WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episodes 1 to 9 of Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, now streaming on Funimation and Hulu.
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina has been a surprisingly controversial anime. Based on a series of light novels, this series follows the titular Elania, a witch who decides to travel the world. On the surface, the series sounds cute and innocent. And the early marketing played into that idea, showing off cute characters and colorful landscapes. And the first episode fit this marketing perfectly, giving viewers a calm look at a world that was overflowing with wonder as Elaina underwent her training and set off on her magical journey. The second episode was similar, following Elaina as she meets and befriends a lonely witch.
But, when episode three came out, viewers were given hints that Elaina's world isn't as charming as it appears as Elaina encounters both a depressed and abused slave as well as a person turning into a plant. To the surprise of most viewers, Elaina does not help these people and leaves before their fate is resolved. Episode four also featured a dark twist, but episodes six, seven and eight featured lighter and sillier stories.
And then, episode nine was released. The episode started with a content warning, informing viewers that this episode was going to feature disturbing imagery. The story began with Elaina meeting a witch called Estelle. Estelle wanted to make a spell so she could go back in time and save her friend Selena. Selena's parents had been murdered, and the shock caused her to become a serial killer. Eventually, Estelle had to kill Selena to prevent her from hurting others. Estelle hopes she can go back in time and save Selena's parents and thus create a timeline where Selena isn't a murderer. Alas, when they arrive in the past, a gore-covered Selena gleefully explains that she killed her parents because of their abuse towards her. Full of rage, Estelle kills Selena for a second time before returning to the present.
Many viewers were confused and upset by this episode, with many feeling that the show's marketing had tricked them. Interestingly, Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina isn't the only 2020 anime to subvert audience expectations. Deca-Dence and Talentless Nana both deviated from their advertised premises and received lots of praise for it. However, while they both deviated from what was advertised, both shows remained in their original genre. And after their reveals, both shows kept a consistent tone and style of content.
Wandering Witch, on the other hand, jumps from genre to genre without warning, with episodes going from silly to dark and then drifting into outright horror, leaving audiences very unsure what to expect each week. Episode nine is the perfect microcosm of this tone issue, as while previous episodes were dark, they were not as gory or as brutal as this episode. While previous episodes felt like they had an underlying message in their darkness, episode nine felt like the writers were being shocking for the sake of being shocking, creating something that resembled a bad creepypasta. There were ways to tell this episode's story in a way that was dark but consistent with the rest of the show's content. And without resorting to badly done and out of place shock horror.
Though it should be noted that this issue isn't exclusive to the anime. The light novels also have this shifting tone. Elaina is not the main character as much as a pair of eyes the viewer gets to experience stories through. These stories go out of their way to show that the world is often strange and selfish, and the novels often leave stories without a solid ending. It is easy to understand why the out of nowhere darkness left a sour taste in viewers' mouths, but it feels less like a deliberate bait and switch and more like a clumsy marketing failure, which is a shame as Wandering Witch is a good show at its core. There is nothing wrong with a bait and switch if it is pulled off well. Playing with anime as a medium and subverting expectation can lead to great and innovative shows that delight audiences. However, Wandering Witch pulled it off badly, making the show come across as scattered rather than genuinely subversive.
