Meg has one year to live and needs a thousand tears of joy to save herself, which sounds like setup for saccharine wish-fulfillment, but the show knows better, it's about learning that other people's small, specific griefs matter more than your own survival. Every side character becomes real the moment Meg steps into their life. The animation falters mid-season and some emotional beats don't quite land when they should, but none of that stops you from feeling her slow understanding that she's already found the reason to live, whether the seed grows or not.

Meg Raspberry, raised by the Eternal Witch Faust, dreams of becoming as great a witch as her master. On her seventeenth birthday, Faust tells her that a curse she was born with leaves her only one year to live. The one cure is a seed of life, and growing it takes a thousand tears of joy gathered within twelve months. Such tears are hard to come by. As Meg sets out, she becomes caught up in the lives of her friends and neighbors, sharing their troubles and using her magic to comfort them. Along the way she comes to value those moments of connection, even with death drawing near. The series is a fantasy drama adventure.