Among the standout titles of what critics are already calling a bumper spring 2026 anime season, one series and its musical collaborator have commanded attention in equal measure. Witch Hat Atelier, a fantasy following Coco, a girl who dreams of becoming a witch, and the enigmatic singer-songwriter Nakamura Hak, who contributes its ending themes “Tada Utsukushii Noroi” (simply beautiful curse), “Yoru ni Ukabu” (floating in the night) and “Hikari” (light) have together become one of the season’s most talked-about pairings.

“If a simply beautiful curse were to innocently tear apart even the light”

The series is adapted from Kamome Shirahama’s popular manga, which earned a nomination for the 2018 Kodansha Manga Award and topped the general category of the nationwide booksellers’ recommendation poll. The series has also earned significant international recognition, including the Eisner Award for Best Asian Work in the U.S., with additional honors across France, South Korea, and Spain.

When the anime adaptation premiered in April, it quickly captured the global fanbase’s imagination not only through the sheer beauty of the animation, but also through its grounded setting and startling storytelling. Beneath the seemingly lighthearted premise of apprentice witches finding their footing lies a series unafraid to confront its heroine’s innocent yet catastrophic mistake, and the sobering reality that magic powerful enough to save can just as easily destroy. The ending themes by Nakamura Hak have been just as celebrated for the uncanny resonance they share with the story and its characters, and for an atmosphere and vocal expressiveness that aches.

Nakamura Hak is a debut singer-songwriter who emerged this spring with several tracks recorded with just her voice accompanied by acoustic guitar. All her releases are completely unmodified and unedited. Her artist bio reads simply: “Her music exists just before the ending.” That concept alone signals someone out of the ordinary, but nothing could have prepared listeners for the impact of hearing “Tada Utsukushii Noroi” for the first time as it played over the anime’s closing credits. (Note: Because of her one-take, no-edit approach, the anime edit isn’t clipped from the full track but recorded fresh as a standalone version.)

“If a simply beautiful curse were to innocently tear apart even the light/ If a simply beloved curse were to steal and strip away everything in an instant/ I never want to see despair seeping into you, not for a single second, not for eternity.” These lines mirror the devastating scene in which Coco’s own innocence turns her beloved mother into stone. Voiced against nothing but acoustic guitar, crying out from within the dark, her voice seemed to expose the love and despair dormant within Nakamura Hak herself — and the aftershock didn’t fade for the rest of the night.

“Plugless”: A Concert Without Microphones

As established, Nakamura Hak records in a solo acoustic style with no edits or corrections — one guitar, one take. The title track of her debut EP Shiro wa Yume, out now on CD only, has been picked up by radio stations across Japan and spent two consecutive weeks at No. 2 on Billboard Japan’s Heatseekers Chart. She makes no public appearances and grants no interviews, citing a simple reason: “The music and the voice are everything.” It’s an approach that strips away every personal element beyond the sound, and in keeping with that, she recently held what she calls a “plugless” show, with no microphones and no amplifiers, at Tokyo Node Hall.

Roughly 200 meters up, against the glow of central Tokyo and almost no stage lighting, Nakamura Hak appeared alone, acoustic guitar in hand, and opened with “Seventeen,” the lead track of her debut EP. Hood pulled deep, face unreadable, but her voice completely unguarded, she sang: “The me who did nothing but cry back then/ The me who just runs and never looks back/ I want to accept them/ I want to forgive them/ If I’m just going to end up hating all of it anyway.” The rawness is audible on the recordings, but live, the pain hits differently and pins you in place.

In a space occupied only by the music she was making and the distant city lights, she faced down despair and darkness, trembling, and strained her voice in search of a faint hope: “Sorry, I just wanted to sing/ a song that faces upward, white” (“Shiro wa Yume”). By the third song, “Tada Utsukushii Noroi,” the Witch Hat Atelier ending theme, the live experience made one thing clear. Many viewers may have assumed the song was written for the anime — and the synchronicity is surely intentional — but this is also a song born from her own story and emotions. This beautiful curse is her curse, carried in her own life. Nothing else explains it. The raw despair, the raw longing, the trembling and the praying that can only come from someone who has lived with both — they were present in her voice and sound at a purity that was staggering.

“Suna no Oshiro,” “Zen to Aku,” “Yoru ni Ukabu” followed in turn, depicting mistakes born of innocence, pain that comes from purity, betrayals that breed hatred in someone who only wanted to be kind and right. The struggle with all of it, and the light to be found somewhere beyond were laid bare in her playing and singing. This is one writer’s account, but there’s no question it was a show where every listener’s life would find its own point of resonance, so if you haven’t seen it yet, the archive footage is well worth experiencing for yourself.

What Comes Next — The Potential to Reach Listeners Around the World

Nakamura Hak launched this spring on maximum10, the label behind MUSE, Sigur Rós, and The Prodigy’s Japanese releases. Even just the highlights from this brief period were too many to cover concisely, and this ended up being quite a long read. But her story has only just begun. “Zen to Aku” (good and evil), currently being featured as the opening theme for the TV drama Lunacy, is drawing its own wave of attention. A nationwide Plugless (Out-store) Live Tour “Itan” is also set to run from September through January, open free to purchasers of the debut EP Shiro wa Yume on CD.

And with Witch Hat Atelier receiving numerous prestigious international awards, it’s likely that the anime will bring Nakamura Hak and her music to audiences worldwide. Like her artist photographs in which a part of her body is turned to glass, she refracts music outward from every angle, letting it reflect back into each of our lives. Her next move is worth watching closely.

—This article by Tetsuo Hiraga first appeared on Billboard Japan

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Sign Up