arorashadow_2003

Wandering Witch isn't so much your classic character's journey as much as it's just a bunch of happening in a world that happens to have some semblance of magic and fantasy. With that every week is a new adventure but it's an adventure with no goal, no purpose no appeal.

Elaina who is a bright young girl becomes a certified witch and sets off to explore the lands and well that's pretty much it. The big drawback is Elaina as a main character is so unappealing because it feels like she matters little to the story. Bouncing between a character who is only looking out for her self interests or a character who is just a passive player in her own story. Honestly by the fourth episode you'll be wondering, what is even the point?

Pro tip, if you're going to make your character a generic blank slate for us to see the world through their eyes, make sure the world is actually interesting. Elaina's world is one of joy and sorrow and the show does its best to replicate that, a noble pursuit but the results are mixed and being so cynical of the main character, doesn't make me care all that much. That said the world of this fantasy, isn't very fantastic at all. Frankly, if you stripped Elaina of her broom stick and gave her a horse, motorcycle or her own two feet, there wouldn't be a lot about this story that would change, that leaves this setting feel more like a pseudo historical backdrop and there's already plenty of boring isekai shows that do this already.

Elaina is a pretty looking show with very vibrant colors and lovely animation, and the CGI is also great too, when it's used for anything worthwhile which isn't very often.

Between the terrible character, boring stories saved by a few memorable moments and nice art, Elaina is probably my most disappointing show this year, even more so than Magia Record, but with Magia Record I already had low expctations going in, this was hopefully going to be different. I'm in need of a good fantasy that is just a fantasy and not another character reborn into another generic MMORPG yet again.

Lost in Adaptation is a really interesting concept and I did watch it and occasionally got some entertainment out of it but Dom Smith's methods are dubious. For the outsider looking at an adapted work, it's always easy enough to say "it didn't contain X parts of my favorite book and that makes it bad" but that's a terrible way to look at book to movie adaptations.

Your novice usually doesn't understand why mediums are different and why straight adaptations are not always the best or possible and people like Dom only perpetuate that with shows like Lost in Adaptation as a result. Dom's videos boil down to "Does it follow the book to the letter? If yes then good movie if no then bad movie" and that's a terrible way to look at books to movies or whatever.

This show is just nitpicking at changes but doesn't grasp why or if these changes better suit the narrative or take away from the narrative, it always boils down to "They changed it, now it sucks!"

A better show than this is "What's the Difference" by CineFix which has the same concept of examining the differences between source material the nuances behind changes and how it affects the narrative of both materials instead of just "They changed it, now it sucks!" mentality that people like Dom perpetuate. Dom is not an analyzer nor good critic, he's a material purist at the end of the day, and somebody should at least tell him that one page of script is one minute of film.