Osamu Nishi and Shiro Usazaki recently sat down for an interview in the latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, discussing how Ichi the Witch came to be.

As it turns out, the story behind this series started long ago. One day in November 2021, Nishi was contemplating the fact that while the word witch (majou) exists in Japanese, the male equivalent madan (literally magic man) does not. From this flowed rather naturally the idea of a world where only women could use magic, causing Nishi to go away and write a 20,000 page outline. She eventually sent this file to her old editor at Jump SQ with the intention of making the series "as big as possible."

Of course, Nishi was already serializing Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun at the time, so the help of an artist would be needed. Usazaki was eventually chosen from a long list of potential candidates for her brilliant character designs, but she unsure whether or not to accept the offer at first as she was trying to get her own series off the ground at the time. The initial storyboards, however, were exciting enough to convince Usazaki this was something only she could do.

The pair then went to dinner together where Nishi talked about some of the characters. Despite leaving without a firm yes or no, the fact that Usazaki sent through the first design for Desscaras that very night functioned as a clear enough answer. With the team set, the serialization was ratified by the editorial department at the beginning of summer 2024 and eventually started in September 2024.

Throughout all of this, what's surprising is the timeframe. Just shy of three years passed from initial conception to eventual serialization for Ichi the Witch, during which Usazaki was dealing with the fallout from act-age's cancelation. Debuts and cancelations can seem sudden from the outside, but this confirms that the manga industry usually works on a much longer schedule.