Witch Hat Atelier Gets a Novel With Three New Short Stories

Kodansha is releasing a novel set in the world of Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier on November 21. The book is titled Shōsetsu Tongari Bōshi no Atelier Special Stories and contains three original short stories. Jun Esaka, who has written novelizations for One Piece and Naruto, penned the stories, with Shirahama credited on the original work and given full supervisory control over the final product.

The first story follows Olruggio as he treks into the snowy mountains searching for Qifrey, who has gone missing. The second brings a dragon managing group to the atelier with a request for Olruggio, while Coco and her friends find themselves entertained by a small and unusually cute dragon cub that shows up. The third takes place in Ezrest, where Easthies and others are confiscating illegal magic devices and then going undercover to trace where they came from.

The novel arrives at the same time as volume 15 of the manga, also shipping November 21. The Witch Hat Atelier manga has been running in Kodansha’s Monthly Morning Two magazine since July 2016. Kodansha USA has been releasing it in English since April 2019.

The series has an impressive award record. It won Best Manga at the Harvey Awards in both 2020 and 2025, and has been recognized by the American Library Association’s YALSA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens list and nominated at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. On the anime side, Crunchyroll will stream the Witch Hat Atelier adaptation when it debuts in 2026, after the project was delayed from its originally planned 2025 window.

My take: Three Qifrey and Olruggio stories sound wonderful, and a dragon cub showing up at the atelier is exactly the kind of cozy side content this series earns after all its heavier chapters. Jun Esaka is a solid choice for the prose work too. If you have been following the manga, this seems like a real treat.