Science SARU is on double-duty this season with retro sci-fi stylings in The Ghost in the Shell and the picture-book-esque Jaadugar: A Witch’s Life in Mongolia. The latter was quickly added to the top of my “most anticipated” series for the season after reading the first two manga volumes by Tomato Soup. Her uniquely proportioned characters and cultural attention to detail are expanded in the anime to create an overarching story of betrayal against the backdrop of 1200s Persia and Mongolia.

One of the most enticing aspects of the series so far is how different it is from its peers this season. There’s no magic, reincarnation, or giant robots trapezing about in modern Japan. Instead, we see the cold steppes of Mongolia, the arched doorways of Persian nobility, and the cultural differences between both societies. I have to admit, watching this series after Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey also guided my feelings on war, enslaved people, and knowledge as a cultural currency.

The audience is first introduced to Sitara (later Fatima) after she is sold into a scholarly household to work as an enslaved servant in the city of Tus. Though she initially plays ignorant in her pursuit of freedom, Sitara eventually settles into domesticity with her owners. I am generally uncomfortable with classifying Fatima and her family as “good ones,” as they very much owned human beings, but narratively, Sitara comes to love Fatima as a mother figure, and Fatima reciprocates this. The girl and woman develop a familial bond as Fatima teaches Sitara how to read, write, and understand mathematical concepts.

Persia, and Iran in particular, has a long history in academia and mathematics specifically, dating back to the Elamite period (3200-539 BC), with evidence showing they were familiar with and implemented geometric concepts like the Pythagorean theorem. In Sitara’s time during the 1200s, she lived in what is known as the “Islamic Golden Age,” where many texts from other areas of the world were translated into Persian to expand the culture’s already vast knowledge. You can see evidence of this when Sitara’s home is ransacked and Tus is razed by Tolui; Fatima has a vast library, and one of the prized books that becomes central to the story is Euclid’s Elements, a book that is, at this point in the story, about 1500 years old.

Sitara’s more comfortable existence is burned down when her mentor is murdered, and she’s taken into custody by Tolui. There, she watches her fellow servants from Fatima’s household die under poor living conditions and, in at least one case, a broken heart. The moment she’s chosen to meet a similar fate, she’s persuaded to instead put all of her effort into retrieving Elements from Tolui’s wife, Sorghaghtani. She’s furious at this point; the Mongolian Empire has murdered her mentor and her potential future husband in pursuit of a book they show little regard for. She has to live in sometimes direct opposition to her faith. Her revenge is slow, and before she knows it, eight years have passed as she teaches Sorghaghtani and cares for her children. Genghis dies, Tolui holds court for approximately two years, then Ögedei becomes Kha’an. Episode four closes with Sorghaghtani asking Sitara (now known as Fatima) to no longer serve her; at least not in the duties she’s accustomed to. Instead, Sorghaghtani asks her to become a spy.

Admittedly, there is a lot of fast-forwarding in time over these four episodes. As an enslaved woman, Sitara spends most of the time on the sidelines, even with her increased access to the Khan family. Ögedei and Genghis’ attack and defeat of the Khwarazmian Empire happens off-screen. I don’t know if I fully agree with this decision; while Tolui’s viciousness is obvious, the Mongolian Empire was ruthless by design.

However, I do applaud the series for not sticking people into boxes. Sitara believes the Mongols to be uneducated, murderous, and wholly foreign. Sorghaghtani quickly shows this not to be the case. Her interest in Elements was not to possess knowledge to hoard it; she also felt the importance of educating her people in academic matters. There is more to her than Sitara initially suspects, and it will be interesting to see how she continues to manipulate others now that her husband is no longer in power.

We know little about Ögedei’s primary wife Töregene at this point, other than that she seems to hate him. However, if you’ve read spoilers (aka history), you can figure out that she’s going to be increasingly important as the story continues.

While the story itself feels like table-setting through episode four, Science SARU has made it a feast for the eyes. He and Naoko Yamada spent time in Mongolia in part for preparation for creating the series and drew influences from Persian art to capture the colors and textiles seen throughout the opening episode. Jaadugar easily sets itself apart in story, setting, and art. Once Sitara finds her footing in the narrative, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next.

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Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.