Reviews for Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

This is quite an interesthing and original story. Unlike many other Light Novels, this one has an interesthing aspect to it, which is that most of its chapters are disconnected. Sure, such a thing could easily go wrong, but not on this Light Novel. While I'd recommend for you to read it in orther, there's no need to as most of the characters in each chapter tend to not appear again. Of course, that's not true for all of the characters. Our protagonist here is Elaina, a witch who, inpired by some novel written by another witch, decided to travel the world to know many towns, peoples andsuch. In every chapter, she's in a different place with different people and on a different adventure. weather that be her having to find something she lost, having to help someone with something, exploring a strange characterist of some town, or simply on a everyday randown moment.

All in all, I'd say this is a nice story to read along some other story. Sure, Majo No Tabatabi is a great story on its own, but the way it's structured just makes it nice to read a chapter, see some sort of adventure, and then move on to another story, only to come back when the next chapter is released to see a new story for you.

This works great with the way most translators do their, well, translations. Even if the next chapter takes so long to come out that you forgot everything about what happened before, there's not a problem as the previous chapters hardly have much to do with the future ones. Added to that the fact most chapters can be read in around half an hour and you got yourself a nice and light story to read when you feel like it.

So, would I recommend this to someone? Yes, ablsolutely. If you're looking for a nice, original story which is light on the reader, then you got yourself a deal.

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina is a series of adventures held together by their shared main character, the witch Elaina. While the book has some semblance of linearity, it does not have an over-arching narrative. This is more of a magical travel log than a novel. After passing the certification exam to become a full-fledged witch, Elaina decides to follow the inspiration from her favorite series of books and explore the world. While she sometimes gets pulled into events, she does her best to maintain an impartial and distant stance and act only as an observer. After a short period of time, days at themost, she leaves, whether situations have been resolved or not.

There are fourteen tales in this first volume. Some give background on Elaina and also on how one becomes a witch. A few are linked by goofy characters and played strictly for laughs. But the majority are standalone stories that have a mostly melancholy tone. Some chapters are stronger than others. Overall, the book seems more concerned with giving us glimpses into an odd and magical world. There are times when the stories present a slightly heavy-handed moral, typical of fairy tales, but overall they fall more into the category of showing the nature of the world and its humans without commentary.

Part of this lack of commentary comes from the detached nature of Elaina herself. In fact, one of the more jarring things to me about this story was the lack of a clear hero.

My natural inclination was to think of Elaina as one who would right wrongs or fix things which are broken. But she isn’t that person at all. More often, she flies away with her back to the horrors still occurring, or set to occur, behind her. Even her voice makes her feel distant from the events of the stories–she is snarky and judgemental. It is often at odds with the events happening around her. For this reason, I initially disliked Elaina. In the beginning I found myself asking, “how could you not do anything?” This was particularly an issue immediately after the first story, where Elaina seemed more willing to help someone in need (even though, looking back, she was only doing it because she was currently stuck in that town).

But after spending some time traveling with Elaina, I started to change my way of thinking about this book. It isn’t a typical light novel filled with wrongs for the hero to fix. Instead, it is a journal about a world with flaws and wonder to match. And all of it is narrated by this young girl who has a bit of a sharp tongue who keeps most of the ugliest things at bay by never getting too involved herself. As we traveled further, I found myself intrigued about seeing more of this world. And with the chapters giving us some more insight into Elaina’s character, I found that I liked her a bit more with each trip.

I suppose what I’m saying is, I ended up really enjoying this book despite myself. But it took realizing that the world, not Elaina herself, is the main character. Elaina is our guide, not our hero. I think it also helped to improve my thoughts of the novel as it progressed as the stronger of the stories occur later in the book. This could be due to the webnovel origins of the series as the author would’ve become more acquainted with his character and world as they wrote more.

I see where down the road, perhaps that might change. After all, there are some hints Elaina might be more than she lets on. Is there a reason she needs to see the world? Will her judgements after seeing all there is have larger ramifications? I don’t know the answer. I don’t even know if the author intends for any of that to matter. But I am intrigued.

In the end, Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina is not going to be for everyone. It’s lack of cohesive narrative and tone will turn some people off. But this world held wonder for me. It was a different experience than most light novels. And for that reason, I intend to journey with Elaina again. Recommended for fantasy fans who love exploring the world as much/or more than the actual stories told there.

MANY valuable scenes where cut from the source material -anime made it seem like she is an indifferent type of person (important scenes cut out that definitely prove otherwise) -Elaina is truly a passionate and good hearted person Came to check out the source material after hearing that a lot of information was cut out of the anime. Truly an enjoyable experience with an sweet MC. Elaina is a kind and caring person. Cutting out valuable scenes in regards to her character (especially in the beginning of the anime) made it seem like she is an indifferent person. However, those scene that were cut from the source materialtruly showed how passionate and kind she is.

I decided to pick up a few volumes of the light novel after coming from the anime and I most certainly wasn't disappointed when reading this series. Wandering Witch is a series of mostly disconnected stories that follows our main character, Elaina the Ashen Witch on her travels, with no overarching plot. However, I don't believe this structure of storytelling to be necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, I believe that the series's structure of many different stories mostly disconnected with each other and no overarching plot actually makes for a good bit of world building. Throughout my time reading this series, there's been whatI feel is a good balance of light and dark stories which I believe adds nuance to the world Elaina journeys through in by portraying it as neither a fantasy utopian world without strife or suffering nor as a completely dark and gritty world. One thing in particular that I liked was the slight callbacks the author makes to previous stories, mostly in the form of passing remarks or quick trains of thought by Elaina, which does help with a sense of continuity between these stories and volumes a little.

The characters of Wandering Witch are also a pleasure to read about. I really liked the interactions and banter between Elaina, the recurring characters, and even one-shot characters of the series and seeing how their personalities collided and shaped these interactions, which made them all the more memorable to me. On the topic of personalities, coming from the anime I was surprised with how Elaina is a bit more underhanded in the light novel but personally I feel that adds a bit more nuance to Elaina's character. She's not necessarily a bad person but she is not an angel either, which I also think fits well with her role in the story too. While Elaina may be the protagonist of the series, she is not a hero; she's a traveler, a bystander in most situations that don't directly involve her.

Overall, I found Wandering Witch to be an enjoyable read from the beginning to end and I can't wait for the volumes to come. I would definitely recommend this to someone who likes fantasy and adventure.

"The Lovely young lady was a witch and a traveler. That's right she's me." Sums what this LN is about. Elaina is a witch who travels to different countries each chapter and tells about her encounters with each place and the people living there. There are all sorts of uniqueness of each country, and each of her encounters with the people can be comedic, mysterious and even emotional. This LN may not be everyone's thing as it is just Elaina telling her story of her travels along with a stories of her past in her journey to becoming a witch. It's a casual read ratherthan one with lots of action or jokes. So if you're into casual-adventure reads, then this is for you. I have enjoyed the first two volumes very much so far, and the art is fantastic. Can't wait for when the anime comes out!

Majo No Tabitabi “The best thing about a journey is the experience itself, not the destination.” This is a phrase that has stuck with me while reading this book series over the past few months. I started reading it because the anime was unique. I wanted to continue exploring the different stories as the non-attached story writing style while utilizing existing character development was something I hadn’t seen. So I started my journey by reading Volume 4. (the book Amnesia’s past story was explained) Why was I hooked on this book series? To put it simply, "Elaina." Here is a detailed explanation of why I like her as a character: I’dsay she’s by far one of my favorite characters of all time. Simply because of her personality. Her personality was shaped because of her not getting acknowledged as a good apprentice witch at a young age. She was a child prodigy, passing the exams at the age of 14. While an average magic user struggles at 18 even. To become a full-fledged witch as an apprentice, you need to be acknowledged by another witch. And because Elaina was a child prodigy, no other witch in her hometown wanted to teach her. And when she was taken in by a “mysterious” witch, there was no magic training for a month, then she was bullied to desperation by her teacher. (this will make sense when you read the story thoroughly)

This part made me attached to the character. And as she develops as a character further down the line, her twisted personality (being nasty or nice depending on the situation) makes the stories touching. Because in her heart, she has grown to be a nice person but because she was rejected when she was a child, she keeps a devious approach to those around her. And shows her nicer side when she senses that the person she met is genuine with their intentions.

With more and more interactions, her character further develops and we see sides of her that most of us can’t believe exists. Like one of the chapters in Volume 6, in which she acted like a tsundere cat girl. (not going too in-depth for obvious reasons)

Enough about Elaina, let’s talk about the structure of the story as well. At first, it feels like a diary, because there are stories with no context, from our traveling witch Elaina. But as we go further in volumes, the stories slowly connect, and there are even long storylines that are quite well written. Especially to show a newly introduced character’s past. (Amnesia [4], Vivia [6], Fran’s Past [8]) They allocate a good 40-80 pages of story for their past, making their interactions with Elaina much more engaging. And they reappear now and then in the disconnected stories, making it delicate to see more of their interaction with Elaina. (or each other)

I say the stories are disconnected, but there is quite a bit of reference to the introduced characters' past so you can not read out of order. (I did and I had to reread it because of it)

It makes the story feel worse if you do not know the context, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t read out of order.

Enough about the story, Now I want to mention the general positives that this series has.

Afterwords… I usually skip out on that but for this series, I look forward to reading it every time as the author Jougi Shiraishi puts some of his odd thoughts in these, like his childhood memories, or recent situations, which sheds light on where he got the inspiration for certain chapters. And it made me understand his motive for writing this series in general as well.

Having disconnected stories feel connected instead of making one big storyline is a huge positive as well. It keeps the reader attached, and makes them keep an eye out for the next volume releases.

I have currently read through Volumes 3-8, This section is reserved to rate each volume and the impact that it had on me.

Volume 3 - 6/10

The first three volumes of this series were written back in 2016 when this series was available to the public, and because of that Shiraishi Jougi decided not to continue this. So Volume 3 was written as a way to end the series, which did not do the job because of how awkward it was structured. The overall story structure was poor in this volume as well, even though the stories were decent, it felt odd. In 2017, this series gets officially picked up, and in 2018 by Yen Press for English press, so the story continues anyways. The next volumes are a big step up in both writing quality and storytelling though. If I only read the first 3 books, I’d probably rate this series a “7” at max. So you’ll see why it’s a “10” for me in the Volume 4 part.

Volume 4 - 10/10

A big step up from the last volume in almost every way. There are more connected stories, the writing quality and storytelling are overall better, and it contains one of my favorite story arcs for this series, “Amnesia” This volume with its both dark and fun stories, manages to place at second place for my favorite volumes for this book series.

Now let’s get to the reason why this volume is a 10/10 for me:

I usually don’t cry about an anime or a character in a book, but this book did it for the first time...

When you are miserable and have no one to turn up to, there will be someone… Even if it is a person you don’t know. But when you find that person, you will feel at ease. You will be scared if they will leave you or not because of the burden you carry, but you still act carelessly. Because you know, they care about you. And you know how to show your appreciation. Especially when the person that cared for you is on the opposite end of the stick this time.

The person that is there for Amnesia's hardships being Elaina, and Amnesia’s expressed emotions exactly felt like this.

And me being in a depressed state, I related to this. A lot.

After reading this volume, I emotionally grew an attachment to both Elaina and Amnesia, which I was not expecting. And I cried... Like a baby.

Volume 5 - 8.5/10

Overall, there are more positive stories in this volume, they were wholesome. I always had a grin on my face, watching Elaina being a “TSUNDERE” reading this volume. After reading this volume, I decided that I will pursue reading this series until Yen Press stops pressing English books for it.

(I read volumes 4 and 5 in close periods, so I made this decision at 4.)

After getting attached to Elaina as a character, these interactions made more and more sense, it was sweeter than anything and I fell in love with her even more.

One thing to add, from this volume, Jougi Shiraishi, the author starts interacting with readers more in the afterword, they are always fun to read.

Volume 6 - 9/10

Dark stories' quantity increased quite a bit, and in this volume, the storytelling quality increases even more. There were some creepy stories, which I enjoyed Elaina’s reactions to. The series starts to contain a lot more “long” story arcs starting from this novel which will take 1/3rd of the book.

From this volume, new characters that get introduced feel like they have something similar, yet they feel different. Making them quite complex, increasing the interaction quality. Especially with characters that were introduced earlier in the series.

Volume 7 - 9.5/10

This is my favorite volume out of all, the “disconnected” stories feel like they are all connected in unexpected ways, the storytelling gets EVEN better, and character interactions get much more engaging in general. This is the peak of the series quality-wise.

Volume 8 - 9.1/10

This one is quite nice as well, we get to cover a dark secret between Elaina’s teacher Fran, and why she was a teacher like she was towards Elaina. We see a lot more old characters returning here as well, which I was craving because the last one was in Volume 5 with Saya and Avelia.

I overall enjoyed this journey, and I want to continue supporting the series as reading this series gave me hope, a light that I would not imagine finding otherwise. I am gonna keep an eye out for the next volumes, peace!

I will edit this review as I read the missing volumes for 1-10, after I read 10, for future volume reviews I will make a new review page.

I came in contact with this manga by watching the anime. The story is interesting: a young witch, inspired by an adventure book written by another travelling witch, leaves her home for a journey that will lead her in many places and countries, meeting new peole and learning from her experiences. These places and people will put her in many situations, ranging from light-hearted to desperate fights. Each situation is related to different aspects of humanity: fear, obsession, insanity, love, laugh, conflict, and so on. I want to keep the review spoiler free so I will not discuss the stories in detail. My onlynegative abou tthis series is that while some characters are really good, others are not up to par with the rest of the series, not saying they are bad but they don't shine particularly. And Saya is annoying (to me).

Also, Elaina's attitude is strangely sometimes not consistent among the various arcs. All in all. a great reading, even if not flawless.