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EP. REVIEW: Wandering Witch - The Journey of Elaina

I really wish the returning characters such as Saya and Flan were in more episodes.

It wasn't that he found the child being mentally broken and brutally killed funny. It was the show's overall tone-deaf, needlessly over-the-top handling of the subject matter he found to be unintentionally funny.

I may not be big on Talentless Nana but it is, at least, tonally consistent. We're not swinging from wacky lighthearted hijinks to literal child murder.

I agree that it feels as though much of the reviewer's criticism of the show stems from it turning out to be a different show than they believed that they were getting into. For example, with Episode 4 they stated, "I absolutely would prefer a return to the inaugural focus on character and whimsy over the bleaker fare", yet four episodes straight of light-hearted episodes brought more complaints.

Well yeah, because when I said I wanted the show to go back to the general realm of the first 2 episodes, it was because its attempts at darker stories was too thinly written and aimless. What we got after that was just as thinly written, but instead of ending on a dour monologue from Elaina it ended on gags about foot fetishes. My issue isn't that WW isn't "the show I wanted" whatever that means, but that what I've seen has been an increasingly poorly written anthology series that rarely makes good use of the time it has and that came to a head in this episode that was so rote, clumsy, and inept at what it was trying to accomplish that I had the exact opposite reaction it intended.

lossthief wrote:

Well yeah, because when I said I wanted the show to go back to the general realm of the first 2 episodes, it was because its attempts at darker stories was too thinly written and aimless. What we got after that was just as thinly written, but instead of ending on a dour monologue from Elaina it ended on gags about foot fetishes. My issue isn't that WW isn't "the show I wanted" whatever that means, but that what I've seen has been an increasingly poorly written anthology series that rarely makes good use of the time it has and that came to a head in this episode that was so rote, clumsy, and inept at what it was trying to accomplish that I had the exact opposite reaction it intended.

My issue is that the sole argument for why its poorly written seems to be "I personally didn't like it," as you haven't really gone into any other reason besides, for example, "I find a story with jokes about anime girl feet to be crude." And in this review in particular, while I understand not liking how heavily the edge was piled on, that's the only thing that the review goes into while ignoring the other aspects of the episode. It reads as if you were so eager to vent your personal dislike of the episode that you did not look at it as critically as a reviewer should.

Reviews are inherently personal, and it's entirely reasonable to find something so bad that the details don't actually mean anything to you because they don't even come close to making up for how terrible the story is. If the narrative on display is so amazingly incompetent, then other aspects of the episode, whether it be the script, the production, whatever, need to be positively stellar. Otherwise, they aren't gonna do much to change your mind.

Like, why the hell did the girl have so much blood in her mouth? Did she bit her victims to death? No, that can't be right, the show says she stabbed them. Did she drink their blood after killing them? Dammit, show, tell me how all that blood ended up in her mouth! You can't possibly tell me it's to make her look edgier!

Random Name wrote:

I really wish the returning characters such as Saya and Flan were in more episodes.

The director has already gone out of his way to make that happen. I suspected as much midway through the cour and posted about it weeks ago, but it was apparently confirmed by him in a recent interview. He wanted to piece together a more consistent narrative by animating stories those characters appear in. To the point he leapfrogged over four volumes of content to achieve that.

While I wouldn't rate the LNs highly for various reasons, I really think this adaptation does a poor job of capturing what makes them entertaining, if not necessarily cleverly written reads. Which is a minority opinion I guess, since every source reader I see online seems to agree this is an excellent adaptation of a nigh masterpiece.

I can't even blame people for hating on this series when it spends half its run being a mediocre CGDCT then drops in one of the blander darker stories (worsening it, no less) while skipping over a much better earlier one. Or leaving out stories that are plain bizarre without being ridiculous or tragic. The gradient in tone shouldn't constantly flip between 100% silly and total edge. Even the better yuri stuff with more positively portrayed gay couples is cut out in favor of Saya's creepy crush.

I knew from the start this show would be polarizing given the LN's occasionally distasteful commentary and was looking forward to watching the fallout; but it feels like that is more a result of the director's poor choices than the material itself. It's a little frustrating and amusing watching the expected outcome unfold for completely unexpected reasons.

Anyhow, as for the episode, I'm gonna be honest, I was paying too much attention to weird little details to be shocked, or terrified or laughing.

Like, why the hell did the girl have so much blood in her mouth? Did she bit her victims to death? No, that can't be right, the show says she stabbed them. Did she drink their blood after killing them? Dammit, show, tell me how all that blood ended up in her mouth! You can't possibly tell me it's to make her look edgier!

Like, why the hell did the girl have so much blood in her mouth? Did she bit her victims to death? No, that can't be right, the show says she stabbed them. Did she drink their blood after killing them?

lossthief wrote:

Well yeah, because when I said I wanted the show to go back to the general realm of the first 2 episodes, it was because its attempts at darker stories was too thinly written and aimless. What we got after that was just as thinly written, but instead of ending on a dour monologue from Elaina it ended on gags about foot fetishes. My issue isn't that WW isn't "the show I wanted" whatever that means, but that what I've seen has been an increasingly poorly written anthology series that rarely makes good use of the time it has and that came to a head in this episode that was so rote, clumsy, and inept at what it was trying to accomplish that I had the exact opposite reaction it intended.

My issue is that the sole argument for why its poorly written seems to be "I personally didn't like it," as you haven't really gone into any other reason besides, for example, "I find a story with jokes about anime girl feet to be crude." And in this review in particular, while I understand not liking how heavily the edge was piled on, that's the only thing that the review goes into while ignoring the other aspects of the episode. It reads as if you were so eager to vent your personal dislike of the episode that you did not look at it as critically as a reviewer should.

The fact that you complain and say he hasn't given any real reasons for why it's poorly written in a post where you quote him saying exactly why is rather ironic. It seems like you simply don't like his reviews because his opinions don't mirror your own. I think you should stick to opinions about the show and not the reviewer. Especially if you're going o complain about things he has not said while quoting those very things he did in fact say.

What follows is easily one of the most embarrassing attempts at shock horror I've seen in quite some time, as the grade-schooler Selena, blood caked in her teeth, calmly explained how her parents abused her and that turned her into a maniacal killer who literally soaks in the ecstasy of murder. Then an enraged Estelle proceeded to magically brutalize a 4th grader while the kid cackled madly, in perhaps the most lovingly animated sequence of child murder I've ever seen. Sadly all that craft is wasted on a fundamentally busted narrative idea that's so poorly written I wondered if this show had been a parody all along. There was actually a content warning at the start of this episode, and in a vacuum, I can see why watching a kid get decapitated on-screen would warrant that, but for my money the entire sequence was so colossally dumb that no amount of gore could leave an impact. It's that bad.