Kunon the Sorcerer Can See

The Weight of Water

Anime has a strange relationship with physical disability. Usually, it's either cured immediately by a magical macguffin or treated as a tragic trait that exists only for graceful suffering. *Kunon the Sorcerer Can See* tries something stranger. It opens like a prestige drama—gray tones, somber music, and a depressed blind boy. You brace for a tearjerker. Then, seven minutes in, the tone pivots so hard you might get whiplash. Our tragic hero learns water magic, conjures an aquatic cat, and abruptly transforms into a hyper-confident, unhinged nine-year-old flirt. I'm still deciding if this shift is clever or just messy.



Director Hideaki Ōba and studio Platinum Vision aren't reinventing the wheel visually. Backgrounds are often flat and the animation is undeniably sparse. But what the series lacks in fluidity, it makes up for with an oddly compelling, low-stakes weirdness. Kunon's goal isn't to save the world; he just wants to use magic to build functioning eyes. Insulated by wealth and an odd support system—namely his devoted maid Iko—he approaches magic like a backyard mad scientist rather than a disciplined scholar.

The voice acting sells this premise. Saori Hayami, famous for soft-spoken women like Shinobu in *Demon Slayer*, pitches her voice down to play a blunt, eccentric boy. She gives Kunon a flat, matter-of-fact delivery that makes his sudden bursts of confidence hilarious. In a scene where a bully tries to intimidate him, Kunon simply disarms the kid by casually telling him how attractive he is. Hayami plays it completely straight, stripping away any of the usual anime-boy bluster. Her vocal posture is rigid and unbothered, making the character impossible to predict.



Not everyone is charmed by this breezy approach. Writing for *Anime Feminist*, one critic noted frustration with a missed opportunity, arguing that it had potential to say something thoughtful about blindness but felt the characters were too trapped in assigned roles. I get that. If you want a grounded exploration of navigating a sightless world, you'll be let down. The series treats his blindness more as a puzzle to be solved with absurd magical workarounds. (A later moment involving a giant water crab manifesting behind a character is laugh-out-loud funny precisely because of the lack of dramatic weight).

Yet, there's a specific warmth here because it refuses to wallow in misery. As a reviewer at *Beneath the Tangles* pointed out, there’s warmth to the series even if the rest of the production is nothing to write home about. That feels honest. It’s a production held together by duct tape, goofy logic, and heart.



Whether that makes for great television depends on your patience for zero-stakes fantasy. I found myself unexpectedly comforted by it. Watching a kid just exist, experiment, and act like a total weirdo without the fate of a kingdom resting on his shoulders is rare for the genre. It doesn't always hit the mark, but sometimes a story about a boy making a cat out of water to feel the shape of the world is exactly enough.