Encountering Turbulence Atop a Witch’s Broom

This post contains spoilers for the anime series Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina. This series is available to Watch on Funimation’s streaming service in the US.

Last December, back when going to the movie theater was still a choice one could make on a whim, my husband and I decided to tag along with some members of the anime club who had planned a group viewing of the film Cats. We pretty much already knew what we were getting into; I’d read several reviews lamenting the truly weird design choices, mis-used A-list actors, and pressure that the animation team was put under to adhere to some unrealistic directorial choices. But I wanted to hang out with my friends, and going out to movies was at that time a pretty reliable way to see a bunch of them at once outside of anime club. The movie was definitely an experience, though I’d say the defining moment for me was near the end of the film where Judy Dench as Old Deuteronomy breaks the fourth wall, turning directly to the audience; I audibly gasped and hid my face (a friend of mine still teases me for this). For the most part, though, the adaptation was just a cavalcade of bad decisions and poor attempts at both humor and drama.

This December has been a complete departure from what the world was like a year before, but the friend who helped orchestrate the original Cats viewing wanted to “celebrate” the holidays by holding a group online viewing of the film (coupled with an actually good anime OVA called Cat Player Oruorane as a sort of peace offering – maybe someday I’ll write more about that delightful OVA here). While a second viewing of the movie didn’t really change my overall opinion on it, it did give me the chance to focus on a few of the things that I enjoyed about it – Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat is probably the most entertaining, fun bit in the film, but there are also some really excellent vocal performances here and there, and the music is overall pretty memorable (I played a medley of the songs in my high school concert band many years ago, so there’s an element of nostalgia to it, I’m sure). There’s also a part I found myself unexpectedly moved by, when Deuteronomy makes her first appearance hobbling toward the theater (the link is to the scene from the musical, which is the closest I could find), and the Jellicle cats sing of her with a great deal of reverence. There’s just something mystical and magical about the idea of a cat so old she’s lived several lifetimes and has the power to send fellow cats along to their next lives. For all the reasons why this movie might make the viewer question “why?” there are still some truly sublime moments buried there.

It’s probably nothing more than a coincidence that around this same time I decided to finish watching Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, a somewhat controversial anime from this most recent season. It’s sort of a recent poster child for what can happen when stories are bogged down by expectations when trying to accomplish too many things at once. The anime follows the titular Elaina, a young witch with a strong will and a desire to follow in the footsteps of her hero, a witch named Nike. Elaina visits several different countries and gets involved in local affairs to various degrees. She interacts with other magic-users, as well as with normal non-magical folk. Her degree of enmeshment varies based on the story, but all of her experiences make their way into the ever-expanding journal of her travels.

I should say right now, I liked Elaina a lot more than I liked Cats. I’m really drawn to stories of young witches – Little Witch Academia, Tweeny Witches, Flying Witch… I’ll be completely honest that there’s a part of me that grieved after first discovering Harry Potter as a high school student, because I knew it was too late for me then to have gotten my invitation letter to Hogwarts (yes, I know it’s not real, but there’s a piece of it that lived in me right up until J.K. Rowling revealed her true colors). And I enjoyed Wandering Witch quite a bit in that it presented witches as being flawed people – Saya’s lovesickness, Fran’s flightiness, Sheila’s rough nature, and Elaina’s overconfidence and haughtiness all added to the image of witches as humans first and magic users second. There’s something comforting to me about the fact that the witches in Elaina’s world can be defined by their skill and yet still have room to grow and mature as people.

Much like Cats, however, I think Wandering Witch struggles with a format problem. For example, Cats doesn’t have a particularly strong or comprehensible narrative thread, and on top of that it also tells its tale through the mouths and actions of obvious humans in silly jumpsuits or bad CG, depending on your favorite flavor of performance. It feels to me to be a tale more suited to short form animated anthology with more cat-like feline characters, than a poorly-composited CG production starring human-faced actors with distressingly furry bodies (I’m to this day still traumatized by Idris Elba’s flesh-colored fur). Elaina’s story is a disjointed one as well, cobbled together from single episodes that truly run the gamut from humorous to distressing and heartbreaking. There’s nothing inherently wrong with telling a story this way, and in fact Wandering Witch is frequently compared to Kino’s Journey because Kino kind of defined that storytelling style for many Western anime fans. But where Kino more often than not strikes a good balance between the protagonist remaining an observer in some cases and intervening in others, Elaina’s strong personality sometimes leaves one wondering why or how she can remain disconnected when terrible things are happening.

There’s an episode early on in which Elaina encounters a young girl who’s been forced into slavery. The girl serves a wealthy family, and the son of the family doesn’t comprehend the girl’s feelings or her immense emotional suffering – he just wants for her to be happy and thinks that he can accomplish this through some straightforward means under his control. With the amount of slavery-flavored fantasy series lurking around nowadays, I think there’s a desire on the part of the audience (at least, certain audiences…) to see characters be released from that kind of servitude by an actual heroic character. Yet, this episode mostly serves as a cautionary tale to remind Elaina and the viewer that sometimes the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. We don’t get to see a solid resolution to this distressing situation firsthand; I personally found it to be a little upsetting, and maybe not in the thoughtful way that was likely intended.

That may simply be a problem inherent to anthology stories – it’s difficult to avoid the kind of tonal whiplash that arises from treating a story like a series of tenuously-related experiences. Cats skips along from song to song, some of which are goofy, some heartbreaking, and others (uncomfortably) erotic. Wandering Witch is heavy on lighthearted adventure, but occasionally delves into some deeper, darker subject matter. It’s difficult to know what you might end up feeling when starting a new episode, especially when the resolution of the story may spring some upsetting revelation on the viewer. There’s also some confusing aspects of the timeline that occasionally makes things unclear – it’s difficult to latch onto whether some of the stories are reactions to previous ones (directly or indirectly) and whether or not Elaina’s character growth and evolution should be at a certain point as a result of those experiences. I’m not sure whether the books on which the anime is based are similarly disconnected, but while I try not to have too many expectations about stories I’m unfamiliar with, the sense of being consistently off-balance gets a little exhausting.

But, like I’ve hopefully been able to explain, Wandering Witch is a complicated experience with as many highs as there are lows (which, honestly, aren’t even lows, just storytelling choices I didn’t really agree with). I think what I like about it the most is that there’s not really an attempt to make the protagonist into a more palatable personality. The series begins with Elaina learning a lesson about the dangers of putting up with too much. I think the expectation, especially with a young woman character, would be for her to take on a more mature personality, and maybe in a sense that does happen. Yet Elaina is far from the typical anime “good girl.” She’s confident and seems to truly like herself as a person. She doesn’t hide her own power to make others comfortable. She can be hot-headed and kind of selfish, but knows how to set boundaries and only gets her feet wet on her own terms (ideally, anyway). I think part of the reason that episode 9 of the show (the one dealing with time-travel) hits so hard, aside from the fact that the storyline deals with murder and abuse, is that Elaina has been to this point so confident and mostly unflappable that her lack of control and inability to decipher the situation until it’s too late is traumatic. Some may call that cheap storytelling, but I think at the very least the series earns the feeling it’s going for.

Watching Cats again was not just a reminder of the film’s unapologetic weirdness, but also the fact of its occasional, very brief goodness, which I don’t think I would have expected (I just wanted to have a drink and some fun, after all). I’m not really sure if I’ll ever have time to give Wandering Witch another watch, but even just looking back on the experience and through the cloud of ambivalence I felt about it a lot of the time, there were definite high points that made the viewing worthwhile. Though the pieces may not have fit together very well, in hindsight perhaps the whole package was a bit better than that.

Pros: As I mentioned, I think Elaina is a unique anime character, especially as young women in anime are concerned. While I’d say anime in general has the potential to portray iconic young women, the end result is often not as extreme and interesting as I would like. Elaina is a very confident and competent person, and mostly unapologetic about that.

I think the visual design of the series as a whole is very nice, with lush details that distinguish many of the different locations from one-another. The show portrays a lot of natural scenery (the field of flowers in a particular episode pops out to me, as do the treetops that Elaina glides above in many travel scenes).

When the show hits it really hits hard; I think the first episode is a great introduction to the protagonist, and episode 9, while somewhat manipulative, is definitely memorable.

Cons: The series falters at times due to it general unevenness. Some of the side characters are annoying, especially Saya; she’s a borderline example of the predatory lesbian trope and just generally could have been toned down a lot. more palatable are Fran and Sheila, two senior witches with a history of their own that’s explored late in the series.

There are some times where the humor falls flat, also. Probably the biggest goof-up I can think of is the plot of a late episode that involves a love spell which I suspect is supposed to be funny, but feels manipulative to the women involved. The final episode also sees Elaina face several alternate-reality versions of herself, and while one strong-willed Elaina is a boon for the show, sixteen or so, all with different personality traits, are a little too much (and ring slightly hollow due to their one-note, very specific personalities).

Content Warnings: Mild predatory lesbianism (multiple episodes). Slavery. Magical violence (offensive spellcasting, sometimes with physical injury). Physical violence/gore (severe in one instance).

Grade: B-

More Info

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source Material: Light Novel