Majo no Tabitabi | Episode 11 and 12 Review

---

Episode Eleven Thoughts

Episode eleven was alright when it was all said and done. We had a little body switching thanks to the Curio Company. Which wasn’t really that great to be honest. We got to see Saya’s younger sister so that’s a plus, I will say however, that anime has always had this weird thing where the younger sister is almost always taller and is more developed than the older sister. Which is true about Saya and her little sister Mina.

Another thing that the Curio Company’s shenanigans’ led to was the reunion between the Clan’s leader and the two apprentices who had defeated her when the leader was at her peak, Sheila and Fran. Who did the most obvious thing and probably the most predictable thing, which was drop hints that Elaina could relate to in the book “Adventures of Nike”. Obviously by the end of the episode, those two alone make it abundantly obvious to Elaina that they were the apprentices in the book, which also meant that Nike was in fact Elaina’s mother. Something Fran makes clear at the end of the episode, when she asks Elaina if she pieced together and realized who her teacher was. Something that Elaina refused to realize, although we know deep down she knows who Fran’s teacher was and is.

I personally didn’t like how they made it obvious at the end, I wanted some sort of spectacular ending to the whole thing, where Nike (Elaina’s mother) comes out of nowhere to help her daughter out of a situation that she couldn’t get out of alone. That’s what I wanted episode twelve to be like, so all this hint dropping in episode eleven really killed my dream. (I’m writing this part before I see episode twelve, so my dream could be true in the end not sure yet).

Episode Twelve Thoughts

I will say, the fight between the ‘Evil’ Elaina and the real (protagonist) Elaina was pretty cool, I loved the animation. Conceptually, it was interesting. The thought of seeing different versions of yourself, all of them having experienced the same sort of things you have experienced, all of them taking those experiences in different ways is something that I think we all thought about. “What would have happened if I had done this?”, “If I had experienced this again, how would I react? How would I take it?”. There’s always a level interest with regards to all the different possibilities that could have come from the decisions you decided not to make or take. Which is something that is more or less explored this episode. Obviously, at the end of the day, regardless of what decision(s) you did or didn’t make, you have to make peace with yourself because it’s part of the bigger life story. Which is the main message of episode twelve.

But that’s besides the point, let’s talk about the ending shall we? At the end, I think it’s implied through Elaina closing her diary, that she had finished her travels or rather her first volume. The title of her book being “Wandering Witch”, a copy of the book which is shown at the end in the hands of a girl who was writing in it (someone we only see because they (the girl and Elaina bump into each other). What I thought was interesting was that, Elaina also has the book (as she’s the original author), which has the words “Read this when you wake up in the morning” written on the front of it. Furthermore, we do not see Elaina in her usual clothes that she had worn throughout the anime, instead she’s dressed like a normal individual.

At the end, Elaina says “…little did I know that she and I would be traveling together in the future. Her name is Amnesia”. Does this goes hand-in-hand with the writing that reads “Read this when you wake up in the morning” signifying that something had happened to Elaina on her journey that caused her to forget her travels and that she was a travelling witch? Or does the girl’s name of “Amnesia” go hand-in-hand with something that had happened to that girl which causes her to forget. WHO KNOWS. SPECULATION.

Quite the way to set the stage for any potential sequel to Majo no Tabitabi. Is it the sort of ending I wanted for the series? Not really. However, the ending did make me curious as to who this “Amnesia” individual was and why Elaina had the words “Read this when you wake up in the morning” written on the book she carried. We will ever find out? Who knows. Does it make feel like I should read the light novel to find out? Yeah probably, but I’m not going to read it (well maybe, we’ll see).