Majo no Tabitabi

I'm not entirely sure why I watched four episodes of this show. Everything, from the original light novel cover to the studio (C2C) and production team, made me think nothing but “oh, it's just another mediocre LN adaptation” and prefer to choose more entertaining shows from this season instead. However, the power of MAL hype is strong, and hot discussions about the third episode attracted my attention. New Kino no Tabi? A show where the protagonist is not the purest person in the whole world and can make decisions that fall in the morally grey territory? Not your typical LN adaptation? Ok, ok, I gave ... it a try… and what a disappointment, even for my low expectations.

What “deep” things people find here? What “not your cute fantasy with cute waifus” type of stuff? It’s just another boredom that uses an imitation of deep content instead of really deep things; an anime where primitive and childish stories (remember kids, stealing is bad; remember kids, train hard and be nice with other people) are mixed with… another primitive and childish stories. Episode 3? Ok, there are flowers, they are (spoiler) and caused some (spoiler). Moral of the story? “Even beautiful roses have their thorns”. WOW, so deep, so philosophical, so unique, so meaningful! Who cares about Kino's Journey, we have a new seasonal king here! How that moral lessons for 12 years old kids can be even a little interesting? Just how?

Our protagonist, Elaina? The road movie is a rough genre, but a charismatic, charming main character can make even a clichéd story enjoyable. What we have here? Naive and egoistic b… witch. Sorry, I wanted to like this girl — tried to see her inner demons, her philosophical point of view as a traveler, her interesting decisions due to the episodes, but nah — “praise me more” and “I don’t want to know what happened with a slave girl” are two phrases that describe our MC perfectly. She just doesn’t care about anything, even about her journey and the places where she travels; our witch is too epic for all that plebs. Kino wasn’t a superman, and two girls from Shoujo Shuumatsu weren't powerful magicians; instead of them, Elaina can use her magic to change something — destroy flowers, take care of the slave girl, et cetera. However, she doesn’t want to do it at all and just leave things to happen. Reason? She doesn’t care. Ok, and why should I?

Art and animation? Go to the C2C official site, type “generic cute light novel fantasy designs” and you’ll get everything that you can see in Wandering Witch. Spend the rest of your budget for some cool magical fights (but not so much — it’s not a Harry Potter, our money isn’t infinite, remember?) and use CG for everything else. CG butterflies. CG roofs & flowers. CG witches. CG backgrounds. CG CG. Sad bad true, nowadays animators forgot how to draw and use CG instead of everything. Who are we to blame them?

I wanted to see something unique here. Just something that can give me emotions — happiness, sadness, pain, interest, maybe even anger. However, there is nothing much to say about Elaina — it’s just mediocre. Mediocre adaptation of the mediocre light novel in the castle of mediocrity: boring, uninspiring, nothing to grab my attention at all. Want to watch another clichéd anime fantasy? Try Majo no Tabitabi — maybe you will enjoy it, and even add Elaina to your favorites, because why not. What about me? Sorry, but I prefer Strike Witches, not Generic ones. Peace.

If you went into this show expecting all sunshine and rainbows, you would be sorely mistaken. This is not your typical lighthearted fun adventure. Elaina’s journey is bittersweet and oftentimes filled with some truly dark and depressing moments.

The story centers around Elaina, a talented witch who happens to be a rare prodigy. She is coined the Ashen witch based on her long ashen colored hair. Being so young, she embarks on an adventure traveling from place to place encountering many people along the way who all have their own issues. There are many other shows this premise draws similarities to such as Kino’s Journey and ... Mushishi. While in Mushishi, Ginko would go around and help people with their problems, Elaina doesn’t necessarily do that. There are some exceptions but for the most part, she would just happen to stumble upon the misfortunes of other people and choose to not get directly involved. She is a morally grey character and this plays a role in making the show bittersweet and distinct. Not every tale ends in a delightful and happy way meant to teach you some important lesson about life. Elaina isn’t some champion of justice who tries to push her self-righteous beliefs onto others. She is for the most part blunt and distant with her interactions and personality. She is admittedly kind of full of herself, self-absorbed and can come off as a bit of a jerk. If something were to put her at risk with nothing to show for it, she will simply not bother and choose to avoid the issue at hand.

As one would guess the show is episodic in nature. Despite this, some of the side characters Elaina meets are recurring resulting in there being a sense of payoff with her encounters and progression in the story. Each episode features a new concept to keep itself fresh. In one episode Elaina could be in a civilization of people who can’t tell lies and in another, she would find herself in a decimated city with an angry fire breathing dragon roaming about. There is no shortage of diversity here. The opening song compliments this as it is a wonderfully light and soothing adventurous soundtrack with gorgeous visuals to ease you into the wonder of the show.

This show has some elements of intrigue but it is not without its faults. For one thing, it is a bit slow paced at times so if you are into more of the action stuff, this probably won’t be for you. This is very much a show about absorbing the atmosphere and setting. Unfortunately, while there were certainly some tragic tales and rather unnerving scenes, the majority of them did not invoke much of a reaction from me other than a bit of shock value or dread. I didn’t feel like there was a meaningful lesson to be learned by these tales other than “Oh, life is tragic” or “things are not always what they first appear to be”. It feels a bit monotonous and pointless.

This issue is only elevated by the lack of proper character development and herein lies the main strength and weakness of the show: the personality of our main character. While on one hand, some people may find Elaina to be an interesting and charming character as she is simply a traveler who acts more like an observer than a justice seeker, others may view her as being relatively shallow and a narcissist. She more often than not doesn’t bother to help people despite having the means to do so and one can’t help but feel a bit of disconnect. But I do believe that this serves the story well as her lack of involvement in some of these tales gives the world a life of its own as we often don’t see the conclusion to several people’s stories even if a certain outcome was implied. Even with all this power and being a prodigy, Elaina is just as much an ordinary person as anyone else thus begging the question of “why bother getting involved in the first place if it’ll only cause me harm?”

The other witch who has a crush on Elaina has a relatively flimsy and one note personality. I didn’t find anyone from the main cast all that interesting. In fact, the only characters I could find any investment in who have some level of depth only appear in one episode while the recurring cast lacks any likability. They could have made things more interesting by having Elaina go through a bit of an emotional and internal psychological struggle. Instead, she comes off as someone who doesn’t care about the messed up world around her and turns a blind eye all while spouting obnoxious one-liners about how amazing she is. We also never really explore her psychology especially after the first episode where it looked as if that would be the case. Unfortunately, she just comes off as a self absorbed character who lacks any endearing qualities aside from being cute which seems to be more than enough of a selling point.

With all that said, the visuals are pretty incredible. There are countless gorgeous backgrounds that give more life and personality to the world. There is an attention to detail on small items that would appear on desks or cluttered rooms and some of the buildings in the city landscape. Some of the character designs truly stand out and are appealing like a few of the witches while others like random villagers and townsfolk or some minor characters are pretty forgettable and bland. Elaina’s design is overall fantastic and clearly the main draw of the show. Her dark witch outfit compliments well with her ashen hair giving her the aura of an imposing figure. She is inarguably very cute and definitely stands out among all the other characters. The animation is mostly stunning, capturing the feel of being a whimsical experience filled with magic and witches similar to what you would get from something like Harry Potter.

It’s difficult to parse what kind of experience one should expect to get out of Majo no Tabitabi as it almost seems niche. On one hand, it can genuinely be an enjoyable show to watch with its exquisite art and episodic variety. Seeing one tragic tale after another in a seemingly messed up world can be fun as you are never certain what will happen next. It might also scratch that itch that some fans of Kino’s Journey or Mushishi yearn for with a whimsical tale of adventure and uncertainty but at the same time rarely provides anything truly deep or inspirational that you’ll be thinking about down the line. The characters in this show also seem to be lacking in many ways making it difficult to invest in or care about them. But despite there being many flaws with the show, it can still be engaging if you become enthralled in Elaina as a character and whatever tale she finds herself in.

The first episode was absolutely amazing and definitely peaked my interest in watching this anime without any research on it. It was beautifully animated and stunningly well written.

unfortunately however that is where it all goes downhill, after the first episode the story becomes boring and very much a monster of the week style of show. The animation quality seems to have had half the budget after the first episode and looses the beauty that it had.

I recommend to anyone to watch the first episode and that is a solid 8/10 for me, but after that episode the show is at best a 5/10.

This show caught my attention as soon as i saw the trailer for it, i thought it would be a deep emotional journey of a young girl starting her life experiencing the world both happiness and the hardships of life. i was wrong. this show is about a spoiled bit..... i mean witch that goes on a journey and doesnt accomplish anything.

Story 5
the story is the worst part of the show by far. elaina sets off on a journey to experience the world but dont get your hopes up. they really mislead you in the first episode what a witch is, because it looks ... like witches are a sort of hero, but thats false, at least in elaina case. her mind set on her journey is to be a spectator unless it benefits her(literally). she just likes watching ppl suffer even tho she has the power to help.

Art 10
the art is the only thing that makes this show worth watching. its top notch and cgi is done really well

everything else 6
i dont feel like wasting my time writing a description for the other sections because i really dont have anything positive to say. overall this show isnt the worst but it def not anywhere close to the best if you dont mind a stuck up girl watching ppl suffer and love beautiful animation this show is for you

*THIS REVIEW DOES NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS*
I was once again convinced by the r/anime community to watch an anime that didn't really look too interesting. Let's just say I got what I came for.

STORY: 3/10

By far the worst part about this anime is the story itself. It's the most basic shit ever and plays it way to safe. It's a story about a young witch that travels through a fantasy world. Yes, that's it, a 7 yo could come up with something like that. Either way, Majo no Tabitabi follows an episodic formula with a problem getting introduced and resolved in the same episode. Let me ... just say, i hate this way of telling a story, i know its done to "feel" like the book the MC is writing but it ends up hurting the show. It gets boring fast and it feels like the main character never really learns anything from these experiences. At this point I realized: this show is just a bunch of filler episodes stuck together. And that is even more obvious when the show finally has a story "arc" that is 2 and a half episodes long and its fucking amazing compared to the rest of the show. Overall, not trying enough.

ART: 6/10

The art, like the story, is very basic and doesn't really manage (or even try) to impress the viewer at any point during the show. But when we are talking about animation and art, it doesn't hurt the show as much to not take any risks, because that means there wont be any mistakes. Majo no Tabitabi takes the safe bet once again and delivers on an ok art-style with decent to good animation, doesn't do anything too good though.

SOUND: 7/10

I didn't really make anything of the music, once again, like this whole show, its kinda forgettable. But the music isn't overwhelmingly annoying and also the voice acting from the main character is amazing so at least it does something right. I would comment on the OP and EP but i don't remember it. I'm just gonna give it a 7 because they didn't make any mistakes.

CHARACTER: 7/10

The MC is the only important character, who is the best part of the show because for once, it's a pretty original take on a character just starting their journey, being awfully cocky and selfish during the duration of the whole show. That's (finally) something original about this show and she really manages to kinda carry the show. The other recurring characters are the MC's friend who is neither funny or annoying, and a teacher that only appears in 2 episodes but i thought i had to include her. Overall all the focus goes on the MC so the makers of this show don't really have to worry about jugling other characters.

ENJOYMENT: 4/10

Boring. That's the word that describes this show perfectly, i thought multiple times about just dropping it but i said to myself that I'm too many episodes out to drop it now, i never looked forward to the next episode and the show overall bored me to death. There was one episode in which the show goes full fucking berserk and just drops a super gory and serious episode out of nowhere, which i really enjoyed but the show sadly didn't stick to the narrative. It also has that 2 episode arc which I already said I enjoyed but that's about it.

ENDING STATEMENT: It ended up being a pretty boring and uneventful ride, it didn't really make any mistakes but it's safe-ness pisses me of and makes it seem like more of a quick cash-grab than a project people poured their all into. I think you should stay away from this one.

Overall: 5/10

Okay so, I had really high expectations from this anime and this partly why i'm disappointed, because of my own fantasies of what it could have been.

The anime is cute, the characters are okay, but i wasn't expecting... no plot, no evolution, just a series of different stories that are more or less entertaining.

Overall, i'm bored, and i'm sad i couldn't enjoy it. i wanted a story that would evolve throughout the episodes, character learning stuff and changing her perception of the world... Different secondary characters being more interesting... idk this anime is just empty once the presentations are over. it's cute but it's ... boring. the only good thing is that she has a great confidence and that she has an interesting personality (knowing when to say no and not force herself to do stuff).

The truth was I expected more. In the end it was a good attempt but I can't recommend it. It seems to me that the protagonist loses me in the middle of the series. I don't like her egocentric and pedantic personality at all. Apart from the secondary school taking out the teachers, they suck. I get quite bored even if I finish it, and the end left me very cold, kind of shit. So if you read this don't waste your time looking at this.


En español:
La verdad me esperaba mas. Al final fue un buen intento pero no lo puedo recomendar me parece que ... la protagonista me pierde en la mitad de la serie tipo no me gusto para nada la personalidad que tiene de egocéntrica y pedante. Aparte los secundarios sacando a las maestras son una mierda. Me aburrido bastante aunque la termine,y el final me dejo muy frio tipo una mierda. Así que si lees esto no gastes tu tiempo mirando esto.

Don't mistake the score of 6 for me thinking this is a mediocre anime, it is a really good one.

First the premise is simple, it's an episodic anime about a young witch that goes on a journey through different lands. Each episode tells a store of a place or a person that Elaina (our witch) encounters. There is some continuity mainly in returning characters.

The stories we see are much like fables, they are rather dark but with a clear moral. I disagree completely with the statement that (as the top-voted review here states) the anime being nihilistic with a narcissistic protagonist. No the opposite - ... characters might be nihilistic, but the stories show their folley, it illustrates why those things do not work. I might disagree with some of it, but it is a clear misunderstanding of the function of immoral characters.

Elaina herself is a girl that proudly thinks of herself as beautiful and readily boasts of her own ability, but even though she does this it is clear that she finds her aloof image and pretension of carelessness crumble when faced with injustice. She is aware of her high thoughts of herself, she wears it like an armour.

But still, I wasn't that big a fan of the series. The short episodic structure makes it feel a bit boring and aimless. There are some great episodes, but the sum of the parts seem weaker than the parts themselves. I am a bit biased since I don't like episodic stories, but the setting and characters seem like they would work very well in an overarching plot, without sacrificing the "journeying through strange lands"-setting.

And I want to end by praising the art in the anime. It looks really great from start to finish. Except that lame sword, of course ;)

Who is this beautiful traveling witch - yeah me. Yeah right mehhhhh.

What the hell is wrong with this story, this whole anime is about what bad things can happen and you can experience thing. And whats more you can have some good experience also but the bad part will be more than good but you know what, you can just forget about it.

You got witch power time magic and stuff, now what about healing, someone bleeding and you do what, fix the roof tiles first, then handover handkerchief then heal. Someone turning into some weird flower tree and you got the power to help. You ... just watch and leave. Ohh yeahh look at me the beautiful witch.

This whole series was about which journey with shitty story and plot and yuri yeah lots of yuri. Tf is wrong with these producers.

The graphics/art was marvelous I would agree that the studio did a very good job and put a lot of hours and work into it but seriously man there are other good stuff out there that needs to be animated before this thing.

I wanted to drop it but wanted to find out why it got 7+ ratings but lol this is not upto the task. If you want to watch some good travel stuff with good story then I cant recommend this one.

I do hope that the studio puts the same kind of work in a better anime next time.

This is my own personal opinion. this review does not have any spoilers just episode names (I do not talk about the plot of the anime in any part in detail in any part of my review. i just give a generic comment about it. for example this episode 9 has a more serious plot.)

Okay, I just going to say it now. I like a good anime with magic and witches. (so that may impact my opinion in both a negative and positive way.)

The Story is 4 out 10. This suffer from every episode being a different story. The only real episode that links is ... 10 and 11 (but I say these 2 episodes are the weakest.) The strongest episodes is 9. Because it’s one of 2 episode that covers strong hard-hitting elements. Maybe if I was younger, I may have enjoyed this series a lot more.

The art is almost perfect. 9 out 10. not much else to say about it.

in this review, I going to consider music and sound as two different things.

I going to start off with music. It is a 2/10. Is this nothing ear catching it is all very basic. The OP is not bad but it could be better. i would of liked if the music took more risks rather then being basic.

The sound desire. Is good I would say in my opinion it is a 7 or 6 out of 10. This is main shown in episode 9.

The characters are 5 out 10 there are mainly forgettable. They mainly have one personality and that is how the character plays their time in the series. The returning characters don’t learn everything, and the main character does not seem to learn or remember anything that happened in the previous episode.

It is enjoyability I bring up episode 9 again. But it does suffer a lot about every episode being about a different thing. A few episodes have more than one plot in it. So, I give it 5 or 6 for enjoyability (if every episode was like episode 9 then the enjoyability would be a 7 or maybe even low 8.)

Before I give my overall opinion. I will say that I will not be disappointed if this series doesn’t get a season 2 and I probably won’t watch it. So, I give this anime series (Majo No Tabitabi or the Wandering Witch: The Journey Of Elaina) overall I give this a 6 out of 10.

So if there any reasons to watch it it is the art.

A somewhat poorly-conceived show with very nice visuals and some very good episodes, but heavily struggling with tone and message.

A travelling anime, while maybe not a massive genre, have some rules that makes them very enjoyable to a particular niche audience. They are usually slow and focus a lot on the world and well-constructed episodic characters, with the protagonist taking a backseat and revealing their story piece by piece, often through relating the fresh encounters with their past experiences. There's a sense of mystery and wonder to that structure, often leading to great emotional payoff. Elaina's journey has traces of that structure, but doesn't really ... fit into it very well, and in general, seems like a major case of identity crisis.

What I mean by that? The pacing of the show is bonkers, starting by Elaina, a real magic prodigy, being shunned and then thought a lesson in humility in a most contrived, asinine manner. Not that she learned that much, because her ego stays massive all throughout the series. The one lesson she theoretically learned, is that she's just a person like anyone else and in her travels, it's not her role to solve the world's problems or play the hero. However, that's also BS. She's powerful and smart and while sometimes her selfishness makes all the sense in the world (when she won't put herself in harm's way for strangers), other times she just leaves without doing the most obvious things (like telling certain slave owner that you can't make someone happy while denying them freedom). She understands things, narrates them to audience, but does jack **** because it's "not her place to intervene", I guess. This changes a bit later, but not in a consistent manner, so it doesn't feel like character growth, but rather weak writing.

The episodic stories themselves are... Mostly ok. There's a very obvious overarching mystery, a lot of yuri baiting, weird switches between relaxed fun and edgy-as-f*** ridiculousness. It's not that bad on moment-to-moment basis, but still very inconsistent, and Elaina herself is not appealing enough as a character to get as much focus as she does. The end result is a show that looks and sounds very cool, but is overall a massive, contradictory mess. Might still be worth it if you like the theme of touring fantasy worlds, but I only recommend it to most forgiving viewers.

I heard people saying, this is one of the best animes so far in 2020. I really don’t think It wasn’t I have seen some flaws that just really makes this anime fall short and what they are developing.

The story is….. I don’t know what to say. A 5? Probably. Its really a mix of emptiness, comedy or wholesomeness depending on what episode falls under, but they just feel incomplete or just simple. Also, travelling country per country they’re pretty much like the exact same thing along with every line Elaina saying “Who’s this beautiful girl? That’s me!”, it’s like a quote rather Making a ... story to yourself.

Artstyle is good. Im not gonna complain with that because it was very detailed, but its pretty much on-par with other animes that feel so eye appealing like Attack on Titan and Overlord. 8 for that.

Sound is fine, there are no problems, nor some weird quality in it. The opening is relaxing along with the ending. The only time I don’t find it satisfying are the sounds and background music heard while playing dull and dark scenes like Episode 3 and 9 in this. 7 for that.

Character is very short and limited. The only Character, besides Elaina or Saya that pretty much have essence is Nikki (Elaina’s Mom in the story and IRL anime). Having a calm and active voice when it comes to dialogue and fights. Some characters mostly the supporting, have dialogue, but some of their acting skill doesnt add much tone to the episode’s scene. The only episode I would give points to being active and have dialogue is episode 7 and 5.

Enjoyment is fine, I like the calm and quietness in some of the scenes shown in any episode while the background is playing, pretty much like Yuru camp and Super Cub. The only time I don’t enjoy it, are the scenes that are pretty disturbing like eps 3 and 9 as i said earlier about the sound.

Overall: Although the criterias are pretty much fine, I’d still put this a 5. Literally one of the slowest animes I watched. And they really fall short on what the anime showed us, even in its manga or the light novel, its just pretty small and limited.

And my Goodness I keep seeing these damn simps that want to be with Elaina, mostly on facebook, reddit, and youtube.
Just give up already, and act normal, not become a total creep, even if this is just a fictional character, you’re just ruining your normality. If you don’t like to give up, then be careful of what you are doing to yourself!

#Review info
Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained on my wordpress blog, which can be found through my profile. But TDLR; My personal opinion has much bigger weight than “critical” novel length “objective” mumbo jumbo.
Review layout: Minimal/Lazy MAL non-h
Review type: Anime
Note: Still testing review layouts. This line will be removed when I’m satisfied with the line.

#Review (short ver)
In a nutshell: Overconfident naïve witch on a grand adventure who never learns. Witch spice of edge.

#PROS
... +Great animation
+Great power/magic presentation
+Episodic location storytelling is great
+Fairly enjoyable side characters

#CONS
-Main character does not grow at all
-Value of main character is pretty much non-existent
-Very naiive and moronic witch girl who has too much power

#Review (comments/longer ver)
So, about this Anime. I did love the episodic story telling. It was great, each place main character visited had it’s pros and cons, but for viewers enjoyment they always had something going on whereas main character was tossed for sakes of interaction of whatever was happening in place she was visiting. But honestly, that sums it up. I loved the animation and the feel of it. And each location story was fairly enjoyable on it’s on

But now comes the big downside for me. I felt that the main characters purpose was probably most pointless one out of this type of adventure / episode Anime (i.e Kino’s journey, Mushishi) . Yes she had a grand reason for adventure, but what was most annoying I felt that every time something “different” or “dramatic” or “traumatic” whatever…., happened on each episode, main character would grow from it. Become smarter, become more cautious. But nope, we still get narcissistic overconfident naive witch girl, who lollygags around, putting her nose into various issues and by the process essentially ignoring the ones that need help, or helping essentially those who shouldn’t been helped. Meaningly, MC has no sense of Justice or responsibility. Even, on the most serious episodes, next episode is like absolutely nothing happened. That is my main gripe with the show. And that reason alone lowered score for me by 1 point.

Other than that, Anime has beautiful animation and fairly good OST. Magic presentation is done well and witches look great. World itself is fairly fun with various uses of magic and their own quirks.

Anyhow…. If you like episodic Anime to get short stories of various circumstances with witches and magic, then give it a try. But if you expect journey of main characters growth, then be prepared to be disappointed.

#Total Score 6/10

Overall, this is an okay episodical show about a witch on a journey who meets different people in different places. Most stories are rather forgettable, the standout stronger stories are surely EP 4 and EP 9. What makes this entertaining enough are the likable characters and the humour that isn't overbearing but simply accompanying the rest of the show. The high quality animation and soundtrack also bolster this show. Why is it still a mixed bag then? Because while it does nothing bad, it also does nothing exceptionally well. You can watch it and enjoy your time with it but it won't stick with you ... like really good shows usually do.

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elania would be an ok anime, for a child or someone just starting. To someone whose seen a fair variety of anime, this anime is a very basic and mediocre story. The only thing that keeps me from rating this lower is the art, wacky characters, and that there is some story progression within the anime.

The story is pretty bare bones, just a basic story arch that you learn in school. The anime is almost formatted like a kids show but with a few darker elements (depending on the episode).
The only good episodes, in my opinion, were episodes 5 & ... 9 as they have a lot more progression and action as well as more magic involvement. For a anime about witches/ a witches journey, there isn't a ton of magic in the story. The terms mages/witches/magic users are used way more in the anime than magic is used in the actual anime.
So its not a terrible anime, just very bare bones and kinda boring.

This anime had a lot of potential but loses momentum and plot before the end. The main character wishes to follow in the footsteps of a witch from her favorite book, become a witch, and travel. That's pretty much it for her character. Very little is done to either flesh out more of her character or even show growth and the travels that she does go on aren't very entertaining and few. I can count maybe three episodes that got me excited to watch. The rest felt like filler episodes you'd find in long running anime series to pass the ... time. So much more could have been done with the story and direction. Even the ending wasn't satisfying.

Majo no Tabitabi, or Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, is a rather interesting work that chose to walk a different path than your typical slice of life, cutesy stuff. While it is not the first of its kind, I'm still giving it credit for adding more substance to an overused formula. With all that being said, execution matters. While I did my best to enjoy the show as naturally as possible, there are flaws that I can't overlook and thus dampened my experience for Tabitabi.

Some of the highlights that this anime has to offer is a refreshing world-building. Though it can use some more ... polishing, I can still emerge myself in this fantasy realm of Tabitabi, especially when switching to locations that feature beautiful landscape shots. The magic mechanism is probably the only thing that bugs me somewhat during the ride. I don't know if they explain stuff in the light novel but anyway from how I see it, they're too convenient for some of the dramatic events for me to fully appreciate it. However, it's not really a terrible thing since the creator sure knows how to captivate on that to bring forth a worthwhile climax.

Now come to the main complaints. First and foremost, too many incoherencies. The structure of this series is annoying if you ask me. I've heard that it takes non-chronological order but even so, that's a bad decision because I can't quite take this show seriously when they head over the depressing and daunting route with some well-done episode. Simply put, there were only 3 "good" episodes in my book, which quickly got undermined by the random cringe humor and annoying segments. I know some people would beg to differ but that's just how I see it. I'm acknowledging that it is trying to balance between light mood and upsetting tone but with this kind of half-baked execution and content, it more or less has no clear direction than being wholesome.

The cast, in general, isn't too grandiose. The protagonist has raised quite a lot of debates but I'd rather not delve too much into that. I can see where all those take from, and my stance for her is most likely neutral, but only as a character. Confused? Well, Elaina isn't really a bad person from an in-verse perspective but to me, as an audience, I can't say I enjoy her personality or attitude to be more specific, even though it is more or less justified.

The side cast, on the other hand, is one giant mixed bag if I have to be honest. The yuri overtone IMO is the most obnoxious part in this regard. Not to say I'm entirely against it but I just can't stand how are they so adamant on this topic without giving a clear direction. Either bring them together for once or just cut it out, no in-between please. On another note, though there aren't many villains, they're mere decors that are just horrendous to get over with in any way. Nonetheless, some arc-characters were neatly handled such as Estelle or Fran. Apart from that, Elai-mom could be further fleshed out but not really a major issue to me.

Technical-wise, Tabitabi is quite modest but still sufficient enough to get the job done. The best part of this aspect is probably the sublime background artwork that befits the atmosphere of a fantasy world. To top it off, the use of sound is really what kept me in awe when it comes to dramatic moments. From the diversity of elemental sound (episode 4) to the unsettling ring from the Great Tower (episode 9) signifying a turning point of an event, details like that were what helped enhance the ride of tabitabi to me. The OP and ED are fine at best, but I do like the animated sequences for them.

The directing, however, is a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I feel like they're trying too hard to emphasize a key event but ended up dragging into the point of negating any potentially poignant value it has. It does have some great use though such as a chill talk between the characters, or some grim revelations. Lastly, I don't know why but I just can't seem to find the character design being 100% compatible with the background art because at some point I feel like they're just out of place or having reduced quality lol, but that's just me.

Final verdict:
Tabitabi has intriguing concepts and a potentially good cast but not really well presented. Furthermore, though it can contain nice themes, execution is always lacking behind, thus results in a rather spoiled feeling and a sense of incompleteness. All said and done, I'd still recommend giving it a watch if you're looking for a decent fantasy anime for a change of pace, or a bit of chilling.

First episode seemed like a nice backstory and art design & animation looked pretty enough, so I didn't get why some people are so disheartened with it. In fact, most critique sounded more intriguing than discouraging. However, from the episode 3 I started to get it: the protagonist seems like some kind of Reverse Witcher - attractive vain self-satisfied young simpleton girl that doesn't give much shits about anything, in contrast to Geralt - old beat-up man who can't stop himself from helping out everyone against his own benefit and safety. For being "notorious magical prodigy", she does nothing of note with her talent and ... supposed skill. So much so that her "stalker" manages to also travel the world but with actually practical & noble goals and semi-competent achievements. Although, she does follow the rules that her equally useless mother set out in the beginning. So her attitude of constant gloating isn't justified, it's even shown that her supposed talent is not unique and there are others who are far more capable than her at her age. Maybe that's why she gloats about her beauty and not skills or reputation. But the style of story-telling (short stories about things encountered on the road in the span of years without any grand plans or world-changing quests) still seems similar to Witcher, without mass seduction and chronic alcoholism, that is. Because this protagonist is passive in her role and kind of amoral, stories don't go much anywhere from their setup.

You better off not expecting the protagonist to be useful, despite what Episode 1 may seem to imply, let alone be a "hero", she's more of a hipster deadbeat (there is some genuine fun in that if you don't overhype yourself for disappointment from wrong expectations). Amusingly, Elaina looks kind of like Rimuru from TenSura and Roxy from Mushoku Tensei. Which is plenty cute, of course. Her mother is even bigger asshole than her, in addition to being incompetent educator for her and others, which would explain lack of heroism… or much agency. Which is a shame, as I like show's overall aesthetic.

It seems that the major reason for hating this anime comes from wannabe-Re:Zero Episode 9 (the worst one) with its cliche "shock-factor" grotesque violence, predictable non-twist and pretentious scene direction (they reeeally laying it thick on this one) for cheap emotional response without enough logical sense in-universe (the girl in there is just Elsa from Re:Zero but without even pretence of tragic backstory, as she laughs at gullibility of "think of the children" crowd). These witches really suck if they can't stop a rampaging baby that lacks any magical powers from slicing people in front of them harder than Jack The Ripper (and why would scheming psychopath even try to do it with a witness present, who showed herself emotionally unstable witch, no less ?). And our amoral protagonist gets burning feeling of her own moral outrage at the worst moments. It's all kind of comically stupid. Doesn't help that many viewers seem to take villain's sarcastic gleeful "but I was abused and sad, so it's fine" speech about gullibility straight which shows them as easy marks for young psychopaths in real life.

Worse yet, E9's thread is used as crux for the final episode (it implies full-blown multiverse of timelines) of weird allegories that seem to be implying that moral of the whole story is something along the lines of: "egotism is virtue and not giving a shit is the true source of happiness". Some source readers say that ending was completely messed up by mishandling its main characters: only aggressive version of Elaina (the one ashamed of being an useless egotist and hating others for it) was supposed to be from E9 while "the protagonist" skipped it, the stupid story of E9 was supposed to be told TO "the protagonist" of E12 (probably, the protagonist of all episodes but E9) and NOT vice versa. So the anime director made his own ending not make sense and destroyed what little character arc the protagonist had.