Review of Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

When fall began, there were two anime that I wanted to watch. One was Iwa Kakeru and only because it aired on October thus it was what I wanted to watch once I passed September. The other was Majo no Tabitabi because it made me think that it would be like Little Witch Academia when I saw the trailer.

So, imagine my disappointment when the show was not at all like that show but on top of that was a poorly made episodic series about an unlikeable protagonist with a completely messy tone.

The show is promising in its first episode though, although nothing groundbreaking in neither its world, premise or characters, the exposition was very good, presenting this aspects organically through interactions among the characters and through the protagonist traveling to places.

It also establishes the character pretty well, she’s nothing like Akko and is instead one of a kind among the witches of this world, whose function and system is never explained by the way, there’s magic in this world and the witches are treated with the upmost respect, yet they don’t seem to have an organized way of doing things and the normal citizens act like these girls are a common thing.

Anyways Elaina is nothing like your common protagonist, she’s selfish, arrogant, sarcastic and self centered, which is why the whole first episode is about her being rejected for being at the top of the world and learning how to not be a jerk at the end of the episode by facing a way stronger and better witch.

It also sets the bar when it comes to its production, to put it simple, Majo no Tabitabi is straight up both gorgeous to look at and well animated. Although there’s some obvious CGI which clashes a little with the rest of the visuals, it’s never crude or ugly and is rendered pretty well and moves accordingly with the rest of the elements.

As far as the rest of the visual elements go, there are practically no quality drops, the backgrounds are detailed and beautiful, the lightning and shading are well done, and the motions are fluent most if not all the time. The directing is good too, there’s a clear effort done in the storyboard to make the show visually dynamic, with lots of zoom ins and zoom outs, and the camera following the movements of the brooms from both the front and the back while constantly changing the angles in an organic way and not in a way that gives you a headache as in famous american action films like Transporter, Taken or the Bourne trilogy (I didn’t watch the newer ones) where the camera goes crazy at times and don’t let you understand what the hell is going on.

All of the above applies to the action scenes as well, which although not that present throughout the show, they are done masterfully. By comparison, Burn the Witch aired in the same season and the only thing everybody praised about it was the action and animation, and Majo no Tabitabi humilliates it completely in both aspects, especially in its last episode with its epic fight where a whole town is involved, full of big spells, and whole houses being blown away, while not even once losing detail in the artwork or fluidity in the movements.

The only negative in the visual department, aside from the not so good CGI, is the character designs, they are not bad but are way too simple, forgettable and there are characters that are way too similar one another.

The first episode also let us know how the sound is going to be, there isn’t much to talk about it, is a serviceable sound design for a fantasy series, typical opening and ending, typical soundtrack, well made but not special voice acting, good but not amazing sound effects, that’s all.

Then the second episode begins and Elaina didn’t change one bit, thus killing the illusion that there will be character development and a sense of meaningful learning and growth throughout her journey. On top of that Saya appears to change the tone of the series from a mildly interesting adventure to a silly yuri comedy. The whole second episode was full of emotional manipulation, Saya lies to Elaina and forces her to do stuff she doesn’t want to while at the same time presenting us her drama about not being able to see her sister, making you think that it’s a somewhat serious thing, but as the show would prove in its final episodes, that’s not the case at all. I was hoping that she didn’t appear ever again, but sadly, she did.

The only good thing about this episode was establishing another thing about the witches, despise their seemingly high social status, they have to constantly work their asses (not literally, not in this season at least) in order to get money and stuff.

Then came the somewhat controversial third and fourth episodes which are easily the best for me. These two episodes felt like classical fairy tales with dark overtones, dealing with dark topics such as slavery, sexual abuse, forbidden loves and a war because of it, and whole kingdoms being affected in the middle, if not completely destroyed and the heart breaking message of how sometimes your good intentions can backfire at you, as you end up doing more harm than good when you try to change things, which is ever present in the whole show but never again treated with this quality.

And just like the first episode, they are subtle about it, everything is shown visually and through character interactions, such as Elaina pointing her wand at that asshole but not attacking him in the end because, well, he was the major of the town and doing so would bring serious consequences, while their endings are actually dark and implied, not fully shown not hammering you in the head with their themes and messages, and not in a way that feels vague and open to interpretation, as it’s still somewhat clear what might actually have happened.

As I said earlier, their endings felt like the dark endings of classical fairy tales and are thematically coherent within the show and are in-story excused, as a big part of Elaina’s character has to do with how she wants to be a magic because of the tales she read as a kid thus this way of treating these mini stories feel right for this show. For all I care, these two episodes were the peak of the series.

On the other hand this third episode was very divisive when it comes to Elaina’s behaviour. Some liked how she’s not like a typical protagonist who jumps in blindly to help any random person she encounters and others hated her for not showing the slightest sympathy for the people around her and acting like “yeah, whatever, shit happens” and treated her like a inhuman sociopath.

I don’t care about any of that, my only issue is how this episode made it clear that Elaina is not a proactive character that does things on her own, she’s just imitating the book she loved as a kid and reacting to whatever happens around her at best, or is just a passive observer who doesn’t care about the stuff she’s supposed to be excited about and learn from in her travels at worst.

After that there was nothing of interest, the stories became way sillier and didn’t have the same feel nor the thematic depth, and on top of that Elaina became more and more unlikeable with each episode. There were episodes with sociopolitical issues such as one where everybody in a kingdom wants to be able to lie again, one where the people from the same country are divided in two by a wall in the middle (Berlin anyone?) and one where two sides of the same town are rivals when it comes to economy but their conflicts are so silly, the tone of the episodes so light, the messages so preachy and directly told, thus no subtle at all, the theme exploration so vague and one sided and Saya appeared again that the series went to bottom of the garbage and lost my interest.

As for Elaina, although I was still tolerating her after the third episode, these episodes made me hate her completely, she did nothing to stop the serious issues she comes across in the third and fourth episode, but takes part on town, countries, kingdoms level issues when someone jokes about her being petite, not curvy and flat chested, or cuts her hair. Come on, you saw a girl, younger than you, being treated like a cum bucket in her work and a whole kingdom getting destroyed, and did nothing but you lose your shit with these petty reasons? Absolutely lame and despicable.

Then there was an episode that was even advertised as too dark and violent for tv screening and was nothing but shock factor, gore porn, emotional manipulation up to the max, crappy writing and bad plot devices such as pointless time travelling and amnesia to negate any mental permanent effect and consequences. Also how is a little girl even able to do these things? And Elaina? She tries to stop someone from killing an actual sociopath serial murderer, right after the episode where we see her using spells left and right because someone cut her hair, which she can AND did grew back, get out of here.

Also for such a big fuss it caused because of its content, for someone like me, who watched anime and movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s, this episode felt like I was watching Fairy Tail in comparison. I had to read people praising this dumpster fire of an episode because they still were under the illusion that this would lead to Elaina’s character development, AND IT NEVER HAPPENED, the next time we see her again she’s still unaffected by any of this.

There were more stories but they are not worth mentioning in details, one took up two episodes and it was easily the most stupid of the bunch with the laziest resolution and it had Saya appearing AGAIN and this time with her sister who is ten times worse and made it clear that they being apart was never a big deal. Also, incest jokes, because that was what the show needed at this point as its final nail in the coffin.

Outside of the amazing action, the last episode had nothing of value, it was just self validation from the autor, having different Elainas in a sorry excuse of introspection while talking to each other and seemingly themselves at the same time, and the show itself openly praising Elaina for not having personality. Oh, and they publish their super amazing book titled like the show. Also, they end up sleeping together in the same bed because the yuri bait can never be absent and now it expands to even selfcest, great.

Thus Majo no Tabitabi went from being my only truly anticipated show of the season to being my biggest disappointment in it. It’s beautiful to look at and starts strongly, but looses steam fast and only goes downhill from there while at the same time it becomes a complete joke of itself and makes you hate her main character more with each episode. The only thing I’m grateful for when it comes to this show is how it helped me to sleep, as I was always watching its episodes right before falling asleep on my bed, if you plan to watch it, I advise you to do the same, as it’s the biggest benefit you will get out of it.


RECOMMENDATIONS

-Flying Witch for feel good type of shows/slice of life fans
-Kiki’s Delivery Service, similar premise, more focused story
-Kino’s Journey, similar premise although the main character is not a witch
-Little Witch Academia, similar beginning, way better outcome


4/10