ADDED 1/28/21: After listening to this song about a thousand times, I think I can say that this is my new favorite anime opening. It’s so beautiful…. I love singing along, too. 😊
UPDATE: I made some changes to the translation based on the English dub of episode 12.
VERSE The more you add color to your dream The more it takes shape You can picture it; you can make it come true
Like a gentle breeze Turning old pages I look back… “No, it’s okay”
Stories of encounters and farewells Full of things I don’t know* I gently reproduced them in spreading ink
CHORUS “Where are you going?” A little farther What I leave behind becomes part of my dreams I choose whatever appeals to me, and my choices Make me who I am
“Let’s meet again, it’s a promise” I thought I saw you smile at me “Let’s meet again” — a pinky promise is a magic spell I woke up to the sound of your voice
Translated by me with DeepL Translator
* This line comes before the previous one in the song, but I thought the translation made more sense this way.
ADDED 1/28/21: After listening to this song about a thousand times, I think I can say that this is my new favorite anime opening. It’s so beautiful…. I love singing along, too. 😊
Happy Halloween! Last year, I reviewed three “witchy” anime: Witch Craft Works, Flying Witch, and Ojamajo Doremi. Well, there’s a new witch on the small screen right now, and she’s…interesting. She’s Elaina, the hero of Majo no Tabitabi (The Witch’s Travels), a.k.a. Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina.
Just Do It, Like Niké
We open with Elaina as a child reading her favorite book: The Adventures of Niké, the diary of a witch who traveled the world. Elaina decides she wants to be a witch herself one day and embark on her own adventure. Her mom is almost too okay with it. (Side note: I think she’s Niké. We’re never told her name, so she could be, though she probably goes by something else to hide her identity.)
Elaina studies and practices until at 14 years old, she becomes the youngest person in the country of Robetta to pass the magic exams and become an apprentice. Apprentice witches wear porcelain flower brooches. I love those little worldbuilding details. 😊
This is where we find out her main flaw: arrogance. She loves being seen as a prodigy, and during her celebration dinner with her parents, she calls the other examinees “weak”. The poor things will be apprentices for years, but she’ll be a full-fledged witch in no time!
In order to become full-fledged, she has to train under another witch and earn her recognition. Surely, any witch would jump at the chance to train Robetta’s youngest apprentice ever, right?
Nope. Everyone turns her down.
While wondering what to do next, Elaina overhears her parents talking about someone called The Stardust Witch, who has recently moved into the nearby woods. She investigates and finds a witch shouting and flailing in front of a tree with purple butterflies dancing around her.
…Well, it’s not like she has other prospects. Elaina ignores her first impression and approaches the witch. Her name is Fran, and surprisingly, she knows who Elaina is and that she’s looking for a teacher. And she says yes!
Finally, Elaina’s training to become a full-fledged witch begins…
…Or not.
Fran’s Plan
For one month, Fran uses her as her servant. She makes her cook for her, wash her clothes, catch animals for her spells, kill spiders in her bathtub, and massage her shoulders. You’d think Elaina wouldn’t take it — that she’d grab her broom, fly out the door, and leave Fran to do her own chores. But no. She suffers through it, holding out for the day her teacher will finally decide to teach.
Now if you’ve watched enough anime, you probably realize, as I did, that Fran is up to something. I didn’t buy her airhead act. These types of mentors are always more clever and more powerful than they seem at first.
Just as Elaina reaches her limit, Fran decides it’s time for a test. A duel. Against her.
And she doesn’t hold back. She hurls energy beams, boulders, flames, and lightning bolts at Elaina. Eventually, she gains her composure and tries to fight back, but she’s no match for a seasoned witch. Fran knocks her to the ground over and over until she can’t stand anymore, then she holds her wand to her neck. Duel over.
Elaina bursts into tears. After awkwardly comforting her, Fran reveals that Elaina’s parents paid her to be her teacher. They wanted her to learn about setbacks and failures, so that in the future, when something didn’t come easy for her, she’d know how to handle it.
Unfortunately, this girl is too determined for her own good. She’ll endure anything to get what she wants…and that’s her weakness. It’s why Fran was able to exploit her for labor. She needs to learn to say no.
Interesting message. Most of the time, we think of cocky people as manipulators, not suckers. But having a big ego can make you easy to control, especially if you’re willing to do anything to gain approval or maintain your image.
Elaina takes the lesson to heart, and Fran finally starts teaching her. After one year, the apprentice blooms into a talented and powerful witch. Her training ends when she beats Fran at a duel for the first time. On graduation day, Fran replaces her flower brooch with an official witch’s badge and dubs her “The Ashen Witch” because of her white hair. (As for her name, “The Stardust Witch”, she chose it because it sounded cool.)
With her job done, Fran leaves Robetta. She’s actually from another country, and she came there to meet someone. Elaina asks if she did, but of course she doesn’t answer. Figures. Maybe she tell her when they meet again. (Spoiler alert: it happens early in the series.)
Now that Elaina is a witch, there’s only one thing left to do: begin her journey. Her father is one of those anime dads who doesn’t want his pwecious widdle baby to go, but again, her mother is 100 percent okay with it — on one condition. Well, three conditions. She makes Elaina promise:
To run whenever she’s in danger
To not think of herself as someone special
To come home eventually and tell them about her adventures
Of course Elaina says yes (although she breaks the first two promises quickly). Her mother gives her a standard witch’s outfit, two hats (in case she loses one), and a diary to record her travels. So leaving her sobbing father in her mother’s care, the young witch takes to the skies.
“Who’s That Heartless Hero? That’s Right! It’s Me!”
The rest of the show is a bunch of episodic stories that take place in a random country Elaina is in. This is where things start to get weird.
After a lighthearted episode where she meets her future apprentice (I think) named Saya (UPDATE: nope, I was wrong), the tone shifts dramatically. We’ve seen everything from curses and a slave to implied suicide and the genocide of an entire kingdom. It’s like watching a different show! This is not what I thought I signed up for!
The strangest part is Elaina doesn’t react to these situations the way you would think she would. I don’t mind cocky heroes. In fact, I like the contrast between their noble deeds and their big heads. It can make them more interesting than your typical virtuous knight or flawless superhero.
But even cocky heroes need to display some virtues like empathy and self-sacrifice. In other words, they should still be heroic. Elaina doesn’t feel that way to me. She’s not a horrible person — at least she cares about her parents, Fran, and Saya. But I don’t like that she rarely tries to help people in need, except in minor ways that don’t make a difference.
For example, in episode two, she finds a man in the midst of a curse taking over his body. What does she do? She backs up, jumps on her broom, and flies away without looking back. How admirable.
Oh, did I mention the curse is her fault? You’ll see what I mean when you watch the episode.
It ticked me off that she didn’t even try to help him. One viewer said there was nothing she could do, but I disagree. We see her turn back time in some scenes. Granted, as a young witch, I’m sure her magic has its limits, but I would have felt better if she had at least tried and failed instead of doing nothing at all.
So yeah, I don’t like Elaina yet. The most recent episode I watched helped me start to warm up to her, since she does act more selflessly and shows a sense of gratitude. But she has to do more to win me over.
I haven’t given up on her, though. Another reason I like cocky heroes is that they usually don’t stay that way. As I said in a post on my other blog (about a couple from Winx Club), flaws are tools for development. Characters have them so we can watch how they lose them.
I think this will happen to Elaina. After all, her mother made her promise not to think too highly of herself. She’s failing so far, but we still have seven episodes. Who knows what will happen?
Verdict
If you can tolerate Elaina’s arrogance and some darker moments — I doubt every episode will be like that — I recommend this show. And if nothing else, it’s gorgeously animated. Anime is not just entertainment. It’s art.
You can watch Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina on Funimation and Hulu.
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