Hello, thanks for reading this review ^-^. This is my first one so it is probably not the best; even so, any constructive criticism would really help. I also wanted to say it’s likely that I didn’t cover everything in this review so if I may have missed something then yeah; this is long enough anyways as you will find out if you read all of it. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy the read!!!

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On the surface, Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina/Majo no Tabitabi is a charming episodic tale about a young girl named Elaina who is inspired by a book to become a witch and travel across the world writing about her own adventures. I went into this hoping I could escape the realities of our currently extremely depressing climate and experience a magical journey alongside this carefree protagonist. However, by the end of it I felt… ‘bewitched’ if you will (This is the only pun, I promise xD). What first seemed like a wholesome episodic collection of tales from a young witch’s adventures became so much darker.

A wolf in sheep’s clothing…

In episode 1 & 2, my expectations of this show were satisfied, from the initial development of Elaina’s character through her training, to the establishment of her relationship with Saya and her visit to the Land of Mages. This series follows a repeated theme that I would expect from such a show which involves one of the main characters or the audience learning some sort of life lesson; a moral to the story.

Spoiler, click to view

For example in episode one, Elaina is forced to do several of her Fran's household chores for seemingly weeks on end without learning any new magic or skills or seemingly anything to do with actually being a witch. The main lesson is that you don’t have to endure tedious & painful things that you don’t want to do hoping that the ideal situation will just magically appear at the end of the tunnel (ok, maybe I was lying ‘bout that one pun earlier). She learns to speak up for herself and tells Fran what she really wants rather than just slaving away

However, in episode 3 the story takes a grim turn and whilst I thought this may just have been a one-off, from episode 4 it became clear that this was not your average magical adventure. In many cases, it seemed to do the opposite of what I had originally desired; rather than diving into a feeling of escapism, some episodes just reminded me of how evil humanity and nature can be in any world.

A lighter side…

Of course, this does not mean that the whole story had such a stern atmosphere, I definitely welcomed the episodes which provided some light comedy every now and then with some classic & unique scenarios.

Spoiler, click to view

like the two towns split by a wall or the grape-stomping villages in episode 8

I think this kind of contrast throughout the series was well-done and convinced me as an audience member to continue watching, but I think what was even better at engaging the audience was how it prompted us to fill in the gaps at the end of each episode. Many of the stories, especially in the first-middle part of the series, end on a cliff-hanger as we are left to put two and two together. This kind of storytelling works in pushing us to watch the next episode hoping that there is some indication of how the previous story ended even if we know that it will likely not be the case. Overall, the story and various premises are well-written & well-executed and I thoroughly enjoyed it even if it was depressing at times. Coupled this with a mixture of ominous and elegant music, it was really quite… enchanting (ok I will actually stop now!).

Elaina’s character is frustrating…

Whilst I did enjoy many of the characters in this series, even if some of them were only present for one/two episodes, there was one major outlier and that was Elaina herself. Whilst I did not mind her carefree character, Elaina’s ego was a bit too much for me at times.

Spoiler, click to view

I know the first episode was about being self-confident and standing up for yourself, but Elaina really needed to turn down the self-righteousness just a tad

The fact that she is presented (or presents herself) as having little to no flaws kind of hurts the story in some ways. I mentioned earlier about how many of the episodes are left to open-ended for us to fill in what might have happened after Elaina had left that particular town/country; the problem is that in many cases when events in that episode seemed to end badly, Elaina could have easily fixed them or done something for that episode to end positively. Instead, despite being shown as this witch with all this talent who can easily beat many skilled opponents and get herself out of various sticky situations, she seems to just leave events to unfold as if it isn’t her business.

Spoiler, click to view

despite arguably starting the plant takeover in episode 3

Now I will admit that this is probably just ‘hopeful me’ wishing for every chronicle to end happily; I have seen people argue that this is just another moral of the story that unfortunately some things are just out of your control. I understand the notion that it would be a fitting lesson in a series intended to portray such morals and I do tend to agree, but again the fact that Elaina has little flaws and is also presented as stubbornly ego-centric in some sections of the anime makes this argument less believable. There is one episode (potentially the darkest one of all) where I can acknowledge this is the case since we can visibly see the helplessness and trauma she experiences afterwards but I won’t go into too much detail for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet.

Spoiler, click to view

I do think that episode 12 saves this in a way though as we are able to see the different sides of Elaina as well as some of the reasoning behind her some of her previous decisions.

Other notable characters to mention: whilst I was not a fan of Saya, I can accept that this is just a problem with my personal taste since I don’t particularly like the use of clingy characters for comedy. I don’t know why but I really liked Fran, maybe because she seemed to bring Elaina off her high horse and back down to earth whenever they met. Also, honourable mention to Sheila who was an absolute legend in the few episodes she was present for; I mean the car lights on the broom says it all. All the character & costume designs whilst similar in some cases, the colours and accessories helped to bring out the unique personality of each of the main & supporting cast.

Animation/Visuals

Overall, this anime had some high production values when it came to animation because every scene was visually magnificent. Everything from the landscape/towns to the characters; what shined most though was the magic especially during the few battle scenes in the series. Honestly it was just incredible and there is nothing much else to say. It would have been one of my contenders for best animation of the year if Crunchyroll would have actually put it up for nomination (trust me, this is not the only bone I have to pick with them -_-). I have to give credit to C2C studios; having watched several of their shows now, the quality of their animation is always top-notch and have on several occasions turned an average story setting into a great anime.

Audio & Music

Whilst there wasn’t any stand-out voice acting in my opinion, the sound effects were definitely a highlight of this show. The sound of magic being hurled into the air made any high-paced battles feel that much more gripping. What also really got me engaged was how the music would suddenly change whenever the atmosphere of the episode altered in some way. Overall, the music throughout the anime was very compelling and although it wasn’t anything notable in itself, it added another layer to the mood of every situation Elaina found herself in.

As for opening & ending theme songs, again it was nothing spectacular: the opening theme tune is ‘’Literature’’ by Reina Ueda who is a pretty established voice actor but I would like to hear some more of her songs in the future. The opening is quite relaxing and shows off the amazing animation the series has to offer, introducing the characters and scenery that we see throughout the series. The ending song is ‘’Haiiro no saga’’ by ChouCho who is very established as an anime singer in her own right, already having several big anime opening & ending songs under her belt (like Hyouka op 1 and some for the Fate series). It’s no surprise, taking this into account that I think it is better than the opening from a song quality perspective (as you can tell, I’m not an music expert xD).

Final Thoughts

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Whilst not a utterly unique premise and structure, the anime definitely had it’s own dark & unique twists on this episodic style of storytelling. If your someone who isn’t a huge fan of the action but appreciates excellent animation and the magical anime genre as a whole, I would highly recommend giving this a go. For me, Wandering Witch was definitely a decent way to round out a depressing 2020 even if it reminded me of my own mortality somewhat.

__Story: 8
Characters: 6
Animation/Visuals: 9
Audio & Music: 8
Enjoyment: 8__

(Edit: changed scores and implemented new scoring system - see profile page for more info.)