Sometimes, even witches go to war.
Kutsuzure Sensen: Majo Vasenka no Sensou is a seinen manga written and illustrated by Hayami Rasenjin, which was serialized in Comic Ryu from 2010 to 2012. It depicts the adventures of Vasilisa Medvedeva (or simply Vasen'ka), a bit lazy but competent pagan witch, and her friend Nadezhda Norstein (or simply Nadya), a young NKVD officer, on Eastern war front during the WWII.
They encounter a lot of supernatural beings — both friend and foes — during their journey and solve the related problems while trying to survive during the war.
Kutsuzure Sensen contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Both MCs have their moments.
- Anachronic Order: Outside of the first and last two chapters, the story jumps back and forth in the timeline of the Great Patriotic War.
- Baba Yaga: Appears in the prologue chapter as Vasilisa's guardian. Though, it is never stated clearly if Vasilisa is her real granddaughter or just the apprentice.
- Back from the Dead: Vasilisa in the final chapter thanks to Nadya's help.
- Big Damn Kiss: Nadya gave one to Vasilisa in the final chapter to convince her to go back from the Underworld.
- Chess with Death: Both Nadya and Vasilisa make a bet with the Slavic reaper in order to save their loved ones - who will first pick the dandelions from a nearby building. In both instances, the places are bombed before they could get there. Nadya, however, tricked Death by obtaining the flower beforehand.
- Corrupt Politician: Nadya's chief fits the bill just fine. During her visit to his office he clearly tried to harass her and he did not hesitate to arrest both MCs to cover up the fact that military recruited a pagan witch to their service. Good thing they had someone influenced enough on their side to threaten him.
- The Fair Folk: Nadya and Vasilisa are constantly pestered by them, intentionally or not. While most of them aren't too keen with involving themselves with the war, there are some that join either side for their own reasons.
- Ghostapo: Dicke Bertha, a reoccurring villain, is a witch in the employ of the Nazis; more specifically, she's a member of a organization lead directly by Himmler.
- Golem: Nadya gains control of one when she's captured in Berlin (since she's Jewish); it helps her escape and defeat Bertha's dragon.
- The Grim Reaper: There are two of them, a Slavic one and German one, with the implication that each country/region has it own. The former is sort of a reoccurring character.
- Oh, My Gods!: Vasenka swears by various Slavic gods and such.
- Dicke Bertha, the Nazi Western witch, swears revenge by "Gretel's stomach ache" after she was maimed by Vasenka.
- Psycho Lesbian: After being defeated by her twice and tricked three times, losing an arm and being mauled by wolves, Bertha develops a very unhealthy, sexual obsession with Nadya. Which is even more messed up because not only are they a(n implicitly) demonic witch and a human, they're a Nazi and a Jew.
- Shown Their Work: The author is knowledgeable both in Slavic mythology and culture and WWII history. He also tried to present both sides of conflict as neutral as possible without putting standard cliches or harming any real life people.
- War Is Hell: Despite mainly comedic nature of the manga, the author does not hesitate to show the dark side of things. Quite a few chapters have people dying, and some other things like pillage and desertion are also mentioned.
