Majo no Tabitabi

This show is pretty darn awful. Spoilers... but nothing that important, as the show itself makes all too clear.

Determined girl devotes herself to the study of magic so she can become a witch and travel the world. Only, we don't get to see her train, or devote herself, or observe the trials she faces, except when her foreigner witch teachers beats her up out of nowhere to teach her humility.

But that's not what the show is about! It's about her travels afterwards! How she visits people across the world and touches their lives!

Only she doesn't. She's a passive observer to ... all kinds of things happening. Mainly people dying... and she does nothing about it. She doesn't help, or use her powers to change the outcomes of any situations, even though the show makes her out to be an extremely powerful mage. She teaches a kid who's pretending to be bad at magic how to ride a broom, except she already knows how... (still not sure what role Ellania actually played for her...) and she digs a hole. Also she fixes a teapot. None of these things actually help people or prevent tragedy.

But that's the point! The world isn't all roses and marshmallows! Ellania must learn this by zooming around and seeing sad things happen to other people!

So this is just Kino no Tabi on a broomstick? They took a slightly-better than average show concept, removed the titular talking motorcycle (also removing the main character's foil with whom she could have verbalized her thoughts on the events she witnesses), and slapped more comedically cliche tragic events on the line-up... gave the main character magical powers she could actually use to help people, and then have her still not help people.

At least in Kino no Tabi the main character usually had some kind of stake in what was going on, or got dragged into things forcibly. Ellania literally just waltzes in, puts her hands on her hips and goes 'huh.' Gives the one-off, episodic characters 'looks of judgement' as they do dumb stuff and then peaces out.

This pretentious show is almost unbearably stupid, and after the first episode had me a little hyped up, too! The art is really nice though, and the sound design of the magic is good.

I hate the anime. I would understand the no destination part, but so far it feels like there's no story. The story isn't about a witch, it's about the witch's travels. It feels like it's just a story about what the world she lives in is like. The anime might as well get rid of the heroine and just get a narrator to explain all the places she goes to.

The MC's name is Elaine, but what does she do other than travel and write? Does she like documenting? Is her purpose to document history? Or is it just for her parents to let her know ... about her travels? Which can be done by using letters, instead of a book. Is she going to get into a relationship? Not just a romantic one, but with anyone. Will she have close friends? Does she even get emotionally attached? Is MC intimidating? Kind? Impulsive? Strict? Decisive? What kind of person is she?
Not one of these questions have been answered or suggested, all I can deduce is that Elaine realizes her beauty so much that she might suck herself. I feel as if the character doesn't have depth. Any person you meet like her you won't find interesting, which is why it's hard for me to be interested in this anime. I would understand being apathetic so much as to not help any person you come through, but why? There is nothing about Elaine that makes her interesting. Other than the fact that she's the youngest person to be a witch.
Even the setting doesn't have a story. Why is it mostly witches respected? Are there male wizards? Are females the only one to manifest magic? With all these problems circulating, what the hell are the monarchs/presidents doing if the country is rampant with problems and people randomly dying? The reason I can think up of as to why anybody else would watch this is because Elaine is hawt.

Every season as of late, I can’t help but find myself on the lookout for fantasy stories to sink my teeth into. Oversaturated as the genre may be, sometimes, only sometimes, among all the manufactured shlock you’re likely to find a single gem rising above. Gems in which the fantasy setting is often merely used as a backdrop for a greater purpose, while also fully exploring it without getting caught up in the numerous tired tropes.

You can see why the promotional poster alone of Majo no Tabitabi sucked me in.

Majo no Tabitabi started out strong. Not held back by lazy tropes, complemented with sometimes breathtaking ... visuals and a couple of OSTs that captured the magic of the genre, it wasn’t hard for it to capture my interest and had me expecting more. The lack of tasteless fanservice and the way the characters were written (in the earlier episodes) almost made me think the series’ writing had a distinctly female touch. But decently-executed fantasy often isn’t enough: it’s the focal point of the show that distinguishes it from the rest.

The show is about Elaina. This is her story, her journey, and other characters are only anecdotes, mattering only in the extent of how much they relate to her. Putting aside my grievances with the series which I’ll list later, I enjoyed Elaina as a protagonist. It’s not often that a more self-centered, immodest character takes the focus (excluding the overly loud and cocky shounen protagonist trope) -- Elaina feels real, unexaggerated in her demeanor and deeply human. When Majo no Tabitabi is at its best, the show uses her journey and its magical setting to deliver certain ideas with its episodic adventures. For the first four episodes, that use of the setting pleasantly surprised me and kept me coming for more -- the show had not only subverted my expectations of a light novel-based fantasy series protagonist, but also the morals we’re used to in the medium.

It is up to the individual viewer whether some of the episodes’ unusual, seemingly anti-idealistic nature feels heavy handed and edgy, or whether it’s a nice breath of fresh air. Majo no Tabitabi doesn’t indulge in edginess or try to “be different” -- while the contrast between some of the more horrible scenes and the cutesy art is a pleasure to watch, even the seemingly grim episodes have satisfying endings, and their messages are often much less edgy and more grounded than given credit for. There is one particular episode where the “edginess”, however, does undeniably stand out — and it comes after a series of more whimsical and light-hearted adventures. I think most viewers will know which episode I’m referring to. Although it’s hailed as the peak of the series, I could only find it jarring and overly shocking after all the light-heartedness that preceded it (despite the terrific job in imagery, I commend the animators). There is little point in having a shocking encounter to break the protagonist down, only to completely forget about its events in the next episodes onwards. I’m not a purist who thinks development is everything a character needs (characterization is great, people!), however, beyond that episode, even directly following it, we barely get to see how Elaina was affected (in fact, her character remains mostly static throughout the series, with some effective characterization sprinkled here and there) -- this wouldn’t have bothered me as much, had the episode not possessed the trappings of a “cathartic” episode for her.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably wondering “how can that description be anything less than a 7?”

I almost feel bad writing this part, after having such high expectations and good faith on the show, but the more I watched, I found myself realizing that too much good faith was wasted on Majo no Tabitabi.

It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly my excitement for the next episode turned to mild interest, and then hope that maybe, just maybe the next episode would be better -- though if I had to say, it’d probably be after episode 4.

I mentioned how natural and grounded Majo no Tabitabi feels, despite some of its more grim episodes. This only goes for the first few episodes. After a certain point, the show derails to the point of indulgence -- and I’m not talking about amped up edginess. We get a character who reminds me of Demon Slayer’s Zenitsu -- who continually follows and harasses the protagonist, takes away from whatever conflict the characters are involved in, and generally is a nuisance to watch. The gag may be funny to some the first time -- it wasn’t to me, and certainly not the second, third or seventh time. I made the Zenitsu comparison, though I feel that may’ve been unfair to him, when he has a variety of different dynamics with characters other than his love interest -- Majo no Tabitabi being focused on Elaina alone, this tomboy character’s sole intrigue is in her insistent love for Elaina, and little more. That's one weakness of the show's inherent structure, as if you can't make other characters lovable or interesting from Elaina's perspective, then they won't be lovable or interesting to the audience, either.

But I could bear through a horribly-written and aggravating cast member every couple of episodes. This show had, after all, a lot of qualities I looked for in fantasy. "It will get better!", I told myself. I think it was around when the show indulged in the typical sister-incest gags that I came to terms with the fact that I’ve been giving it far too much leeway for what it was, a fantasy light novel -- with all its tropes, flaws and failings, only disguised differently and unique enough not to be a waste of time.

If you enjoyed the first few episodes and expected more, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. If you haven't, then you probably won't like the rest it has to offer, as it's only an inconsistent plummet downhill from there.

Warning: This review might not be very well articulated, as a side effect of this anime itself not being very well articulated.

Through the course of Majo no Tabitabi's airing time, I saw horrendous fighting and arguing in this community over whether it was a masterpiece or a shitshow. People were arguing left and right about Elaina's moral compass and I've been here from day one to see it. I'm of the opinion that Tabitabi is, indeed, a shitshow; but not quite for the reasons most people seem to think it is.

You see, the problem with Majo no Tabitabi is that it thinks it's so smart. ... It thinks it's making such a big statement about the reality of the world and being so deep about the characterization of its main character. It will literally do the stupidiest shit you've ever seen while wearing unshakeable smugness. It will literally point-blank copy Kino no Tabi without the things that make Kino no Tabi valuable.

It's a show that fluctuates all over the place with absolutely no sense of continuity. This is not a criticism towards its episodic format, but rather one towards the way it's applied - Tabitabi is indecisive on whether it wants to be a lighthearted slice of life about traveling or a grimdark edgy gorefest that only a 14 year old could possibly think is making a statement. You get out of an episode about Elaina befriending a witch her age in a peaceful country directly to one about her meeting a child slave who commits suicide. Then you get out of an episode about a 5 year old sociopath who's been abused by her parents murdering them in a blood-shower montage where Elaina has an absolute breakdown about being unable to help people... to a completely unrelated little slice of life adventure episode involving her mentor. Oh, might I add that the whole child serial killer-induced meltdown Elaina has is never brought up again? That is the issue. I understand what the show is trying to do: the world isn't perfect, and you are bound to run into misery and witness the darkest parts of human nature if you set off to know it, hence their decision of not making this a purely optmistic slice of life. But the extremes that they take simply do not work. You dip into the worst of the worst only to come out on top of the best of the best in the next episode. The worst of the worst is never acknowledged again. There is no evidence of it weighing in Elaina's conscience, seeing as she cries once and then forgets about it. There is absolutely no evidence of this 18 year old becoming wiser or hardened by the things that she sees. If there is absolutely no nuance, then what really is even the point of including it? We already know that the world sucks, thank you very much; address this fact only if you have something of value to add to it, because just being like "Look, this child, who is by the way a character you have no attachment to, killed her parents. Isn't it fucked up that this happened?" did not do much. This is NOT an statement about human nature and the injustices of the world. This is just depravity for the sake of depravity, because apparently depravity sells, and apparently depravity is enough to convince people that something is actually very deep and layered.

The wild atmosphere shifts make the slice of life bits harder to enjoy, but to be honest, a lot of it is already corny and really stupid. The staff stated that they didn't want to include panty shots in the anime to "keep it wholesome", and yet add in jokes so sleazy that at this point I'd much prefer to be seeing panties. The comedy is unfunny; I know comedy is subjective, so I should be saying that it didn't personally work for me, but I have a hard time picturing anyone but a teenager who's new to anime actually laughing at the comedic beats in Tabitabi. It has huge amounts of yuri bait as well, and I'm always up for yuri, but in this anime it's just very shallow and cheap and I did not care about the characters involved. Most of the valuable slice of life bits involved Fran, Elaina's mentor; the first episode is by far the best one of the anime, as were the ones where Elaina ran into her during her travels, because their relationship actually seemed to hold emotional weight (unlike Elaina's relationship with Saya, where Elaina honestly doesn't even seem to like the girl at all).

The worldbuilding in Tabitabi is bafflingly piss-poor: there's very little told and even shown about the actual workings of the world and the way that magic and class hierarchy works, which is a criminal offense in an anime about traveling, where the world around Elaina should behave like its own character. Sometimes you have no clue how powerful witches are even supposed to be, you have no clue what level of magic Elaina is supposed to be able to use. You just get vague nods like "oh yeah, child slaves are legal in this country", which makes the whole thing that much stupidier; they waste time making entire episodes about old men having a fetish for women stepping on grapes to make wine instead of expanding on any of this. I feel like I know absolutely nothing about the magic association or about the countries she visited, but I sure know a lot about a random character's act of vengeance.

When we get to the characters, it's... difficult.

Obviously the anime leans heavily on its titular character, Elaina. She's a travelling observer type of character. Elaina is not a bad character; in fact, I think she's very well constructed personality-wise, and I'd like to see more characters like her in anime. Her arrogance and overflowing self-confidence, her condescending manner and polite demeanor make for a good combo. They make sense within the type of character that she is. But the thing is, Tabitabi is not well-written. Elaina being an interesting character is an accident of good writing that does not last for long, because the situations she is put through make her act extremely inconsistently. Elaina will see a child slave being physically abused and do nothing about it; this is not because she is a terrible person, seeing as in other episodes Elaina is shown to care for and help people, even if begrundingly. This is because the author wants this show to be Kino no Tabi or Mushishi really badly but has no idea how to write a travelling observer character. In the same episode Elaina suggests that the boy who has a crush on the slave girl does something that is so obviously a terrible idea that it made me livid, which goes against the idea that she's smart. But then she will solve problems in a way that is supposedly very advanced, which goes against the notion that she is inexperienced and naive. Sometimes Elaina will act jaded, indifferent to the horrors that she witnesses, which makes absolutely no sense considering that she is a sheltered 18 year old girl who grew up in a perfectly normal, reasonaly well-off family. Sometimes, as I've mentioned before, she will cry and feel helpless in the face of them, but this will be forgotten and she will aquire no semblance of trauma, so there was no point. Elaina undergoes no character development. In the last episode she is literally still the same person that she was in the first one. Unless you'd like to count the last episode's attempt on psychoanalyzing her as successful, in which case, pardon me for my rudeness, but I will laugh at you. Elaina did not need to learn self-love, she did not need to make peace with herself, because again, she shows absolutely no sign of ever secretly hating herself or feeling bad about being unable to help the vulnerable except for one single scene. Once again, maybe if the anime reserved more time to study Elaina's character instead of wasting time giving us dumbass comedy segments, this might not have happened. I feel like a lot of this really stems from pacing issues as well; we get many timeskips all the time, so it's hard to keep up, and it really affects Elaina's characterization as well, seeing as every time we see her again, months are supposed to have passed. My point is that I don't think Elaina is a horrible person like it's been asserted by many. I just think that this anime sucks, and it unfortunately drags her down with it.

The supporting cast is pretty weak aside of the aforementioned Fran. Saya is Elaina's friend-slash-romantic-interest who's honestly kind of annoying. Sheila is Saya's mentor and she's fine when she is paired with Fran, but I have no strong feelings about her because she'd kind of just there. The elusive figure of Niké exists in the distance as the motivator of Elaina's travels, but not much if known about her besides who her pupils are. Some of the other characters who only last for one episode are seriously, and I mean it, not worth mentioning.

All that's left is the art and sound aspects, which are both pretty good. I do like most of the character designs and the BGM, and the animation is very easy on the eyes, I have no complaints on that front. The opening theme is absolutely perfect and it gives off a peaceful sense of wonder, which I REALLY wish was reflected in the anime itself. Everywhere Elaina visits looks the same, but that's not really the art's fault, it's more the author's fault for being really bad at constructing worldbuilding.

Majo no Tabitabi is a clusterfuck. I honestly feel like I should be giving it a lower rating now that I've accessed it and realized I only enjoyed one or two episodes out of twelve, but I won't, because at the same time I feel like I've seen worse. What can I even say to conclude this? Don't watch it, I suppose, unless you are in fact a 14 year old who's new to anime and who thinks that the character arcs in Elfen Lied rule. Maybe in this case you'll find this anime to be profound.

Kino no Tabi meets Kiki's Delivery Service – what could possibly go wrong?

After acquiring a status of a witch, Elaina leaves her hometown to travel around the world. On her journey, Elaina is about to experience bright and dark sides of the world and society. The story is episodic with almost no connecting plot line, and every episode is supposed to bring some kind of question about human nature.

I like both road movies and moral dilemmas very much but unfortunately I can’t bring myself to enjoy this show. Among other problems, like shallow plot and questionable moral messages, the protagonist is the biggest one – ... Elaina seems egoistic, arrogant and detached. She doesn’t play any active role in the plot, acting as a passive witness, and for the most part it’s her decision to not interfere.

This strongly reminds me of Kino from Kino no Tabi, but in Kino’s case her behavior was logically explained by her tragic past and awful situations she experienced during her journey. Elaina, on her part, have no reason to be detached from people she meets. She grew up in a loving family and was able to develop her prodigious magic skills. Local witches’ unwillingness to take Elaina as apprentice was probably the biggest disappointment in her life, but parents came to the aid and basically hire a tutor for her.

With Elaina’s backstory in mind, her detachment from people she meets looks like egoism and over-confidence, it’s like she is fearful of closer relationships and meaningful decisions for no reason. She is the type of person who happily enjoys soft warm bed while outside her window the dragon eats innocent citizens (If anyone is wondering, this scene is from ep.4). I wonder if creators deliberately made Elaina unlikable to develop her character or to portray her as evil protagonist, but this plot twist seems rather unlikely for such straight-forward story.

In my opinion, the anime would be better if Elaina’s backstory wasn’t revealed, especially in the first episode. Or if her character developed through the story. But the show paints Elaina as wise and mature person, which she clearly isn’t.

This is Kino's travels (or the many other travel anime) mixed in with a kawaii magic girl main character. If you don't like either genre, you won't like this show. There is no world-building, because there is no world (aside from the magical girl trope). It's episodic and each story self-contained. A collection of disparate folktales with a magic girl inserted in there as an observer. There's a reason why Disney can only really adapt a handful of old fairy tales to create our fondest childhood memories (and big blockbuster success). Because there are really only a handful of coherent ones with positive messages. The ... other 99% are mostly just dark, nonsensical, ill-defined, inconclusive, depressing, or subversive. There are no lessons taught, other than maybe a fatalistic one. If you enjoy irrational, just open up a newspaper. The MC has no personality other than what is required to push a particular tale along. The very first episode is indicative of the meaninglessness of the rest of the series. Her doting parents hire a witch to abuse and near-kill her to instill humility? Even though she has displayed no arrogance, entitlement, or moral degeneracy? I really only started watching this because the production budget seemed higher than the rest. Maybe the story would be interesting, or there would be interesting characters. Nope to all.

A story about a painfully unaware, narcissistic witch (w interchangeable with b) who travels around the world.
Why is it bad? The writers are as obvlivious to her narcisstic nature as the main character - this unintentional element turns an elseway mediocre narrative sour. Making it painful to watch, not in the way of being "gory", "dark" or "psychological" - but more like having to spend time with some douchebag relative / friend of a friend who you'd rather just keep our of your life permantently.

In short. The MC is incredibly unlikeable, and the intro sums up the show.

The fact that this show has ... a high rating shows that most people are bad judges of character, and why it's common to get into toxic relationships.

Here's the official synopsis for for Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina (Majo no Tabitabi):

"Once upon a time, there was a witch named Elaina, who set off on a journey across the world. Along the way, she would meet all kinds of people, from a country full of witches to a giant in love with his own muscles—but with each meeting, Elaina would become a small part of their story, and her own world would get a little bit bigger."

Sounds nice, doesn't it? Sounds like a nice laid back iyashikei you can chill out to when feeling down or stressed out. A bit like Flying ... Witch or Aria.

However, what you get instead is the story of a self-absorbed, narcissistic teenage witch who doesn't seem to give much of a shit about anything or anyone but herself. She's like those Instagram backpackers who travel around the world without ever learning anything about the people or cultures they come across on their way.

Elaina is a powerful witch. Yet she doesn't use her powers to do anything for others. She's callous, shallow and largely indifferent to the people she meets. This becomes evident for the first time when, in one episode, she visits the home of a rich man who has a young slave. He bought her because she was cheap and because she will grow up to be beautiful some day (hint: she'll be his sex toy). Does Elaina do anything to save this girl from her terrible fate? No. The slave girl is just another prop in Elaina's travels. She waxes philosophical about how trying to make people happy might actually just make them miserable as she leaves her behind and goes on her merry way. She has learned nothing. She has not grown as a person. She has not used her considerable powers to save a girl from slavery and future sexual abuse. The girl is forgotten as Elaina flies on.

And that's pretty much how the show goes. Elaina is a cynical, unlikeable person who travels the world without taking it in or taking responsibility for her fellow man. The places and people she comes across are just fodder for her diary and one of the few things that can actually elicit an emotional response from her, is if her beauty is questioned or ruined (when someone cuts her hair off). As far as using her magical powers, it is never done to help others.

So my question for whoever wrote this story is: Are we actually supposed to like Elaina? What is the purpose of a character who goes on a journey, has adventures, but never actually grows as a person? In fact, she only becomes more narcissistic and self-absorbed as the story progresses. The entire last episode is about her meeting other versions of herself and coming to terms with who she is. However, this isn't used as some kind of epiphany or self-discovery. She does not take a good hard look at herself in the proverbial mirror and decides to become a better person. Instead she accepts her weaknesses as part of who she is and that's it. Her experience does not make her grow as a person. It doesn't bring about any sort of critical introspection. Instead it inflates her ego even more. The ACCEPTANCE is the point. Not what she actually accepts about herself (which is pretty depressing), but the fact that she is able to accept anything at all. Yes, our main character is actually such an obtuse narcissist that the fact she has any introspective moment at all (because she wanders into a magical kingdom where she is forced to deal with versions of herself, not because she deliberately wants to) is supposed to give her a bit of depth. Instead it ends up exposing her for what she really is: Shallow.

I'm not sure who the target audience is for this show. It wants to be all things at once. It wants to be funny. It wants to be serious. It wants to be adventure, but also horror and also poetic.

It is in fact a study in anarcho-libertarian self-centeredness.

The moral of Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, as far as I can tell, is to not bother doing anything for other people unless you stand to personally gain from it. Or to put any work into improving yourself or learn anything from the experiences you have. Instead, accept yourself for the perfect and immaculate being that you are and fuck everyone else.

All that said, the art is decent enough and the show does have its amusing moments. But the main character drags it down quite a bit. She's just not a likable person.

Brother, what the fuck did I just watch. I'm finishing ep 12 by questioning the reason for the existence of this anime. Why does this poha exist? Why did I watch this shit? As I keep wondering why I watched this until the end, I realize that it was just a huge waste of time that I had besides discovering myself as a bit of a masochist, since this poha is so bad that it made my brain hurt.
Anyway, the protagonist sucks and, if she didn't exist, the anime might be much better. Ep 12 meaningless, and even though some people say it makes sense, ... it's because they smoked about 5 tons of marijuana. Besides, her teacher is also a horrible character. Other than that, the other characters are well built (some, not all). I just wondered at the end why every witch is arrogant, but I think it's a characteristic that the author wanted to put in all witches, because it is not possible.

How would I start these disappointing thoughts I have?
Mild spoilers ahead.

The story itself is bland and boring. It's about witches and traveling and sh*ts, but there wasn't really any depth in both the story nor the worldbuilding. There wasn't any explanation about the magic, the witch association, or some sh*t like that.
The timeline is a mess too. Certain jumps in the story happen and the timeline is very inconsistent.
They tried to be serious, they tried to do comedy, the tone of this series is all over the place. Pair that with an edgy cliche subplot and you got a mixture of a boring and insulting ... story.

The characters are all one-dimensional characters. I can't fathom how much I despise all of them. There wasn't really any development in the characters. The MC, Elaina, is a Mary Sue which is not a problem in itself since I kinda like her pre-episode 9. But past that, and I kinda don't like her. In episode 9, she showed some kind of development... which completely vanish in the following episode until the end. That's the final nail in the coffin. She showed completely how much of a cardboard character she is.
The side characters aren't any better. They ain't likable because of how one-dimensional they are.

The animation and music are this anime's saving grace. The ost is decent, but the Opening and Ending are bangers. The animation on the other hand is kinda decent. It's inconsistent at times, but sometimes, it kinda looks good.

Enjoyment-wise, I enjoyed the first few episodes. I kinda dig the episodic theme of the story but they dropped real hard when everything past episode 9 happened. There wasn't any real development happening, neither in the plot nor the characters. That is why I felt like this is such a waste of time.

Overall, would I recommend this?
Yep. I'd still recommend this. All the problems I had in this story are analytical problems, which can easily be ignored if you turn off your brain while watching.

The Journey of Elaina has an identity crisis. On the surface, it appears to be an inspiring adventure across a magical fantasy world. In truth, it is something else entirely.

In the beginning, it is exactly what you'd anticipate. Then it blindsides you with something unexpected. The show reveals itself to be a thoroughly depressing, tonally maligned 'journey' driven by a narcissistic main character through a nihilistic and morbid world. It always left me anxious, nauseous, frustrated, and sometimes all of the above. If you want to draw meaning from suffering, it needs to be natural and purposeful. The Journey of Elaina manufactures pain to give ... the audience catharsis, but there is never a satisfying conclusion to relieve the pent up emotions it conjures. At the end of each chapter, we're gifted dubious life lessons from the self-absorbed main character. She should figure out her emotional deficiencies before waxing philosophical like she's Aristotle.

In the first episode, Elaina studies to become a witch. She passes the sorcery exam at 14 years old, then seeks to become a witch's apprentice. After being rejected by the witches nearby, her parents send her to Fran. A secluded witch. Elaina is a very vain person. She obnoxiously praises herself at least once an episode. Her arrogant monologues go like this, "Who is the beautiful girl wearing a brooch that signals her status as a witch, whose ashen hair flutters in the wind, shining so much with beauty and talent that even the sun's eyes squint involuntarily? That's right, it's me."

What a humble person. The way she talks about herself borders on narcissism. You're a child prodigy. We get it. Outside maybe the first episode, I have no reason to believe Elaina is as wonderful as she pretends to be. Her motivations are money, free food, a place to stay, and being praised for her beauty. She travels for the sake of traveling, there's no depth to her. It's clear right away that she should be the main selling point of the series. She'll make or break the show for you.

I tried to like Elaina at first, she is an interesting person to analyze. Make no mistake, she has next to no character development and no growth whatsoever; however, her cruel actions and lack of empathy are confounding. I always wondered what her endgame would be. Would she finally have a character arc? Or would the entire show be a series of disjointed stories? (It was the latter) It's hard to feel any empathy towards Elaina when she's so arrogant, and her travels are either silly or comically morbid. Among her exploits is a visit to a place where slavery is legal, a town of strange people obsessed with dolls, and a bandit infested village that hunts witches.

In the very beginning, she talks about her life as a child, reading a book about a traveling witch. She dreamed of being her. And that's it. The fictional witch's adventures were probably more exciting than what we got. The only memorable stories are the ones with gratuitous gore and depressing premises. On multiple occasions, children are beaten and bloody. One of them stands, and calmly tells us how her parents abused her. For what? They aren't trying to portray mental illness realistically. I wish, but it instead devolves into dumb laugh-inducing shock horror. The author is incapable of writing serious dialogue. He barely has a grip on his story's tone. His ineptitude caused the trainwreck that is episode 9. Watching it was like witnessing someone get shot—you can't look away. I felt corrupted, violated, by such a morally bankrupt display of self-masturbatory edgy writing. How on Earth could anyone think this is deep?

Often the show tries to be something it's not. I don't feel the world is an exciting place to explore, partly because there's almost no world-building. The only aspect which connects every chapter is cynicism. Seemingly everyone in this world is evil. In this show, people are either thieves, liars, swindlers, child abusers, or murderers. Even the kindest character, Saya, comes uncomfortably close to being a "psychotic lesbian" because she persistently loves Elaina. It's like the author grew up getting bullied, lied to, cheated on, then fired from their job, so they decided to write a book about how much people suck. And I agree with you; people do suck, but if you want to tell a story about it, make it purposeful. When a series about adventuring doesn't make me want to go on an adventure, it's troubling.

Frequently, this anime gets compared to Kino's Journey. I thought Kino's remake was ok, but the original (from what I've seen and read) is fantastic. I see the similarities. The Journey of Elaina reminds me of Kino because each setting explores flaws and morality in society. Such as if liars or murder are should be illegal/legal. Or what would happen if slavery was legal. They're not quite the same. Elaina's themes are more superficial and sometimes preachy, but they're told through complicated metaphors and wordy dialogue.

In contrast, Kino gives us information without much talking and filters through a bias due to Kino's moral compass. Kino allows us to draw conclusions ourselves. Kino empathizes with the people they encounter. If they see someone suffering, they will help. Although they don't sacrifice their life, they do put themself in danger for others/to stay true to their moral compass. But Elaina doesn't have much of a moral compass. She only intervenes if she has something to gain, like money, a free meal, or a place to stay. If her beauty is insulted, she retaliates. Her motives are less relatable or admirable, in my eyes, at least. I think some of these issues were due to a poor adaptation—I haven't read the light novel, so I can't say that for sure. You directly access the characters' thoughts in a light novel, and the author can easily exposit information. The anime may have struggled to get that information on screen. At some point, I'm going to read the light novel, and then I'll have a better idea of if it's a problem with the source material or the adaptation itself. Even with the sparse information given on screen, there are worthwhile observations to be made.

At first, it may seem self-obsessive; women can receive confidence from gazing at themselves in a mirror, ignoring cultural beauty standards or intrusion of the male gaze. Staring at oneself can be a way to take power back, especially in a society that tells women that their external appearance matters. In some cases, society says appearance matters more than anything else. To look in the mirror and love yourself for who you are is healthy, in moderation. This logic applies to men as well. By observing your emotional expressions in a mirror, you condition yourself to be more comfortable. Becoming aware of your own emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and expectations is a necessary first step toward acceptance and self-compassion. Elaina's self-obsession doesn't stem from her insecurities or cultural expectations; in fact, she is a prisoner to them. When confronted with other beautiful women, or men who question her beauty, she becomes enraged rather than indifferent. Not only is she self-obsessed, but she also cares too much about what others think of her. Narcissists tend to have overinflated yet fragile egos that easily pop, like a hot air balloon poked by a pen. One could argue that Elaina feels insecure because the witch society hated her, but that falls apart when you realize they rejected her simply because she is special. Supposedly passing the test at only 14 made the other witches "envious" of her, which only inflated her ego more. Elaina has another prominent sign of narcissism—a lack of empathy.

On her journey, when Elaina briefly stops at a town, she avoids becoming connected with anyone or anything. She has a non-interference rule—influenced by her mother's guidance. Even if someone is suffering, she won't bother. It's not because she lacks the strength to help. Her magic is powerful, and she's rarely in danger. To rationalize abandoning people in need, Elaina says, "Just because you are doing something for someone else doesn't make it right." If this sounds like a shitty excuse, I agree. If someone is dying on the side of the road, do you call an ambulance or drive away? You'd help, of course. But she wouldn't. Elaina just cops out and says "not helping was the right thing." At least Elaina acknowledges she's preachy, but that doesn't stop her from being a jerk. As she flys away, she ponders her actions. Then pushes the thoughts out of her mind and continues onward. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

If that's something you want, feel free to watch this. The art, animation, and music are great. It's one of the best-looking anime of the season. If nothing else, watch it for the aesthetic. Although most of it is fluffy slice-of-life and silly short stories, it is always cynical. If you don't like morbidity and negativity in your fiction, I understand if you'd opt for something else. Nowadays, if I want to remember that the world sucks, I'll just turn on the news.

An anime that goes all out on the aesthetics while the writing fails to keep up.

I have some very conflicting feelings with this anime because it is not as cut and dry with its quality. It looks absolutely beautiful and has some of the best art and animation of the year. The music is very good too. I can actually remember some of the songs that played throughout the series even with all of the other seasonal anime I have watched. Also, the direction was pretty good too. There is some great framing and camera-work that really adds life to the episodes. This anime looks ... and sounds great.

But, in fact, it is only these aesthetic aspects that kept me from dropping this anime. This is because the writing is absolutely awful, some of the worst that I have seen this season. The writing completely fails to create compelling characters, episodic narratives, and overarching narratives.

Starting with the character writing, I did not like a single character in this anime. How much I liked a character varied from indifference to disdain, with most of the prominent characters falling in the later category. The main character, Elaina, is young witch prodigy and she never neglects to mention it. She is narcissistic, vain, and greedy, with no redeemable qualities that I can think of. Whether or not she chooses to help people relies almost entirely on what she can gain from it and she often neglects to help people is literal life-and-death situations for no real reason. She gives the rationalization that “you can hurt people by helping them”, but that is not an actual reason. That is just some psuedo-philosophical BS that you give BECAUSE you don’t want to help someone. The rest of the characters are similarly unlikable, with Saya, whose entire character is being obnoxiously obsessed with Elaina, always dragging down my enjoyment even more.

The story writing is not much better, as the series is comprised of mostly episodic narratives that may have some slight connection to the overarching story. The story is all about Elaina traveling to a variety of different countries and cities, documenting her travels and meeting new people along the way. A premise that holds a lot of promise, seeing a fantasy world with many different societies.

Unfortunately, all of that promise goes out the window because the writer has no concept of world-building. We have no clue where all of these countries and cities are in relation to each other. We never see a map or any comprehensive flow between the places Elaina visits, she just arrives at a place and then leaves at the end of the episode. The whole point of fantasy-adventure series is to engross the viewer in the world so it feels like they are adventuring with the characters. If the viewer has no idea where they ever are, then that impacts their engagement with the series.

On top of the writer’s inability to build a compelling world, they also have no idea what tone they want for the series. Elaina will go from some uninteresting, mundane story in one city, to a story about people dying gruesome deaths (of which Elaina does nothing to help), to another mundane story where nothing serious is happening. The jarring events that occur in this anime have no point whatsoever other than just shock value for the people watching. Elaina will spout some fake-deep nonsense about the cruelty of the world or about how she couldn’t help anyone and then be completely fine in the next story.

The only time that the disturbing stories are shown to have any significance occurs in the final episode, where Elaina faces herself and her despair from experiencing these events. However, since Elaina never really showed any despair outside of this episode, this did not feel like any character growth because she seems like the same person that she always was.

So, we have characters that are completely unlikable, poor world-building, uninteresting stories, tone-deaf narratives, and little to no character development. Yet, it is still a 4/10. That is how good the art, animation, music, and direction are. If there was actually good writing behind this, hell, it may have been a contender for AOTY. It’s a damn shame.

It is closer to a 5 than a 3

An anime that many people hyped from its third episode considered by many to be a masterpiece. (Which is perhaps not so good, I would even say it is horrible).

Majo no Tabitabi is an anime, whose we accompany elaina (ignorant protagonist) on her journey through various cities in the kingdom of magic (thankfully it doesn't have hogwarts)

So it would just be an anime of a magician traveler right? No, he is opposed to his proposal, showing shocking cases, even having horrific mentions of social problems that occur during real life.

The question we asked is?
Is the protagonist involved?
YEA
But did she solve any situation?
none of the situations, ... only those that benefit itself

Even having moments of our protagonist talking to herself in the third person, stating that she is beautiful and strong, being very stupid and ignorant with the facts that occurred the day before or the same day, making the character that has more focus on the work not create no feeling or lesson from her journey, making the purpose of his analysis book useless and his character development being thrown away.

This review contains some spoilers here and there

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

Majo no Tabitabi is Kino's journey if it was magical and really bad.

It has the whole episodic traveling from country to country thing but with a magical twist and a flawed main character.

I understand the concept of a more flawed, realistic protagonist, but that doesn't excuse a character that is a narcissist, their personality is inconsistent, and they're generally very unlikeable. The stories of the countries she goes to aren't that compelling, and the show just isn't enjoyable to watch. The only redeeming quality would be it's art, but nice art doesn't save a bad show. I highly discourage you from watching it, it's ... not worth your time.

tl;dr it's dreadful don't watch it

This anime is like the Last of us part 2. Some people love it but some dont. And I'm on the "hate it" side.

It is definitely a unique anime about a witch going on a journey and meeting different people with different stories. I'm sure some people will enjoy it as that's pretty much the point of the anime. But here is why I hate it...

First when I watched the trailer and the anime art page it looked like some really interesting adventure anime that would be somehow wholesome and really show how the world is an interesting place, but after watching it all. I ... really disliked it and that is because I personally felt like the story is kinda shi*t; every episode is bad. Really bad and that's because at first it seems like everything is alright and some really interesting things will happen like a "heroine will save the day and learn a lesson about some value of life or a wisdom" but no. Everything has a twist and the main character is pretty much a b*tch ignoring everyone and not caring about the lesson that must he learned. She usually solve the issue but most of the time she runs away as if nothing happened and the problem solved is usually... well all the time really dark. I'm not a fan of that. I personally dont like it for that reason as I dont find any enjoyment in "seeing the world get worse and ignore its issues" type of things. I wished that she would at least be the good witch and realize the human heart to some extent as a witch. But as I said that's a personal reason as many others like my brother enjoyed it because he thought the story was basicslly entertaining but we agreed that its not organized as if it doesnt really teach the watcher anything of value.


Other than that the Art style and the animation look smooth and amazing like high budget anime. I liked the music and the voice acting. So in conclusion. What I hate is the character personality and the story itself.

I dropped this show after 6 episodes. There is no doubt in my mind that i am not missing out on anything.

Majo no Tabitabi is a show that has no plot or coherent theme, and consists mostly of short stories that make pathetic attempts at making observations and conclusions about human nature.
Each of these short stories seems to have had its moral written before the story making each of them propaganda pieces made to illustrate a given thesis rather than pieces of art from which conclusions can be drawn.
This, for me, is the very definition of bad art.

The show is preachy but all ... of the morals it preaches are horribly wrong, and it lacks any kind of comedic content, leaving only the animation.
But pretty animation without a story to animate is hollow and worthless, and so is this show for me.

Don't let the first 2 episodes fool you. This anime; though it may have a wonderful art style, is a little boring.

I love a good anime with twists and dark themes, but this one just isn't it. The Mc character development is poor, to say the least, though her self-loving introductions are amusing(lol). I can see what they were trying when it came to this anime. The absolute opposite of those anime that have the Mc trying to save everyone or at least attempt to help those they come across on their journey. They had it at the beginning but started to lose it ... the more you go about watching it starting in the middle of episode 3. The Mc is more or less an ego-filled teen with the mentality of a side character that's standing in the background and watch as everything goes by while adding very little to the overall 'plot'.

My overall ranking for this is 4. It would have been a 6 but character was poor and my overall enjoyment plummeted after watching ep 4. I liked the art and the sound, but the story and character development need some work.

Majo no Tabitabi / The Journey of Elaina can be summed up pretty easily: boring plot and bad characters.

Story: 3/10

The story follows the journey of Elaina (duh), a young witch travelling around the world.
This anime is heavily episodic: one episode equals one story (sometimes two stories in one episode). I have never been a big fan of episodic anime so I may be a bit biased, but to me, all episodes felt like filler episodes, except the first one. There is not a single good episode after the first one. Most of them are boring at best. The person who wrote the plot thought that ... throwing some “dark” themes like slavery, suicide, murder and child abuse in some episodes would make them more interesting to watch, but it’s so obvious that it was done solely for the shock value it’s just ridiculous to look at. There is also some annoying fan service (bath scene and the like) which is disgusting considering the fact that the main character is underage and/or looks like a child. The universe isn’t very original either. Pretty much your run-of-the-mill european-ish fantasy world.


Art: 6/10

The backgrounds are good and well detailed, which is rare in modern anime (computer-generated backgrounds and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race). Beautiful landscapes and neat architecture. The animation is pretty clean and smooth.
The worst problem is the character designs. The characters designs are generic, plain and unoriginal – all of them! I’ve seen plenty of h***** do better in that category.


Sound: 6/10

The opening song is fine. The background music is average at best. The voice acting is okay, I guess. The problem is not the VA but the dialogues.


Characters: 3/10

The characters are neither interesting, nor realistic and not likeable at all. Not a single one of them. This also includes the characters who appear in only one episode. They are not awfully annoying, but they are boring at best. After the first episode there is zero character development and zero character evolution. The main character’s only motivation is to travel. Sometimes horrible things happen in front of her and she doesn’t even intervene, even though she has the power to do so, but the anime still tries to portray her as your average cute and wholesome anime girl.
Her friend’s only character trait is being madly in love with her – that and being somewhat “cute”, but that doesn’t count as a personality trait. The other secondary characters are either cliché (example: edgy tomboy who gets angry for no reason) and/or boring.


Enjoyment: 3/10

This anime will be forgotten quickly, and for good reasons. In terms of animation it’s pretty okay but it doesn’t innovate, and an okay animation isn’t going to save an anime that has an uninteresting plot and bad characters.

As you can guess, I did not enjoy this anime. It wasn’t bad enough to make me hate it with a burning passion, and I have seen worse, but I would have dropped it almost immediately if it were not for the good visuals.

Overall: 4/10

I'm sorry but this anime is very boring. When I first watched it, I kind of liked Elaina's struggle to become great but I got really bored watching it Like the continuation of the story it doesn't fit at all. Just think about Elaina traveling to other places but the story is broken and there is no clarity on the continuation of the places that Elaina has visited. So I can't feel the adventure and Elaina's character is also really passive and very ordinary, she is indeed beautiful but I hate her indifferent nature to other people. Of the many episodes, the story is somewhat ... horror and dark, but as a result, Elaina still can't do anything, it's not heroic. So bear the ending and there is no clear solution.