Witch Hat Atelier Is The Neverending Story's True Heir Confirms Series Creator (Exclusive)

3 hours ago 8

Atreyu and Artax in The NeverEnding Story

Published Jul 14, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Nicolas Ayala is a Senior Writer for the Comics team at ScreenRant, with over five years of experience writing about Superhero media, action movies, and TV shows.

Forty-two years later, The NeverEnding Story's successor is a hit with fantasy fans. Fantasy has produced some of popular culture's most enduring stories, many of which have achieved iconic status even without the need to create sprawling multimedia franchises. Famous fantasy movies like The Princess Bride, Labyrinth, Willow, Legend, Pan's Labyrinth, Spirited Away, and The Green Knight have become classics, each with an original twist on traditional fantasy tropes, from fairy-tale adventure and mythological coming-of-age stories to dark allegory and medieval folklore.

Television has contributed equally memorable works, with memorable series like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The 10th Kingdom, and Over the Garden Wall. Literary classics that later received acclaimed adaptations, including The Last Unicorn, Coraline, Howl's Moving Castle, and Stardust, also showcase the fantasy genre's remarkable flexibility, where intimate character journeys coexist with mythical concepts like wild fictional creatures and impossible magical worlds. Michael Ende's 1979 novel The NeverEnding Story and Wolfgang Petersen's 1984 movie adaptation present Fantasia as a living reflection of humanity's childlike capacity to tell stories, with a metafictional structure that invites audiences to become active participants.

The fantasy genre has expanded across a whole new format ever since anime first started to explore the genre, with unforgettable series like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Inuyasha, and Saint Seiya, not to mention more recent successes such as Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Witch Hat Atelier.

Witch Hat Atelier Is Inspired By The NeverEnding Story

Kamome Shirahama Reveals Her Anime's Inspirations

Coco sits on a branch in Witch Hat Atelier art

At Anime Expo 2026, Witch Hat Atelier creator Kamome Shirahama revealed to ScreenRant that The NeverEnding Story directly inspired the anime. Like Michael Ende's book and Wolfgang Petersen's movie, Witch Hat Atelier treats magic as something that exists parallel the regular, non-magical world, able to be accessed by those willing to seek it. The NeverEnding Story blurs the line between reality and Fantastica by making imagination an active force capable of changing both worlds, and Shirahama embraces a remarkably similar philosophy through Coco's discovery that magic is a craft that can be understood through careful observation.

"As a child, I really liked The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende. That reading experience influenced me deeply. The way the book’s world and reality blended together left a strong impression."

It's clear how Witch Hat Atelier has the same quiet sense of enchantment that makes The NeverEnding Story resonate across generations, where a whole magical world hides in plain sight and provides the lighthearted excitement of exploring the impossible. Most importantly, Witch Hat Atelier's magic resembles the novel from The NeverEnding Story. In the anime, magic is controlled through the written word, and in the book and movie, Fantasia can be accessed by reading the titular novel. Instead of the typical chase of action pieces, both fantasy stories trust that awe and the joy of uncovering an unfamiliar world sustain the entire adventure.

Witch Hat Atelier Draws From Multiple Iconic Sources

Witch Hat Atelier Builds Upon Classic Fantasy Tropes

Coco is surrounded by magical objects in Witch Hat Atelier

Witch Hat Atelier also shares undeniable similarities with Harry Potter, particularly in its emphasis on magical education and the gradual discovery of a secret society governed by centuries of tradition. Coco enters that world as an outsider with a fascination with magic that challenges long-standing assumptions about who deserves access to it, similarly to Harry's arrival at Hogwarts. Witch Hat Atelier's visuals recall the elaborate craftsmanship of classic European fairy tales, Studio Ghibli films like Howl's Moving Castle, and Diana Wynne Jones' fantasy novels, where everyday life in a magical world feels like a lived-in setting.

Witch Hat Atelier's carefully structured magic system recalls Fullmetal Alchemist, where understanding rules and applying knowledge matter just as much as innate talent, though Witch Hat Atelier expresses those principles through calligraphy and artistic precision instead of alchemy. The moral questions surrounding restricted knowledge bring to mind Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels, whose wizards also recognize that power carries complex ethical responsibilities, while Coco's growth through curiosity and perseverance reflects the coming-of-age tradition found in stories such as Kiki's Delivery Service and The Last Unicorn. Witch Hat Atelier honors decades of fantasy storytelling through refined concepts presented in ways that feel both familiar and original.

Which fantasy anime is your favorite?