Manhwa / Witch Hunter

It's that kind of manhwa.

Witches declare war against people, decimating two thirds of the civilized world. They summon monsters called Supporters and devastate human residences... but why?

The surviving humans gather those with extraordinary powers into an organization dubbed 'Witch Hunter'. Aided by a Jack O Lantern-esque supporter, Tasha Godspell is one of the strongest Witch Hunters around. True to his moniker, The Magic Marksman, Tasha crushes Witches with devastating accuracy — yet he cannot come to hate them...

An ongoing manhwa written and illustrated by Jung-Man Cho. Witch Hunter is equal parts comedy, drama, action, and intrigue, fueled by Rule of Cool and a truly lovable Power Trio. Despite its epic scope, Witch Hunter favours character dynamics over politics; Tasha and his comrades (and enemies, and in-betweens) spend more screentime interacting than playing Mr. Exposition. Also: Every man is badass, every woman a Hot Librarian or Cute Witch, and awesome binds the universe together. You'll find little Angst here — unlike that other Asian graphic novel about hunting witches, Jung-Man Cho's title never takes itself too seriously.

The series has been licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment, which has released it with the title of Witch Buster in Ominbus format starting June 2012. And in an unusual move, the translated pages are also being released on a MWF schedule over at Zoom Comics.

Here's the character page. If you're looking for a trope about a type of character, it's The Witch Hunter.

Not to be confused with Witch Hunter Robin.

---

Tropes:

• Action Girl: All the Little Miss Badasses and then some. Witches fight via supporters, but Halloween, Bari and Elmar actually fight hands-on. And in chapter 52, D-Class Visul reveals she's actually a more competent fighter than an A-Class.
• A Love to Dismember: Used as a joke in an omake. Two witches suspect Lancelot is a necrophile when Tasha's severed arm falls out of his cloak.
• All Myths Are True: Let's see... We've got characters of Arthurian Legend running around, a Chinese dragon, the Greek Moirae, the Hindu goddesses Parvati and Prithvi, an old Korean kingdom in the sky, the Norse god Surtr and a few more references to Norse mythology with Cooga's emblem and attacks and, of course, witches.
• All There in the Manual: Some volumes include character profiles, which detail everything about the featured characters from height and weight to the author's personal thoughts, as well as Q&A sections giving lots of information about the world and the WH organisation.
• Almighty Janitor:
  • Visul is more powerful than a squad of elite assassins or a regular A-Class.
  • In an even more extreme example, Bari is merely Vihyungran's secretary. On paper. In practice, she's basically an S-Class WH all on her own.
• Always Someone Better: Yue is this to both Lee and Xing, for different reasons.
• Anachronism Stew: If it's set during the witch-craze, it's likely to be 1400's-1600's, and yes, that means guns and plate-armour. More advanced things like laptops and cellphones are run by Magitek.
• Art Evolution: While maintaining the same proportions, the characters are drawn with somewhat sharper angles towards the sixth volume. Cho himself noted a change in art style on his blog. One Korean blogger put up a chart of Tasha's face as drawn over the course of several volumes.
• Ascended Extra: The author notes that Tarras was originally supposed to be a 'no-name extra'. He changed his mind partway through the first volume, and Tarras has been the Ego to our Power Trio since then. There are constant jabs made at him both in story and in omake, mocking the fact he is basically still an extra.
• Asshole Victim: In chapter 57, a witch is stabbed in the back. She and her friend had just spent the last few chapters making zombies of several Witch Hunters and stealing several people's movesets.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The WH are ranked by strength, with big leaps in power from one rank to the one directly above: D-Class just do paperwork, C-Class are the Red Shirt Army, and S-Classes Eunryuu, Vihyungran and Tania scare the crap out of the A-Class. Also, the Four Great Witches title is decidedly NOT for show, considering that the highly powered down East can PWN SS-class Vihyungran without too much trouble in addition to being able to scare off Varete and doing this in the process. This trend continues in other organizations. The Knights of the Round Table are strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Witches on their own (although their own power levels appear to vary quite a bit among them), it appears to be a requirement for high positions in the Bairong Empire to be a high-caliber martial artist, with the Emperor being the strongest, and the Four Great Witches are on an entirely different level to basically everyone else.
• Author Appeal: To the point the author's editor supposedly warned him against putting too much of his 'personal tastes' into the comic and by 'personal tastes' we mean large breasts. (Not that pettanko fans would go disappointed either.) For example, compare Visul normal visage, an S class or a simple extra to give you an idea; but to be fair, the men are gorgeous too◊.
• Badass Boast:
  • Tarras. Even though he, Tasha, and Xing are all A Class WH, he constantly reminds them of his 'superiority'.
  • Everyone likes to boast in this series, and for good reason. It's just that the Doberg family apparently has a pathological need to do this.
• Badass Longcoat: A seemingly standard part of the WH uniform. Custom tailored too.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Tasha and Halloween are such jerks to each other (except when they're not), one is led to believe they're the Official Couple. Eventually confirmed to be a mutual attraction.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: The Great Witches of the North and South lead their Witch followers in a genocidal crusade against humanity, seeking revenge for the anti-Witch religion’s hunting of witches. South is the more overt threat due to her impulsiveness and proclivities, while North is more of a planner.
• Big Brother Mentor:
  • Tasha wants none of Xing's friendly guidance. Cho intended Xing to play the role straight, but claimed it gave him an 'awkward, heavy air' and thus reworked his character.
  • As of Vol 7, Xing's played this trope straight at least once. His bro, Lee, seems to play the same role towards Lancelot.
• Big Damn Heroes: Almost everyone at some point and boy are they smug about it. One example: Tarras came to save Visul and, for a moment, rest his Chew Toy title. The beating he gave was epic... his gloating, not so much.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Becoming a witch didn't do much good for Aria. She is torn between her wish of being with Tasha and the hard facts that what she has done and what she is make it impossible for her to return. It is implied that the corruption from magic power both initiates and prevents this, as the lack of mana resulted in Aria's old personality resurfacing, utterly broken and woobifying her. The exhilaration and mania coming from the power keeps the witches relatively sane. Kinda throws a different light on the witches being kept in Alcatraz.
  • The Tasha's Past arc reveals that, even before becoming a witch, Aria was already a Broken Bird due to being the sole survivor of a witch attack. Meeting and interacting with Tasha helped her heal, until Neptis's manipulations led to a succession of events that broke her all over again and pushed her to where she is in the present of the story. Getting rejected by your father figure, imprisoned in your house, sold to slavers under the pretense of sending you to a safer place in another country, watching your older brother figure get shot trying to save you, being made to realize that you destroyed your own town in your despair and then manipulated into consenting to be killed by your own father, all before getting your guilt and grief suppressed will probably do that to you.
  • Going hand in hand with the above situation, Tasha also experienced this. Before all that stuff went down, he was quite different from the money-obsessed jerk he is now. Aria's breaking directly leads to his own, as well as set the course for even more trauma.
  • Yue, Well, Xing got broke hard. He loved his people and yet within a year, someone was trying to kill him. He made peace with his assassin, and over two years were falling in love...and then she gets assassinated.
• Cain and Abel: Yue and Lee. Then Xing (the real one) joins the "Slap-Yue-Around" game, but on his own side.
• The Caligula: Hint: Do NOT become the emperor of Bailong. The way the succession is carried out is basically tailor-made to drive mad even the most morally upstanding and well-intentioned of men, before losing themselves to the wills of past emperors themselves driven insane.
• Call-Back: When Tasha sees Tania using her Flower of Earth, destroying the scenery trying to beat Lancelot, he remarks that it's just like "burning down the house just to catch a flea". Later, Tarras, her brother, uses the same technique against a witch, destroying a few houses in the process, and Visul uses that exact same line against him.
• Can't Catch Up:
  • Only one of the reasons for the three-way Sibling Rivalry between Yue and his brothers... although 3 years later, Lee's got it scarily good.
  • Tasha's inability to measure up against some of the biggest obstacles that put themselves in his way (Varette, Lancelot, Ryuwhan, etc) continually frustrates him, leading him to desire power. It's also what leads him to unhesitatingly make a deal with Diana that most would balk at. Ironically, the stronger he gets and actually makes to catch up, the more he plays into the hands of North.
• Captain Ersatz: Surt is a pretty blatant one of Berserker. They look nearly identical, being enormous, muscular, shirtless men with the same style of wild hair. They even have identical roles in the story, being the terrifyingly powerful servant of a little girl (or at least what looks like a little girl in Surt's case).
• The Chains of Commanding: Invoked by Yue as the reason he'd rather leave the throne to his brothers.
• Clothing Damage:
  • Inflicted to Visul in volume 11. (Yue just bypassed that and shed his coat himself.) Most anyone getting into a huge scuffle is going to take some whichever way you slice it, however, which is only natural given the tendency for massive amounts of destruction that the fights have.
  • It's notable that the WHs's uniforms actively try to avert it by using mana to repair itself whenever it takes damage, if the wearer can supply it.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The uniforms worn by the WH organization judge the abilities of its wearer and automatically change color to reflect that, which indicates their rank and their duties. D-Class WH wear gray and are relegated to paperwork and maintenance. C-Class WH wear green and perform recon and scout duties. B-Class WH wear blue and are standard soldiers. A-Class WH wear black, have personal sobriquets relative to their abilities, and are the aces of the organization. Dispatching them is the standard response to running into a problematic witch, which is uncomfortably often. Finally, S-Class WH wear white, and are the most powerful fighters in the organization. They administrate the various headquarters around the world, and function as field commanders and generals. They themselves only take to the field under extremely dire circumstances and emergencies. Their authority is only superceded by the central administrative body of WH, which directs the activities of the whole organization.
  • That said, there are several members who do not quite fit with the usual standard. For example, Visul is listed as a D-Class, but is actually stronger than most A-Class. Three C-Class witches stationed in the north HQ actually have near A-Class combat abilities. Bari performs secretarial B for Vihyungran but can give most of the white class a run for their money. Tasha is classified as A-Rank but can temporarily boost his power to S-Class level, with his uniform recoloring itself to reflect the powerup; later on, his A-Rank designation becomes entirely nominal, having S-Class power naturally while remaining A-Rank on paper, to the point that using his power boost ability not only properly shows his actual power via said outfit recolor, the passive boost he provides to Halloween is big enough to make her power level promote to S-Class as well!
• Combat Pragmatist: Behold the eternal glory of Tanya Doberg
• Cool Shades: Xing's entire collection of eyewear. He's even got spares in his coat! Lee wears similar ones (which they remark upon in an omake, wondering where the other found such cool glasses), . has magical goggles, and Poine wears aviator/bug goggles.
• Crack Fic: A plethora in Korean (and perhaps French). Vihyunrang/Ryuhwan Slash Fic is second only in crack-ness to a Witch Hunter cooking contest fic. Not to mention Words/Vihyunrang.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: there is a non-specific religion that has anti-Witch sentiments as a core aspect, and which seems to have precedents of abuse of power. It seems to venerate a "One True God", though no name has been given, all in clear parallel to Catholicism, including a symbol that includes cross motifs, which is prominently featured in the uniforms of the WHs. Amusingly, early on Tasha defies the implications of religious ties to the WH organization by explaining that the reason they bear the symbol is because their sponsor (ostensibly the church) requested they sew it into the uniform. As he emphatically explains, the symbol being there does not mean the WHs subscribe to this religion, much less its anti-Witch doctrine ^note  Since WH has a considerable number of Witches among its staff, including, at one point, at least three S Class witches. Even so, there are still several members who resent the Witches anyway.
• Custom Uniform: Everyone has a different uniform... if that makes any sense.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: The female WH have minimini skirts. Also, Xing. Witness. And again, yes, they're all in uniform - just with the coats off.
• Cute Witch: Whenever they aren't Hot Witches.
• Delayed Reaction: Tasha spends three panels processing the fact that Merlin is a boy. This may seem like Hypocritical Humor on his part, seeing as how several characters have made the same mistake with him, but Merlin is even more incredibly feminine than he is, having very long hair and actual curves (his body was remodeled to be able to contain a mana source).
• Demoted to Extra: Poor Monica's made very few appearances since her arc ended. In fact, many of the secondary characters make less appearances as Tasha's activities and interests lose coincidence with the WHs. By the time he quits the WHs, the spots are open for characters like East and Ryuwhan to become more prominent.
• Designated Girl Fight:
  • In Vol. 9, Halloween and Aria. An intentionally invoked example by the former to keep the latter occupied.
  • Any female WH getting to actually fight is almost always going to be this (since their most likely adversaries are Witches, which are all girls), but chapter 52 notably ends with Visul facing three witches.
• Destructive Saviour:
  • Tarras and his Flower of Earth, full stop. Then we learn about his older sister and it seems the Technique has been passed down the DOBERG line for generations!
  • If a WH shows up to fight a Witch, you can count on there being a lot of collateral damage in the wake of the fight. Tasha and the Doberg duo, however, are especially prone to it.
  • Not even top-class WHs are exempt. Edea Florence once did this, in a display of overkill that puts nearly everything else seen so far to shame. See the aftermath here. The irony is that in this case and unlike previous examples, Edea did not mean to go so over the top. This person accidentally trumped the destruction of a fellow S Class who did it intentionally.
• Determinator: Tasha. Getting beaten to the point where it is physically impossible to move and having his arm which supplies him with magical energy cut off does not stop him from continuing to fight Lancelot. Or from using his magic-fueled gun. Even as a normal human boy with basically no training whatsoever, he still was one of these. Even cornered and with no hope of survival, he unflinchingly stood his ground against a full fledged witch who expressed full intention to break him in both mind and body.
• Diving Save: Linda to Tasha in 154, before they joined WH and when a witch attacked the town they were in.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: One of the reasons Lee hates Xing aka Yue is because Visul, Yue's servant saved him from being killed outside his own doorstep for no reason other than her master does not wish for him to die.
• Elemental Powers:
  • Vihyungrang can command the spirits of Earth and Fire, as well as more abstract concepts like "destruction", while Tarras and his sister can only do Earth.
  • Some of the strongest Witches also have these as trademarks. South seems to only be able to throw around fire and explosions, but that's all she needs. Both North and West are associated with cold. Edea (as well as West) is infamous for spontaneously making it snow by her sheer magical presence.
• Emotion Control: Witches against humanity use magic to control and suppress their unwanted emotions. This is why many of them find it easy to kill without any thought.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: This leads to a witch's downfall in Chapter 9 when she tries to convince Monica, now a witch herself, to help her escape. She forgets to take into account that she just spent the last month or so killing villagers including Monica's best friend. Monica tells her to piss off.
• Evil Twin: Xing's got/is one, depending on how you look at it. Two of them, in fact.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: Tasha pulls this off very nicely in chapter 12: Ryuhwan has proved very good at dodging bullets, but notices that Tasha completely missed one particular shot, and looks back to see the bullet has hit his supporter... and gone through its head to hit Tasha's real target: one of Halloween's seals.
• Face–Heel Turn: Tasha's trying to end Aria's.
• The Faceless: North and Edea Florence until chapter 31, anyway. When a flashback to the last meeting of the Four Great Witches is shown, West joins North in this category. At least, until chapter 128. Perhaps more importantly, Edea and West are nearly identical. It remains to be seen whether they are the same person or not.
• Fanservice: Of all kinds in spades.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Witches versus everyone else, not helped by the witches' most known characteristic of being Ax-Crazy.
  • Ryuhwan's entire hat. That guy hates witches. Ironically, he was trained by one, just like Tasha. His hatred for nearly all witches is because his teacher was killed by another witch, and since he doesn't know which one did it, he targets them all indiscriminately on the off-chance he gets the right one. His MO becomes less understandable once we learn that his master was West, making the list of possible culprits a lot smaller than you'd think.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Cho makes explicit references to Britain and Arthurian Legend around Vol. 6. The Bailong Empire is more-or-less analogous to China.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Xing to Tasha, in a rare moment of non-subverted Big Brother Mentor skillz.
• Godiva Hair: Tyrfing.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Ryu Hwan's seemed to just be cool-looking but useless, but chapter 42 revealed they can actually track mana.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: So far, all the evil witches seem to have needlepoint pupils.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Yue and Lee gave each other pretty large ones. Lancelot is also responsible for the one over Gawain's eye, apparently.
• Good Witch Versus Bad Witch: Witches who despise humans against those that sided with them, the latter joining the WHs. A much later chapter eventually shows that this split existed even among the Four Great Witches, and it basically led to the current state of the world. In that case, however, it was more "Good Witch who loves humans, Neutral Witch who is friends with the Good Witch, Bad Witch who hates humans and Insane Witch who does whatever the hell amuses her".
• Happiness in Slavery: The Contract of a Supporter's Golden Rule of Loyalty makes them have emotions resembling love for their masters. Ryu Hwan points out that once Tasha breaks the final seal all the emotions it robs her of will come to the surface and Tasha's own feelings for her will have been the only ones that were real and it will hurt. Subverted in that Halloween is content with the false emotions and feels that way with or without them as she feels entitled to him.
• Hat of Power: The witches' hats. A witch's hat is the source of her mana, as well as the stockpile of all the mana they generate. Take away or destroy the hat, and the witch is as good as human once more. However, the Great Witches are exceptions to the rule. They don't actually need their hats. Indeed, if anything, they're more for the sake of appearances and to harbor their Sorellas.
• Hot Witch: Whenever they aren't Cute Witches.
• How We Got Here: Used often, the most mind breaking example being vol 5, which treated us to a sudden three-chapters long flashback and immediately followed by a flash-forward showing Tasha with his arm ripped off. Then vol 6 picked back up to before the flashback started, and the next three volumes or so show us the long way to getting Tasha in this predicament.
• I Didn't Mean to Turn You On: Indirect. When Tarras comes up with a plan to get back at Tasha for all his abuse, Xing gets... really excited at the thought of Tasha getting furious at him. Tarras is creeped out.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: Witches seem to be immortal unless killed, but Mana is too toxic for fetuses to survive. To curb their desires for children, they instead take on apprentices. This is to the point that some witches may turn right around and offer apprenticehood to fledgling witches whom they were just about to massacre.
• Important Haircut: All three of the Bailong Princes (also a Close-Call Haircut in one case), which makes things interesting since they're triplets, initially only differentiated by their hairdos.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: The Witches' hats are absolutely ridiculous, and some of their getups are so impractical or complicated, it actually makes more sense when Aria shows that a Witch can actually summon her usual dress on at will.
• Improbable Age: Black Class WH Tasha and his rival Cooga are only sixteen years old. Justified since: A) They are in a war of extinction against witches with horrendous level of mortality and B) They are among the most powerful humans alive, which means the organization or the human race wouldn't give a damn how young they might be.
• Informed Ability:
  • Played with, due to No Export for You. Visul is revealed to be actually stronger than a Black Class in #52, which was a surprise to most readers... but actually it had been mentioned in the extra character file a few volumes in advance. However, she needed a Black Class to save her from two witches... which he does with almost embarrassing ease (though this was a case of her being matched against a Ditto Fighter and Honor Before Reason).
  • The Blackstar Brothers are A-class hunters. The only time they get to do some Kung Fu action they get utterly destroyed.
• It Runs in the Family: You thought Tarras was bad? Check out Tanya. There's also a case of taking Sibling Rivalry too far in the Bailong family, but that's almost Family Curse territory... there's a good chance having 50+ voices in your head makes you a little loopy.
• I Was Just Passing Through: Played with when Cooga fries a witch that was threatening Tasha, who of course complains that he didn't need his help. Cooga replies that he'd actually been aiming to get Tasha in the back, but he missed. Tasha dares to be shocked when he did the same thing minutes ago.
• Ki Manipulation: The nature of Xing's abilities, as well as basically anyone trained in Bairong's martial arts style.
• Lady of Black Magic: Tanya and Varete are very powerful and elegant Witches. Tanya is actually a subversion, however, since she isn't a Witch, but an empowered human who reveres an earth deity and thus has command over earthen spirits.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Visul calls Xing out on his uncanny attraction towards Tasha.
  • The witty banter and snark exchanged between characters ensures healthy amounts of this occurs during several conversations. For example, Tasha delights in mocking Tarras' very lackluster and unhelpful performance in the early chapters, an allusion to Tarras originally being conceptualized as an unnamed extra.
• Large Ham: Tarras. And Tania. But mostly Tarras.^note *Smack!* Ow.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority:
  • Played with◊ when Ryu Hwan convinces his supporter that boasting a red horn will make him three times more powerful. Seems like JMC has heard of Char Aznable.
  • Within the WH, although there is no red, A-Classes wear black and are considered elites, while S-Classes wear white and are monstrously powerful, even compared to A-Classes; strong enough to stomp anything short of one of the Four Great Witches with ease.
• Living MacGuffin: Tasha himself is a crucial part in the plans of North, East and Varette. Aria, Diana and Vihyungrang also each have their own special interest in him. Later chapters heavily imply that the reason for his importance is that he is the reincarnation of West.
• Living Shadow - Varete, her supporter The Abyss is just a shadow. She used it as she was Casting a Shadow. What really makes this stand out is that as long as there is a shadow, no matter how small or innocuous, it can be used as an extension of The Abyss. This is also why Varete wears long, flowing, multi-layered clothes: all those flaps and overlaps create plenty of shadows for The Abyss. And if all else fails, there is always the shadows of her hair under her hat.
• MacGuffin Super-Person:
  • The Hero, Tasha Godspell, is revealed to be both the key to the Big Bad's plans for wiping out humanity, but also the key to stopping these plans and saving mankind. Exactly how this works has yet to be explained. There are also several other witches out to capture him, including his own sister.
  • North's plans and East's counter-plans both hinge on Tasha because he is the reincarnation of West, the revival of whom was stated by East to be at least half of North's goal.
• Magic Is Feminine: All the witches in the setting are female. It is possible but very rare for a male to acquire the ability to use Mana. The only two male magic users or wizards as they are called in the series are Merlin and Tasha.
• Magic Skirt: Everyone's except, notably, Visul's.
• Meaningful Echo: Tasha and Visul once witness a Doberg (Tania and Tarras, respectively) at work, and respond to their respective Dobergs with the exact same line:
  Tasha (in his head)/Visul: It's like burning down the house just to catch a flea!
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kind of minor, but Bari is the name of a Korean goddess associated with death and shamans.
  • Prithvi is a Hindu god of the earth; guess which god the Doberg family reveres and receives their powers from.
  • Parvati is Hindu god Shiva's wife and also has three eyes; Monica's Supporter, which is also named Parvati, gives her a third eye, the Supporter has three eyes itself, and its abilities tend towards protection and support (Goddess Parvati stands for love and devotion).
  • The Bairong Triplets follow an astronomy naming scheme, as Lee (Sun), Yue (Moon) and Xing (Star).
• Medieval European Fantasy:
  • The Empire of Bailong is based of medieval China.
  • Albion is entirely European, except for the plate armor.
• Meet Cute:
  • Tasha and East meet in prison. Subverted in that East set that up. How is an enigma, though.
  • Monica gets to know Tasha through pick-pocketing.
• Mind Rape: Becoming the Emperor of Bailong involves this.
• The Mole: As of Vol. 9, we're still unsure whether or not Words is The Mole or a Double Agent. Eunryu seems to be this, what with being an S-Class WH and North's henchman. There is also a low-ranked WH who has the power to alter memories and uses it to feed Diana false information without her realizing it.
• Most Common Superpower: Generally speaking, if you see a busty woman in this verse, run for your lives, with three of the Four Great Witches (East being the exception) being the pinnacle examples. However, if you think the lolis are safer, think again: Some of those lolis only look that way because they've achieved mastery of their powers. Callia is a very good example of a petite witch with very high physical combat ability. As a hobby.
• Mr. Fanservice: Xing rarely covers his stomach.
• Ms. Fanservice:
  • Visul.
  • Most of the witches.
  • Halloween wears a tube jacket that bares her midriff, a good amount of her shoulders, super-tight minishorts and Zettai Ryouiki to finish it off. Whenever she isn't giving Tasha an eyeful, of course.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Tarras and Xing get that a lot. In chapter 10:
  Tasha: "Monica... ! ... and others."
• Mythology Gag: The author explains in an omake that the joke about a feminine Tasha is a reference to the fact Tasha was first planned to be a female character. It doesn't help that later he was revealed to be a reincarnation of the great witch West, which means that yes, there is a touch of feminine in him.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Guinevere's dress has a plunging neckline, to begin with, then there's Diana and a whole host of witches sporting the look.
• Not So Stoic:
  • The only thing that seems capable of deeply affecting Words is a good wine.
  • A flashback reveals that North, for all her composure, can get fired up about something if the topic is particularly important to her. Like getting into a spat with West over how to handle the humans hunting witches.
• No Fourth Wall:
  • Tasha takes Tarras down a peg by mentioning he barely did anything until Volume Two.
  • Tarras is also called out on the fact that he was just intended to be an extra by Xiao and Myun, which leads him to suspect the author of spreading lies.
  • Parvati insults Amos by calling him an extra.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Witches in general, as fully mastering their powers causes them to suddenly look younger and stops their aging. (Didn't happen to Monica and Aria because they aren't full-fledged master witches yet.)
  • In order to have been trained in the same fighting style and accrue enough experience to shame Tasha, with enough time for him to be an unknown initially, Ryuwhan is naturally older than he looks. He's sixty seven (67) years-old.
  • Merlin looks like a young woman, but he is Reall Y Seven Hundred Years Old.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Subverted, in that the characters' Informed Attribute hobbies seem mismatched with their personalities. For example, the egotistical Tarras is a loving gardener who names his plants and Cooga is a big follower of fashion who makes his own hats while being a major witch-hater (the joke is that witches all wear nice hats. The egotistical and rude Tasha also happens to be a very deft hand with all kinds of housekeeping and personal care skills.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Everyone.
• Physical God: The Four Great Witches have been shown to be way beyond mortal comprehension in power, being armies unto themselves. Hell, East possesses Surtr, king of the Jötunn, Primordial of all living flames and deicide extraordinary as her supporter. A giant infamous for being prophesied to set the whole world on fire.
• Power Limiter:
  • Tasha and Ryuwhan, most prominently, although each of theirs is different. Both have in common two things: it triggers a release of large amounts of mana, thus greatly empowering them, and changes their hair color. Ryuwhan displayed his first. It turns his hair white. The release of mana increases his power and allows him to manifest an arsenal of various mana guns to assault his enemies with. His control over them is great, which means he can barrage his opponents from multiple angles with a ton of powerful attacks at once. Compared to Tasha's, it offers less power but allows greater complexity and coverage. Tasha's goes in the opposite direction. It gives him massive amounts of mana, far more than Ryuwhan, which means his attacks are freakishly strong. As in, landscape-altering strong. The boost is enough to temporarily boot him up to S-Class, with his uniform changing to white to match, and turns his hair to its original color for the duration. It more or less puts him in the level of Edea Florence, minus the control over his power. This means he can summon a gigantic Battlefield and causes it to snow (which drains the mana of his opponents). It has only been used once, however, probably because the rush of mana is too much for Tasha to handle.
  • The Halloweens have their own limiters in the form of their seals, which take the form of lock pendants, two for each. Each seal released restores a lot of battle potential, but also removes some of the restraining impulses of the Golden Contract on the Halloweens, meaning they can be more inclined to turn on their masters. Releasing the final seal unleashes the full power of the Supporter, but severs the contract between master and supporter; it's anyone's guess what the former supporter will then do.
• Posthumous Character: Edea Florence, killed by Aria before the start of the manhwa. Later, we learn that the Great Witch West is also dead, killed by fellow Great Witches North and South. Then West turns out to have been reincarnated as a certain someone...
• Played for Laughs: Lots of things.
• Power Trio:
  • Taras (Id), Tasha (Ego), Xing (Superego).
  • Big Ego (Xing), Bigger Ego (Tasha) and Biggest Ego (Tarras).
• Praetorian Guard: The Nightcrow of the Bailong's Empire.
• Psychotic Smirk:
  • The witches in general, North in particular. The ones in Bailong even hide it a little behind their huge sleeves.
  • Tasha himself when high on mana.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • We're told the exact age, which is rather rare: Merlin is 586 years old.
  • Several witches are much Older Than They Look, but the ones that are incomparably old are the Four Great Witches.
• Red Baron:
  • All the high-ranking WH have official aliases relating to their special ability.
  • The Four Great Witches, aside from having their own sobriquets, also have their own names as this, since no indication is ever given about them having a "real" name. We assure you that any title they have will pale in comparison to the horror caused by being confronted with any of the four cardinals.
• Royally Screwed Up: The Bailong triplets have problems. The real kicker is that if not for outside interference, they probably could have patched up their problems on their own.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Halloween, a.k.a. Princess Mordred. Plus, the royal family of Bailong Empire is raised to be badass.
• Serious Business:
  • Cooga is more concerned with the fact Tasha shot through an earflap of his hat than the fact he was aiming for his face. Also, Tarras will turn on his teammates in the middle of a fight if his greatness is insulted.
  • Tasha will jump into a river to retrieve chump change. In fact, Tasha hates giving up his possessions so much that he will do anything, up to and including quitting the WH and making himself a ton of enemies, to avoid doing so. Considering his past, it makes sense.
• Shout-Out:
  • Xing, Lee and Yue hilariously reference Dragonball in a yonkoma.
  • The Tasha Truman Show.
  • Objection!
• Sibling Rivalry: Gets real bad between the Bailong princes, as they're competing for the throne. Between Tanya and Tarras, it's not really equal rivalry.
• Slasher Smile: Aria, Cooga, Lee, Tyrfing, Rose and South are all prone to those. Tasha also often has more comical ones, and more seriously when he removes his limiter and upgrades to S-Class. He sports one as well during his recent battle with Lancelot. And of course, it's Halloween's default expression until the seal is broken, but then Ryuhwan's is there to pick up the slack. (After all, what would WH be without a grinning pumpkin ?)
• Small Name, Big Ego: Surprisingly subverted with Tarras. While he has a massive ego and is the end of most accidents, he has demonstrated to be actually a superb warrior and had singlehandedly beaten extremely powerful witches over and over again like his fight in Chapter 57. The Badass Boasts make everyone in-universe hate him but they're completely justified.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • Until the first three profile pages were scanlated, most of the English fandom misspelled Tasha's surname, Tarras' first name, and Xing's full name.
  • Often the result of the translators not getting mythological and/or cultural references. For instance, the Doberg family worships an Earth deity which has been referred to as "Fribity" in the French publication and "Prevhiti" in English scanlations. It just might actually be the Hindu goddess Prithvi. Aria's supporter is known as "Isis" (as in the Egyptian goddess) or "Aegis" (some sort of weapon/shield in Greek mythology), with the latter making more sense. (It should be noted that translating names from Korean isn't as easy as it looks... though apparently that doesn't explain how Prithvi was translated into Fribity.)
• The Stoic: Words Blondy von Worth (yes, really) hasn't smiled on-screen to date.
• Stripperiffic: Whilst most costumes don't show all that much skin, the skin-tight nature of a lot of the witches' clothing leaves little to the imagination. Crowning examples are the Four Great Witches, with West being the most notorious one. The witches in the WH aren't too far off either, almost all wearing a suit-miniskirt combo that may or may not also feature Navel-Deep Neckline. Halloween, even though she wears pants, has extremely tight clothing that bares a lot of skin.
• Subordinate Excuse:
  • Strongly hinted at between Visul and Xing, that is, Yue. She's actually an absurdly good fighter and only stays a D-Class so that she can keep an eye on him. Chapter 52 shows she'll go to great lengths to keep Yue's secret, and chapter 54 shows she ruthlessly killed a dozen men to save Lee solely because Yue wanted Lee to survive.
  • Ametyn. Not only she took Virsul's attacks directly without getting a single scratch and brought her down with one finger, but even Calia, South's direct underling who crushed Cooga during Camelot invasion, is wary of her. Even so she deems an absolute honor to be called Lee's servant and she is quite jealous of her position.
• Succession Crisis: Even before the death of The Emperor. The implication is also that this happens pretty much every generation. And it's all but said outright that the crisis is intentionally instigated by the previous emperors. Yue performs a Twin Switch with Xing to escape the crown, Lee becomes The Evil Prince but only because of their father's manipulation, and Xing is manipulated into giving in to his grief and blaming it on Yue.
• Take a Third Option:
  • Does Tasha give up Halloween and train under Merlin or get arrested for disobeying an order? Neither, he quits the WH.
  • Does Yue resign himself to become the next Emperor of Bailong or fight his father to stop the coronation? Nope, he convinces Xing to do a Twin Switch with him so he can live freely like he always wanted. Unfortunately, this one ends quite badly for nearly everyone.
• Teacher/Student Romance:
  • Tasha and Edea's relationship was close enough that one would figure this was the case. Both had very strong feelings that teetered between platonic and romantic from the dialogue alone.
  • By all accounts, Ryuwhan shared a similar relationship with his late master, Great Witch West.
• Technical Pacifist: The WH are contractually forbidden from killing witches, but as Xing explains, it's hard to restrain yourself in a battle for survival against witches, so in practice, just about every fighter has broken the rule at one point or another. The only two WH (that we know of) who have never killed a single witch are Tasha (due to his own sister being a witch, so he can't bring himself to kill any witch) and Tarras (but he just ends up destroying everything else instead).
• Theme Naming
  • The Bailong princes Lee, Yue and Xing are Sun, Moon and Star, respectively.
  • The Four Great Witches are named after the cardinal directions: North, East, South and West.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • Seems to be the Dobergs' modus operandi. Tasha and Visul have both compared their fighting method to "burning down the house to catch a flea".
  • Edea nukes an A-Class witch, leaving a crater as wide as a castle in the earth that looks likes bottomless, with Warz mentioning that there is no situation where an S-Class like her would need to do that. She was that pissed off.
• Trigger-Happy: Tasha. Ryuhwan on a slightly lesser degree, but his first reaction to people sneaking up on him is still aiming his gun at them, then look surprised.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Tania initially calls Tasha "Miss Godspell", which Cooga of course finds hilarious. That's because only females are supposed to have a mana source in their body. The official French translation adds the sexual-orientation issue and even more hilarity by having Tania call Tasha a flirty (and feminine-only) word for "my cutie". Just a little later, Merlin drops one on Tasha by revealing he's in the same situation.
• Vanhelsing Hate Crime: Discussed. The witch in Chapter 9 emphatically states this to try and convince Monica that WH will not let her live free. Rather refreshingly, WH is, as Tasha said, only in the job of hunting evil witches and is indeed largely staffed with witches willing to fight for, rather than against, humanity. However, there are a number of people that appear not to care too much about the distinctions, such as Cooga and Warz in the WH and Ryuhwan outside it (despite being taught by a witch himself). Ryuhwan at least has a Freudian Excuse, and becomes much better about this later on when he learns that his master is still alive...sort of.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: While he doesn't go entirely shirtless, Xing's post-uniform upgrade outfit shows off his abs and biceps (and scar). Fanservice at its finest!
• Warrior vs. Sorcerer: The main protagonist is a trained gunman who fights evil witches. The titular Witch Hunter organization consists of fighters as well. While some members of the titular Witch Hunter organization have super powers, they also rely on weaponry and combat training as opposed to witches who focus solely on magic.
• Web First: Only for the english release: As mentioned before, the story has been partially uploaded to Zoom Comics before the Omnibus came out.
• Wham Episode: The supposedly dead West appears in Chapter 128, and is revealed to be Ryuwhan's master, apparently a different person from Tasha's master Edea. The very next chapter then reveals that Tasha is the reincarnation of West.
• Wham Line:
  • Volume 11 ends on Badass Emperor Xing, fresh as a rose, easily stopping the deathmatch between his two brothers... and grabbing Yue by the throat.
    Xing: I wouldn't dare to leave this world before I killed you with my own hands, Yue...
  • The end of volume 12 when Tasha decides what to do about giving up Halloween:
    Tasha: I will quit WH.
  • East visits WH to make the game even more interesting in ch202:
    My name is East, I'm one of the 4 Great Witches, and starting from today I'll be a witch hunter, so, please, take care of me!
• What the Hell, Hero?: Tasha is this trope. Tarras also routinely destroys villages while on mission; Xing often calls them both out on it. Not that he is any better when push comes to shove.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?:
  • Because witches have to suppress their emotions in order to fight efficiently, few truly understand love or even care for it at all. In the backstory, those who don't suppress them tend to meet unfortunate ends against their emotionless sisters.
  • Edea Florence removed her emotion stabilizer to experience the overwhelming feelings that were being suppressed. While this made her experience love for Tasha, it really comes back to bite her in the ass.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: In chapter 52, Lee tells Yue he's responsible for the Bailong Empire being destroyed, thus ruining Xing's life, and in general it's all Yue's fault Lee ended up killing Xing. Worst thing? Judging from Yue's reaction, he probably agrees. We got a master Manipulative Bastard here.
• With Friends Like These...: Tasha routinely shoots his allies. Sometimes just with anaesthetic bullets. Xing gets that particular treatment so much that he's apparently got himself an antidote for the anaesthetics for the times when he gets to team up with Tasha.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Seems to be what happened to Aria. Magic is stated to take its toll on the human user's mind and body. Temporarily happens to Tasha in vol 8.
  "So... this was how Aria was feeling. This ecstasy...!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
• The Worf Effect: A staple of this series, which is used to show the fact of the matter is that none of the main characters, or even supporting characters are anywhere close to being the best of the best and that there are countless threats out there way more powerful then them.
• World of Badass: Going hand in hand with World of Ham, especially when Tarras and Tania are around.
• Yandere:
  • Wai halo thar, Aria! Though this is later revealed to be a mix of getting high on mana and Varete's manipulation. She's still violently jealous over his attention, however. Visul just might be a lighter case in regards to Yue, though thus far she hasn't killed any nice guy.
  • Ametyn is obsessed with Lee, and is willing to kill even her own fellow witches for and over him.
• Yaoi Fangirl: In one omake yonkoma, the author's assistant comments on a very Les Yay picture and suggests doing another one, but with guys. She then starts listing possible yaoi pairings, to the author's annoyance.
• Yonkoma: Jung-Man Cho treats us to a funny one at the end of every chapter. Later on, they're just regular Omake.

---