or done the wrong things (even in the absence of other, “better” choices), I find that fiction like this serves to help me process what I’m going through. I have to be truthful – I don’t have many friends I’d feel comfortable sharing a lot of my feelings with. It’s not really that they’re not good friends, it’s more that the sort of vulnerability that comes along with that is a challenge for me (whether a consequence of past relationships that went sour or some kind of mental health issue I might have is up to the reader to judge, I suppose). So it’s up to me to process what I need to process in the way that makes the most sense. At least there’s anime out there that can help serve as a roadmap, as all great fiction has the potential to do.