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.
