No.1089
>>1088No but I would knock that huge hat off her head.
No.1115
There was a shot earlier that was really representative of what I said in
>>1096 and I'll probably write a tl;dr rant at the end of this about it. For some reason, this shot makes me feel the same.
No.1126
>>1122Don't tell me it's gonna be
time travel shenanigans AGAIN
No.1128
>>1096Japanese witches are just girl merlins. They need to do more animal sacrificing and devil summoning.
No.1140
Gay witches.
No.1194
So this show is independent single episodes? Like kino no tabi style stuff?
No.1298
>>1228>>1295Yeah, the first two episodes sold me on this anime but the stories are all grimdark and/or preachy. I'm especially not liking this formula of Elaina telling a story that either relates (traveler showing images to his wife) or is a depersonalization of the story she's living (this episode and the story about "a certain princess"). On one hand it sounds exactly like a self-important teenager trying to sound deep but on the other hand I'm not seeing the author being clever enough to have done that on purpose. Doubly so because it's cheap and works in the anime's detriment.
The anime would improve by leaps and bounds if during story moments we heard Elaina's thoughts on whatever she's experiencing as if she was writing on a diary or if she actually fully narrated a story with whimsical references like "and who was this witch whose beauty flying over the mountain makes anyone sigh? It was me, of course". Instead we're watching her watching things. She's traveling but we don't see any logic to it. The first town was a given but how about after that? She heard a rumor and went to check it out? Did someone tell her such and such place is great this time of the year? Did she read in Nike's journal about a town and goes to see how things have changed? Does she just pick a location completely at random with not even a proper justification (follow a river until hitting a town)? Does she even have a map or is cataloguing/mapping her course? There's little travel, scarce writing, no cartography to be seen and we don't get to know her opinions or even what she thinks about what's going on. No room for character development or telling a story.
I'm giving this two more episodes on account of the first two being pretty nice, but right now majo no tabitabi is veering into a "shallow pretentious trash" rating.
No.1300
>>1298I want to believe what's happening is Elaina sticking up to the promises she made to her mom but there's better ways of portraying her motivations. I agree that having no narration focusing on Elaina's thoughts and feelings hurts the show.
No.1301
>>1300It's weird because it's not as if they're averse to monologue, but they're using the monologues in precisely the wrong ways. We don't need monologues about her old stories or whatever, we need monologues about how she feels about all the things she sees. It's like as soon as the first episode is over Elaine becomes a static PoV character, but then what's the point of developing her in the first place?
No.1345
Latest episode was pretty nice. It's like they listened to all my criticisms and took steps to placate me.
No.1369
The thumbs up is comical, I really like it.
>>1345With that said, do you think the story feels almost a bit schizophrenic, tone-wise? Maybe the new episode will convince me but episode 5 feels like a hard turn from episode 3-4, and episode 3-4 was a hard turn from episode 1-2. Are these just different volumes of an LN? But even then it seems a bit extreme.
No.1378
>>1376There's a "-subtitles" filter, just use that and, assuming you're using a file with the subs already inside of it, put the same file as your input after it. The only weird thing is that it won't work if the filename has any spaces in it or something, so unless they've fixed that you have to rename your file.
No.1381
>>1378I did use that filter, but it doesn't create hardsubs, it creates WebVTT subs which doesn't show up in browsers. The webm I posted does actually have a WebVTT sub track.
No.1431
I watched all currently available episodes today, it was alright but that's it.
I am a huge sucker for episodic animes and the theme of travelling is also something I like. Still until now the characters don't appeal to me and the featured stories were not to my taste, except the second one of episode 3. I would like to say something nice about it but all I can say is that it was entertaining…
I will surely finish it, now that I have watched 8 out of 12 episodes, hopefully it improves.
No.1473
>>1471Oh it's adapted from a light novel, that makes sense
It didn't feel like an anime original.
>hyper inflationYeah but that honestly seems like the author using a light novel to flex his modern understanding of inflation. I guess it could work in some situations but most medieval countries hyperinflation isn't possible just due to the speed at which the economy is actually growing and the fact that precious metals are naturally removed from circulation when "cheapened" by inflation to make jewelry and gildings, so inflation is actually opposed by the market itself.
No.1479
>>1478I probably am. I just get annoyed when LN authors start spouting off real-world solutions to problems and acting smart about it, but I guess that's actually mostly an isekai thing.
No.1500
>>1496Love that hairstyle. A pity she went back to the old one at the end.
No.1503
>>1496>Did anyone not immediately know who the culprit was?I honestly thought she was a red herring, it was just way too fucking obvious. I was really disappointed when it turned out it actually was her.
>>1500I spent the whole episode thinking that it was gonna grow back gradually over the next few episodes, which I would've liked, but I forgot she's good at repair magic.
No.1504
>>1500>>1503Since the anime is jumping back and forth in time, having her start with short hair and then use it as a visual cue for how long she's been traveling is another lost opportunity now that I think about it. Not like the anime really missed a lot for not using it, just a small neat little detail they could have used.
No.1505
>>1504>Since the anime is jumping back and forth in timeIs it? I never got that impression, unless there's something I'm forgetting.
No.1507
>>1505Right on episode 2, in the end when Elaina claims some 6 months have passed, or on the Fran-sensei return episode for example.
No.1545
FFS GJM not coming out with new subs for weeks on end
This is why people stopped giving a shit about fansubs
No.1546
>>1545>This is why people stopped giving a shit about fansubsWell clearly you give enough of a shit to notice and complain. GJM's torrents tend to be pretty active too, which shows that plenty of other people give a shit as well.
Personally, I don't mind a few weeks' delay for the sake of non-shitty subs. It's not like I've got a lack of other stuff to watch or do in the mean time.
I honestly didn't even notice until you pointed it out. Time moves way too damn quickly. No.1547
>>1545I don't think the people who still give a shit about fansubs nowadays are going suddenly stop because a half-dead group starts slowsubbing again after a short burst of activity.
No.1548
>>1546It's not like I have a lack of things to do but it's noticeable when you're thinking 'hmm let's watch anime' and then you check and nothing's up again.
No.1583
The anime managed to keep me with it right until the end. Whenever it got close to overstaying its welcome, a good episode would pop up and keep me invested. In the end, all the good episodes are about introducing and recurring characters. Elaina on her own is boring. It's very funny, quite possibly in an unintended way, how the final episode addresses the issue of Elaina being a boring character. The way it's justified is such a massive cop-out I'm sure the author is wishing really hard for he himself to believe it.
I really wanted to look back at this anime and claim that, were the ordering of episodes different, it would give a better impression. However, considering every episode with just Elaina ends up being dark and bitter, there really is no leeway for a structure of a nice little travel episode with or without a character introduction, an episode of bumping into a recurring character and then the dark episode diluted inbetween (funny how the last of those episodes is the only one with a content warning). The cast is way too interconnected, both in screentime and relationships, to allow remixing the episode order and you'd run into the problem of making the world appear too small or give no room to miss a character. I don't know if the VN is this restrictive with its episodes but, if it isn't, they should have definitely picked other episodes.
It's weird. There's other anime around that's also more about the worldbuilding and the side cast, but this anime focuses on Elaina enough that the side characters don't feel like they truly belong to the focus of the story (considering it's about Elaina's travels. You don't expect her to keep running into everyone). I want to like it more than I do, but if I were asked about it, I'd have to give the kind of speech I'm giving now. Elaina doesn't have to be interesting. Elaina can run into darker corners of the world. But the structure! It's so thin!
No.1586
>>1583>VNMeant LN, of course.
The music is nice as well. The main theme (not OP) has a travel-ish feel to it that I quite like.
Another criticism that I think strikes at the heart of my issues with Elaina – she doesn't feel like a witch. There's no supernatural or whimsical aura to her. She uses magic in a more utilitarian way. Like a tourist who is well familiar with the customs of the land. She blends in but you just know she doesn't belong. Fran-sensei feels like the quintessential fairytale witch, with a certain elegance, whimsy and charming simplicity that disguises an incredible power. Saya feels like an apprentice witch, using and exploring magic with varying results, surrounded by or stumbling upon curious magical contraptions. Sheila feels like a detective witch, using her powers to fix a problem. Nike feels like a lighthearted witch, with a way with words that persuades the people around her and a whimsy similar to Fran-sensei's but with a bigger selfish streak. The point is that there's something about them that not only makes you think of them as witches, but the things they themselves do are related with magic and being a witch. Why does Elaina need to be a witch? Learning how to fly is enough for 90% of what she does. It was justifiable at first as a plot device to justify her mother letting her out to travel at such a young age, but after that it serves no purpose. She shows glimpses of wisdom and can conjure up some witty dialogue, but there's no strength to her emotions, seemingly no weight to her actions.
Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe they shouldn't have skipped her training under Fran-sensei so we get a better feel of her as a character. Honestly, I forgot that she was writing with the intent of showing it only to her mother and thought all along that she was looking to write a book of journeys of her own. Was it conveyed properly? I believe I'd remember that kind of thing, because it explains a little better the logic behind her itinerary. I don't expect to be hand-held throughout the story but reminding your audience once or twice isn't that obnoxious, I think.
Well, it is what it is. Some nice episodes, some cute characters, nice music but I was expecting more. Perhaps that's the problem.
