What “deep” things people found here? What “not your cute fantasy with cute waifus” type of stuff? It’s just another boredom that uses 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, no problem, but 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, 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, because 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.
