The Witch on the Holy Night anime film now has its final trailer, its theme song, and its full staff. The film’s official site began streaming the trailer on Wednesday, revealing “Yoru to Ao” (Night and Blue) by supercell and a production team drawn from ufotable’s regular lineup.
Staff
- Director: Masashi Takeuchi
- Chief Director: Hikaru Kondo
- Character Design: Moe Tsuzuki
- Chief Animation Director / Sub-Character Design: Masato Nagamori
- Script Production: ufotable
- Sub-Character Design: Nana Ishigo
- Prop Design: Masato Saitō
- Compositing Director of Photography / Finishing Technical Director: Yuichi Terao
- 3D Director: Gōchū Satō
- Art Director: Koji Eto
- Color Key Artist: Mika Matsuoka
- Editing: Manabu Kamino
- Music: Hideyuki Fukasawa
The staff also released a new character visual drawn by Hirokazu Koyama, the artist behind the original visual novel’s graphics.
Cast
- Haruka Tomatsu as Aoko Aozaki
- Kana Hanazawa as Alice Kuonji
- Yūsuke Kobayashi as Soujyuro Sizuki
Release dates and where to watch
The film opens in Japan on November 20. The smartphone version of the original visual novel launches the same day. Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment will screen the film in the United States and Canada on January 29, 2027, in Japanese with English subtitles and with an English dub.
Background
Witch on the Holy Night (Mahōtsukai no Yoru) began life as an unfinished novel by Kinoko Nasu with art by Takashi Takeuchi in the mid-1990s — one of the pair’s first collaborations, predating their founding of Type-Moon. It was eventually developed into a visual novel with graphics by Hirokazu Koyama, released in April 2012. Aniplex published the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions in the West in December 2022, alongside the Japanese release; those versions have sold more than 150,000 copies worldwide. Type-Moon brought the game to Steam in December 2023.
The story is set in the late 1980s and follows Aoko Aozaki, one of two sister heirs to a long line of modern mages. Disinterested in magic, she is suddenly named heir to the family’s magical art and reluctantly apprentices under Alice Kuonji, a young witch living in a manor on a hill. Aoko balances her studies with her role as student council president, meets the transfer student Sōjūrō Shizuki, and contends with her older sister Tōko’s schemes.
Why it matters
The trailer’s focus on staff is the interesting part for Type-Moon watchers. With ufotable’s Hikaru Kondo as chief director, Yuichi Terao on compositing, and a Nasu script credited as “script production” by the studio, this looks like a straight translation of the studio’s house style onto Type-Moon’s own material rather than a one-off. The source is also one of the few concrete links in the loosely connected “Nasuverse” — an older Aoko appears in Tsukihime, and an older Tōko in The Garden of Sinners.
For Western audiences, the January 29, 2027 theatrical window via Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures mirrors the limited-release model that has become standard for anime films. If you follow anime-film theatrical runs, our report on CloverWorks’ Grotesqqque U.S. premiere covers a similar event, and Code Geass: Star Chaser Aspal covers another 2027 project with a first teaser.
Sources: Anime News Network, citing the film’s official website and Comic Natalie
Featured image: Poster visual for the Witch on the Holy Night anime film by ufotable, via MyAnimeList.
