Majo No Tabitabi Light Novel

“The best thing about a journey is the experience itself, not the destination.”
This is a phrase that has stuck with me while reading this book series over the past few months. I started reading it because the anime was unique. I wanted to continue exploring the different stories as the non-attached story writing style while utilizing existing character development was something I hadn’t seen. So I started my journey by reading Volume 4. (the book Amnesia’s past story was explained)

Why was I hooked on this book series?

To put it simply, "Elaina."
Here is a detailed explanation of why I like her as a character:

• She’s my favorite character of all time. Simply because of her personality. Her personality was shaped because of her not getting acknowledged as a good apprentice witch at a young age. She was a child prodigy, passing the exams at the age of 14. While an average magic user struggles at 18 even. To become a full-fledged witch as an apprentice, you need to be acknowledged by another witch. And because Elaina was a child prodigy, no other witch in her hometown wanted to teach her. And when she was taken in by a “mysterious” witch, there was no magic training for a month, then she was bullied to desperation by her teacher. (this will make sense when you read the story thoroughly)

• This part made me attached to the character. And as she develops as a character further down the line, her twisted personality (being nasty or nice depending on the situation) makes the stories touching. Because in her heart, she has grown to be a nice person but because she was rejected when she was a child, she keeps a devious approach to those around her. And shows her nicer side when she senses that the person she met is genuine with their intentions.

With more and more interactions, her character further develops and we see sides of her that most of us can’t believe exists. Like one of the chapters in Volume 6, in which she acted like a tsundere cat girl. (not going too in-depth for obvious reasons)

• Enough about Elaina, let’s talk about the structure of the story as well. At first, it feels like a diary, because there are stories with no context, from our traveling witch Elaina. But as we go further in volumes, the stories slowly connect, and there are even long storylines that are quite well written. Especially to show a newly introduced character’s past. (Amnesia [4], Vivia [6], Fran’s Past [8]) They allocate a good 40-80 pages of story for their past, making their interactions with Elaina much more engaging. And they reappear now and then in the disconnected stories, making it delicate to see more of their interaction with Elaina. (or each other)

• I say the stories are disconnected, but there is quite a bit of reference to the introduced characters' past so you can not read out of order. (I did and I had to reread it because of it)

It makes the story feel worse if you do not know the context, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t read out of order.

Enough about the story, Now I want to mention the general positives that this series has.

• Afterwords… I usually skip out on that but for this series, I look forward to reading it every time as the author Jougi Shiraishi puts some of his odd thoughts in these, like his childhood memories, or recent situations, which sheds light on where he got the inspiration for certain chapters. And it made me understand his motive for writing this series in general as well.

• Having disconnected stories feel connected instead of making one big storyline is a huge positive as well. It keeps the reader attached and makes them keep an eye out for the next volume releases.

I have currently read through Volumes 3-8, This section is reserved to rate each volume and the impact that it had on me.

Volume 3 - 6/10

• The first three volumes of this series were written back in 2016 when this series was available to the public, and because of that Shiraishi Jougi decided not to continue this. So Volume 3 was written as a way to end the series, which did not do the job because of how awkward it was structured. The overall story structure was poor in this volume as well, even though the stories were decent, it felt odd. In 2017, this series gets officially picked up, and in 2018 by Yen Press for English press, so the story continues anyways. The next volumes are a big step up in both writing quality and storytelling though. If I only read the first 3 books, I’d probably rate this series a “7” at max. So you’ll see why the book series is a “100” for me in the Volume 4 part.

Volume 4 - 10/10

• A big step up from the last volume in almost every way. There are more connected stories, the writing quality and storytelling are overall better, and it contains one of my favorite story arcs for this series, “Amnesia” This volume with its both dark and fun stories, manages to place at second place for my favorite volumes for this book series.

Now let’s get to the reason why this volume is a 10/10 for me:

• I usually don’t cry about an anime or a character in a book, but this book did it for the first time...

When you are miserable and have no one to turn up to, there will be someone… Even if it is a person you don’t know. But when you find that person, you will feel at ease. You will be scared if they will leave you or not because of the burden you carry, but you still act carelessly. Because you know, they care about you. And you know how to show your appreciation. Especially when the person that cared for you is on the opposite end of the stick this time.

The person that is there for Amnesia's hardships being Elaina, and Amnesia’s expressed emotions exactly felt like this.
And me being in a depressed state, I related to this. A lot.

After reading this volume, I emotionally grew an attachment to both Elaina and Amnesia, which I was not expecting. And I cried... Like a baby.

Volume 5 - 8.5/10

• Overall, there are more positive stories in this volume, they were wholesome. I always had a grin on my face, watching Elaina being a “TSUNDERE” reading this volume. After reading this volume, I decided that I will pursue reading this series until Yen Press stops pressing English books for it.

(I read volumes 4 and 5 in close periods, so I made this decision at 4.)

• After getting attached to Elaina as a character, these interactions made more and more sense, it was sweeter than anything and I fell in love with her even more.

• One thing to add, from this volume, Jougi Shiraishi, the author starts interacting with readers more in the afterword, they are always fun to read.

Volume 6 - 9/10

• Dark stories' quantity increased quite a bit, and in this volume, the storytelling quality increases even more. There were some creepy stories, which I enjoyed Elaina’s reactions to. The series starts to contain a lot more “long” story arcs starting from this novel which will take 1/3rd of the book.

• From this volume, new characters that get introduced feel like they have something similar, yet they feel different. Making them quite complex, increasing the interaction quality. Especially with characters that were introduced earlier in the series.

Volume 7 - 9.5/10

• This is my favorite volume out of all, the “disconnected” stories feel like they are all connected in unexpected ways, the storytelling gets EVEN better, and character interactions get much more engaging in general. This is the peak of the series quality-wise.

Volume 8 - 9.1/10

• This one is quite nice as well, we get to cover a dark secret between Elaina’s teacher Fran, and why she was a teacher like she was towards Elaina. We see a lot more old characters returning here as well, which I was craving because the last one was in Volume 5 with Saya and Avelia.

I overall enjoyed this journey, and I want to continue supporting the series as reading this series gave me hope, a light that I would not imagine finding otherwise. I am gonna keep an eye out for the next volumes, peace!

__I will edit this review as I read the missing volumes for 1-10, after I read 10, for future volume reviews I will make a new review page._

I wrote this part of the review back in 2022, so I am not changing my final rating but I wanted to give a 2026 update since my sentiment is quite different now. What I want to say is my attachment towards the series overall got a massive decline in the last few months. I've come to realise that... Elaina is a problematic character and the story itself is nothing more than one-off incidents that the author had written, for the sole sake of making his unease at life, dissipate. To tell himself and others that it's alright to be a cocky person, and reinforcing to everyone reading that they should keep acting that way. Especially through the narrative of how Elaina acts. She is a problematic character for sure. I still like her to some degree, but she is no longer in my favorites and will probably never come back to that spot.

I could go on more but what I will tell you is that my rating for the story is barely a 7/10 nowadays, most likely lower. Keeping it 10/10 in this review though as that was the sentiment I had been carrying at the time