WITCHRIV is an ongoing fantasy manga by Hakuri, who had previously worked on One Room of Happiness. It's based on the original one-shot story Meririrarariri by the same author. However, aside from reusing the main character and her mother’s designs, as well as the concept of witches being persecuted, WITCHRIV is an entirely new story on its own with little to no connection to the original one-shot’s plot. The manga began serialization on October 23, 2025.
Nona Ewin is a normal girl as far as her neighbors know. In truth, she and her mother are mages, and must hide that fact lest the Bureau of Magic Surveillance arrest them for the crime of existing. When her happy life is uprooted, she's thrust into a world that hates her, to try and find her own way.
This manga contains examples of:
- Anti-Magical Faction: The Bureau regards mages as subhuman monsters to be exterminated. Nevermind the fact that they use magical items themselves, which they consider leveling the playing field.
- Big Brother Instinct: Miramira's older brother took the fall for her when they tried to escape from their prison and got caught.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: Mages call out their spells out loud in order for them to work.
- Establishing Series Moment: Partway through chapter 1, Nona's friend Lovi is interrogated in public by a bureau officer who tries to make her confess what mage fixed her classes. When Lovi doesn't talk, the officer holds her parents at gunpoint to make her rat out her friend. It's then Lovi realizes that Nona is watching from the crowd. She breaks down sobbing but, reluctantly, confesses that Nona is a mage. The officer then murders Lovi and her parents anyway. The chapter had been pretty lighthearted up to this point, but this is when the story establishes both its tone and that the Bureau is utterly irredeemable.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: The magical powers of various mages don't seem impressive at their baseline, but their application of said powers often causes some effective damage:
- Lancia is revealed to wield comb magic. This turns deadly when it turns out the size of said combs aren't limited to pocket-size, and she's shown to be capable of slicing up Bureau officers using the teeth of her combs, even cutting bullets in half with precision. She causes so much destruction that Nona is left shocked at the debris she leaves behind.
- Nona herself can only control threads and needles, which initially makes it seem as though she's only capable of doing some sewing with her magic. The applications of this power is quickly expanded upon when she uses it to tie things to various surfaces and even threaten a guard by pointing the tip of her needle at his eye. She's also able to use her threads to ensnare a monster and easily pick locks.
- Raloud turns out to have wheel-based magic, as in he can summon and create wheels. Wheels are still deadly when thrown at people's heads, and a more practical application is shown when Raloud uses his magic to make a cart self-propellant by attaching magical wheels to it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The guards holding Miramira have a magic creature to guard against escaping mages. They learn the hard way that it does not recognize allies, graphically killing all of them as it chases the girls.
- La Résistance: At the end of Chapter 3, Nona and Miramira learn there's a group of Mages called Quovelta fighting against the Bureau, and recently liberated the prison Nona's mom and Miramira's brother were sent to.
- Mama Bear: When Nona is about to be arrested by Bureau soldiers in chapter 1, her mother shows up to turn them all into mincemeat.
- Mistaken for Related: Nona initially mistakes Belator and Raloud as father and son, only to be disabused of that belief when Raloud tells them he has no family.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Bureau may as well be the Gestapo with a fantasy coat of paint.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: The magical guard at the outpost Nona and Miramira were held at. By killing all the guards stationed there, the girls (after stopping it) were given a moment to breathe and decide a course of action they wouldn't have found otherwise.
- Our Mages Are Different: Mages in the setting are considered a separate species from humans (though how much of that is just propaganda is still unclear). Each mage has a specific magic they are capable of and can find multiple uses with (similar to Stands in a way), which they channel by manifesting a wand, with each wand looking unique. Raloud shares in a flashback that mages need to use their magic or else they get sick and possibly die, directly comparing it to how everyone needs to eat.
- Plucky Girl: Nona. She's very resourceful and good at thinking on her feet.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: In her flashback, Miramira muses that her brother was far more outgoing, confident, and bold than she is, and she wishes she could be more like him.
- Urban Fantasy: The manga's setting seems to be vaguely based on early 20th century Europe. Given the subject matter, it makes sense.
- Would Hurt a Child: The depths of which the Bureau brutally enforces their laws is shown when an officer callously executes Lovi, even after she sells out Nona as a mage in an attempt to save her parents who are killed anyways.