That opening scene is the story. It sets up everything: her background, her inner conflict, and the emotional core of the ending.

Witch on the Holy Night is a story about empathy.

And that’s the irony: Touko was the ideal mage. Methodical. Ruthless. But she never became a Magician.

Aoko did. Not because she was cold, but because she wasn’t. Because she cared. That empathy let her break past the mental block holding her back.

But Aoko feels something. A gut-level empathy that goes against the cold logic expected of mages. That coldness—the detachment—is supposed to be essential for any proper magician, especially one seeking the Root.

She grew up in a cold environment—both literally and metaphorically. Her father and grandfather react to the dead cats with apathy. “What a shame,” they say. There’s nothing to be done. It’s just how things are.

From the start, the environment tells us a lot. Aoko accidentally kills a group of innocent cats—just trying to survive, looking for warmth—by starting her car. It’s not out of malice, just part of her routine.

I don’t want to go too deep into this, but something that stood out to me in Mahoyo is how the opening scene with the cats parallels the final fight—where Soujyuro dies and Aoko becomes a Magician.

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