Literature / Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

"Who is the beautiful girl wearing a brooch that signals her status as a witch, whose ashen hair flutters in the wind, shining so much with beauty and talent, that even the sun's eyes squint involuntarily? That's right, it's me."

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina (魔女の旅々, Majo no Tabitabi) is a Light Novel series written by Jougi Shiraishi and illustrated by Azure, which began publication in 2016. An anime adaptation by C2C aired from October 2 to December 18, 2020.

There have also been Drama CD adaptations accompanying special edition releases of select volumes. The first Drama CD came out with the special edition of Volume 8, first released November 15, 2018, with its voice actress cast going on to reprise their roles in the anime adaptation two years later. There have thus far been more Drama CDs accompanying the special edition releases of Volumes 10, 12, 14, 17 and 19.

The series focuses on a young girl named Elaina who, after becoming a full-fledged witch, travels the world to meet many new people and visit new places.

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This series contains examples of:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: In "The Two Masters", the Antique Hall has an arsenal of magic imbued weapons, one of which is a sword that can cut through anything.
• Abusive Parents:
  • "Bottled Happiness": Emil's father, the village chief, is one and even mistreats their servant girl Nino.
  • "Retroactive Grief": The main source of tragedy in the story, as Selena snapped at her parents treatment of her while Estelle fails to save Selena.
• Actor Allusion: Ghoul Elaina brings to mind Kaede Hondo's work as Sakura Minamoto from Zombieland Saga.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Once in "The Girl as Pretty as a Flower", and twice in "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches":
  • The anime cuts out the explanation that raw magical energy is produced by natural flora like flowers and trees, and that magic is at its most potent in a forest full of them (which is exactly why Fran trained Elaina in a forest). It's for this very reason why a magic user can't simply go in and destroy the parasitic flower field in "The Girl as Pretty as a Flower". Using any kind of magic against the mutated field that was born from a plant that absorbed all that large amount of magical energy would only end up making things worse for everyone involved, which the author confirms in a tweet.
  • The absence of Devil Elaina and her involvement in that particular chapter from the adaptation removes the reasons why different versions of Elaina were gathered in The City of Granted Wishes, why the place was created from the memories of the countries she previously traveled in, and why the Elainas only stayed there for three days. The anime handwaves it to Elaina having dreamed her adventure there up while still leaving room for ambiguity. In the light novel, the situation was a little more complicated and sinister than that: it's revealed that Devil Elaina created that particular country to lure the Elainas in an attempt to drain their life force while they dreamed, and that Devil Elaina could only do that on the third day of their stay. All of the Elainas present there were also revealed to be very real and pulled from different alternate timelines.
  • The anime ^note and a mistranslated goof from the official localized release of Volume 3 made it look like Protagonist Elaina also experienced the events of "Retroactive Grief" just like Violent Elaina by removing her monologue that has her describing her timeline's version of the Village of Rostolf and, moreover, having Protagonist Elaina talk about the sorrow that Violent Elaina underwent as if she knew it first-hand and claim that she also went back ten years in time in Rostolf, overall coming off as having experienced the same soul-crushing events but also having coped better afterward. The light novel made it clearer that the Elainas that Protagonist Elaina encountered there were alternate versions of her from parallel worlds, and not simply exaggerated fragments of her personality, meaning the Elainas are all the same character, but not the same individual.
• Adaptational Villainy: Downplayed. The Village Chief from "Bottled Happiness" is shown to be scummier in the anime adaptation by virtue of it heavily implying that he sexually abuses Nino and by having him leer at Elaina from head to toe, making her uncomfortable before he quickly loses interest. While he's not exactly a nice guy in the light novel either, he doesn't leer at Elaina the moment he saw her and it's never really made clear if he really does sexually abuse Nino outside of an ambiguous remark he makes about her.
• Adapted Out: Devil Elaina, the creator of The City of Granted Wishes and the mastermind behind the events of "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches", is completely absent in the anime adaptation despite her role in said chapter in Volume 3 of the light novel.
• All for Nothing: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle's efforts are all for naught as she still ends up killing her best friend Selena. Elaina also helped in resolving Estelle's worries just because of money. But because of the trauma, she didn't take her reward in the end anyway.
• Alliance of Alternates: Happens during "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches" where the Elainas band together to defend themselves from the incredibly aggressive "Violent Elaina" who attacks any and all Elainas on sight for unknown reasons. Unfortunately for them, Violent Elaina swiftly beats all but one of them without breaking a sweat even after some of them tried to attack her altogether. Only Protagonist Elaina stood a real chance against her.
• Anachronic Order: Elaina's journey is told in a non-linear fashion in the first three volumes of the light novel, jumping in-between different points of Elaina's life and story without regard for chronology. Her first meeting with Fran in Episode 1 for example, was originally a detailed flashback in the first volume's ninth chapter rather than the first. This largely stops applying from Volume 4 onward, with the reader being able to track Elaina and the other recurring characters' journeys through extended arcs such as Amnesia's and the aftermath, and being able to see Elaina turn 19 and beyond by the events of Volume 8. The main exception is with the occasional chapters starring Arte and Linaria, two students of a temporary Professor Elaina's at Latorita State University, set seven years after the present timeline; after their chapters, the timeline reverts to the present for whatever volume their chapters were in.
• Asshole Victim: In "Retroactive Grief", the abusive treatment towards Selena from her parents gets to the point that she kills them both in cold blood.
• Beyond Redemption: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle has decided to murder Selena in the past timeline after seeing the latter in a broken state.
• Big Brother Instinct: The re-ocurring volume 1 character "Muscleman" is on a journey to find his sister, who was kidnapped by a group of shady figures. It was actually a group date, and the sister broke up with all of them because they weren't muscular enough.
• Book Ends: In "Retroactive Grief", the chapter/episode starts and ends with a depressed Elaina sitting on a bench facing the clock tower.
• Bottomless Magazines: In "The Two Masters", the Antique Hall has an arsenal of magic imbued weapons, one of which is a gun that doesn't need to reload and wielded dually.
• Break the Haughty: Fran spends the first month of Elaina's apprenticeship treating her as a glorified servant in order to push her to her breaking point, and then utterly humiliates her in a magic duel to show her how outclassed she is. Fran reveals that Elaina's parents had specifically asked her to do this, as they were afraid that their daughter's talent was getting to her head, but Fran ends up taking it a bit too far and has to apologize.
• Broke Episode: In "Retroactive Grief", the reason Elaina takes up Estelle's job posting was because the former is in dire need of money.
• But Now I Must Go: As a traveler, Elaina never stays in one country for too long and must embark on another journey to seek a different one.
• Call-Back: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina recalls that mages can sacrifice something in exchange for casting more magic, their voice and memories for example. This is a reference to what Mirarosé in "The Princess Without Subjects" and Eihemia in "The Land of Truth Tellers" did.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: The Land of Truth Tellers is a country where inhabitants and visitors alike are unable to be untruthful, due to the power of its king's sword.
• Captured on Purpose: In "The Two Masters", both Fran and Sheila let themselves be captured in order to subjugate the Antique Hall.
• Cargo Ship: An in-universe inversion in the light novels. During one of the chapter-long flashbacks to her training under Fran, Elaina develops a spell that lets objects take human form and speak. One day, while trying to use it on Fran's mug, she holds the spell too long and ends up using it on her wand. Said wand, now in human form, admits its love for Elaina, pins her down, and tries to kiss her before Fran steps in and reverts it back to its true form. Afterwards, in a letter, Elaina's mother says she'll destroy the wand the next time her daughter comes home, only for Fran to say that she already did the honors.
• Casting Gag: Yōko Hikasa, Sheila's Japanese voice actress, has previously played witches in Little Witch Academia and Goblin Slayer. Additionally, her role as a detective in Episode 8 is reminiscent of her character Kyouko Kirigiri from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.
• Catchphrase: "Sou, Watashi-desu" ("That's right, it's me"). Elaina and various characters such as Fran and Saya uses this phrase often when monologuing in the light novel.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: This is primarily an episodic series consisting of standalone stories, and the tone of said stories vary between being wholesome, disturbing, comedic, and depressing.
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina and Estelle discuss how a mage can still sacrifice something in order to cast magic even when they ran out of mana, to which Elaina mentions voice or memories as examples. Near the end of the story arc, Estelle did sacrifice her memories as a last resort when she had to kill her friend Selena.
• Comet of Doom: In the thousand-year-old country of Bielawald, a comet passes by every 22 years which causes strange natural phenomena; sometimes, people's houses would disappear, never-before-seen plants or creatures would appear, or people would be spontaneously set on fire due to its appearance. The country's authorities come to the conclusion that the comet is an indicator that the gods are angry, and start a practice of Human Sacrifice to appease the gods. Eventually, the reason behind this practice is lost, and by the time Fran is born in this country, nobody knows how this practice started.
• Conlang: Sort of. The anime shows that the world of Wandering Witch has its own distinct alphabet, transcriptions of which are used in the Funimation subtitles. When translated to the Latin alphabet, however, they form recognizable words and sentences in English, Japanese, French, and other real-world languages.
• Content Warnings: Episode 9 starts with a disclaimer stating that the episode contains explicit content that may be inappropriate for younger viewers.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front:
  • In the time of The Adventures of Niké, Cafe Qunorts is in actuality a front for the Antique Hall, and Fran deliberately goes there to get caught by the gang. Twenty years after the Antique Hall's subjugation and a change in ownership, the cafe has become a legitimate establishment.
  • The spy organization where Yuuri works at in The Fictional Witch in Volume 4 fronts as a coffee shop; in the back of the house where the real business is conducted, the organization accepts commissions for assassinations and other unsavory deeds.
  • There are multiple of these in the Merchant City Triones in Volume 8, which prompts the United Magic Association to send in witches like Saya and to recruit more traveling mages like Avelia to deal with the problem.
• Creepy Doll: "The Ripper" has Elaina enter a country full of creepy dolls. One of the dolls, under the control of the eponymous Ripper, cuts her hair down from waist length to a bob cut while she sleeps. The secret auction she goes to afterwards in search of the Ripper has life-sized dolls in fanservicey poses, which seem meant to come off as creepy, rather than sexy.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • Mirarosé's father, with his daughter transforming him into a monster that kills his own citizens without care of his own will. Then his own daughter, after trapping him into a giant hole, barrages him with Elemental Powers and Field of Blades then decapitates him.
  • The "Forgotten Homecoming" sentence that the Holy City of Esto reserves for its worst criminals seems engineered to be as sadistic as possible. The condemned are afflicted with a curse that erases their memories whenever they fall asleep and they are exiled from the city. On the outside, losing their memories every night, they desperately try to piece together their identity and origin. As they try and find their way back home, they part with any kind passersby and themselves every night. And should they ever succeed in returning to the Holy City, they are immediately arrested and slated for execution. They only regain all their memories moments before they are beheaded by either a family member, a close friend, or someone close to the bereaved, flooded with regret and despair in their final moments while the city's entire population cheers and bays for their blood from the stands. This sentence is the reason Amnesia is wandering without any memories, and she only keeps her head thanks to the timely intervention of Elaina and Avelia. Avelia only gets her opportunity to rescue Amnesia because she, as the convict's younger sister, had been delegated the "honor" of executing her due to Elimia, the original executioner as planned, being intercepted and stalled by Elaina.
• Darker and Edgier: The animated version of "The Princess Without Subjects" is darker than the light novel version. In the light novel, Mirarosé, after killing her father, basically just chatted to Elaina, with the latter wishing for her to stop and let her leave. The animated version lets the viewers see her insanity with Elaina fleeing.
• Deer in the Headlights: At the climax of "Retroactive Grief", Elaina can only stand there in shock as Selena charges at her with a knife.
• Despair Event Horizon: In the light novel version of "Bottled Happiness", when Elaina is about to leave, the former describes Nino, after seeing her for the last time, as having eyes full of darkness, almost like a dead person.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In "Bottled Happiness", Emil's intentions of making Nino happy has only made the latter even more depressed and implied to even have Driven to Suicide. Elaina even monologues about it.
    Elaina: (narrating) Just because you're doing something for someone else doesn't make it right. Kindness and beauty can sometimes be cruel.
  • In "The Land of Truth Tellers", Elaina points this out to Eihemia when the latter was apparently kicked out of the palace after losing her voice and powers for the king.
    Elaina: You were hired as a witch, so of course you would have little value outside of your magic.
  • In "Amnesia's Forgotten Homecoming", Elaina agrees to lend Avelia her aid to save Amnesia from her execution the next morning, only to be exasperated that Avelia had come up with a slapdash plan that, in her estimation, would have ended in disaster had they followed it to a T. She spends the night helping Avelia refine the plan so that it succeeds and that Amnesia is rescued with her name cleared and memories restored.
    Elaina (monologuing): Since she had been boasting about her job in the palace, I had assumed she had come up with a strategy that employed her knowledge of the building, her professional contacts, her personal relationships, and even the local magical techniques. But it seemed she was trying to get things done with raw force.
• Dissonant Serenity: In the light novel version of "The Princess Without Subjects", Elaina, during her chat with Mirarosé after she kills her father, describes the latter as having an eerily calm disposition that causes the former to want to finish the chatter and leave the place as soon as possible.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Reina Ueda, the Doll Shopkeeper's Japanese voice actress, performs the opening theme.
• Does Not Like Spam: Neither Elaina nor Saya like mushrooms, but they have to endure them since full-fledged witches shouldn't be picky.
• Downer Ending:
  • Both stories in Episode 3 end on a depressing note:
    • "The Girl as Pretty as a Flower" ends with the guard who took Elaina's flowers shambling into the parasitic flower field that had already turned his sister into a monster and embracing her as he's consumed, while more infected villagers stumble towards them.
    • "Bottled Happiness" has Elaina realize that the story of the mage who gave his wife bottles of happiness ended with the wife despairing over seeing what she couldn't have, after which she killed herself; Nino is implied to have shared the same fate.
  • Episode 4, "The Princess Without Subjects": Mirarosé, having regained her memories, completes the total destruction of her kingdom with the death of her transformed father, losing the last piece of her sanity in the process, while all Elaina can do is get the hell out of there.
  • Episode 9, "Retroactive Grief": Estelle, having learned that her best friend Selena was the one who killed her parents, realizes that she was always beyond redemption and executes her again, sacrificing her memories of Selena to do so. By the end, the only one who remembers what happened is Elaina, who is so traumatized that she bolts out of the house without even taking her payment.
• Dysfunctional Family: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena openly admits that they only acted like a perfect family in public.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the second half of Episode 3, "Bottled Happiness", Elaina helps Emil, the son of a village chief, give Nino, the slave of said chief, a "bottle filled with happiness". This reminded her of a book she once read about a husband wanting to give his depressed wife something similar, but couldn't remember the ending. At the end of the segment, after leaving the house, she finally remembered the ending of the story:
  Elaina: (narrating) It was then that I remembered the ending of the book I read in the past. The beautiful scenes the husband brought home ended up making his wife, who couldn't go anywhere, even more depressed. And then, his wife... "Just because you are doing something for someone else doesn't make it right." It was a really preachy story. Kindness and beauty can sometimes become cruel. I don't know what happened to Nino after that. No, I don't want to know...
• Everyone Chasing You: The Royal Magic Academy students in Episode 5 chase Elaina throughout the city on broomstick, though Elaina effortlessly evades them all. It's later shown that this was done as a practical lesson from their teacher, Fran.
• Fanservice Cover: In-Universe; In "The Grape-Stomping Girl", That Village boosted their wine sales by having Rosemary as the poster girl for their wine brand. This Village had to resort into similar methods by recruiting Elaina as their grape-stomping girl.
• Fantastic Racism: Several stories touch on or center around the (occasionally contentious and even violent) divide between mages and non-magic users, such as "Amnesia's Forgotten Travelogues", "Amnesia's Forgotten Homecoming", "The Two Teachers", and "Seven Days with Ariadne". For instance, there are multiple countries where one is forbidden entry by the other.
• Femme Fatale: Niké teaches Fran and Sheila that should they ever come into a fight and had their wands taken, they must use knives as weapons all the while distracting the opponent with their enticing beauty so that they have the opportunity to attack.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Fran and Sheila hated each other's guts when they first met one another back in their youth due to their drastically incompatible personalities while training under Niké. However, after working together to take down the Antique Hall criminal organization at the behest of their master and having a heart-to-heart immediately after, they become tightly-knit friends who are still close even during their thirties.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina finds it unusual that Selena's parents are brutally murdered during a mere robbery. Cue Selena being revealed as the killer.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In "The Ripper", when Elaina is doing some bedtime reading from The Adventures of Niké, one can see that the chapter she's reading is titled "Apple Murder Tale"—a nod to one of the chapters from Volume 4.
  • Near the beginning of "A Story of All Kinds of Ashen Witches", Elaina is at a crossroads which has Windmill City and Paradise for the Dead—two locations featured in Volume 2—as two of its destinations before she ultimately decides to go to the Land That Makes Your Dreams Come True.
  • In the credits scene of "A Story of All Kinds of Ashen Witches", one can see even more Elainas that weren't present at the earlier conference or the fight scene, such as a very muscular Elaina, a sextuplets troupe of Elainas, an Elaina that has grown cat ears, and an Elaina that's turned green and has vines growing out of her body.
• Foe Romance Subtext: An in-universe example in "The Fictional Witch", the first full chapter of Volume 4. Decades ago, the boss of the spy agency in the country the chapter takes part in was commissioned to assassinate a witch who was all but explicitly stated to be Niké. Despite his miserable failure—she was the first person to ever defeat him, from his recollection—he was enchanted by her beauty and power, and hadn't let go of their encounter even many years after she left his country.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: In "The Two Disciples", Both Elaina and Saya deals with it when the Antique Hall got out of their prison sentence and was anticipating that Elaina!Saya would open the box.
• Gender-Restricted Ability: So far, in the series, all witches have been females and there are no mentions of their male equivalents. However, there are male mages, which is a lower rank of magic user.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: The story " A Runaway Princess, pursued by whom?", Prince Robert has no issue standing aside and allowing Princess Chocolat to mary Lady Knight Rosamia, because "love between two women..is nice."
• Green-Eyed Monster: Played for Laughs in "The Two Disciples" as Mina gets jealous of Elaina for being the target of her sister's affection.
• Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: While the conversion rates are never revealed, this is apparently how currency works in-universe. Elaina offers a relative value for each coin type in an early chapter: one gold buys a piece of fine jewelry, one silver buys a room in a cheap inn, and one copper buys a loaf of bread.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Averted to a great effect in "Retroactive Grief". The episode even lacks a Censor Shadow for its violent scenes.
• Hate Dumb: An In-Universe example. In Avelia's flashback in "Amnesia's Forgotten Homecoming", she notes that the notion that Amnesia, who can't use magic and only has an ordinary sword to rely on, could have killed even one witch, let alone murdered four, was ridiculous on its face and should have beggared belief. Yet due to the extent to which magical supremacy rules the day in the Holy City of Esto and the sheer discrimination there is against the unlucky few in the city who aren't mages, everyone else, from laymen to the judges and magistrates presiding over Amnesia's trial, were more than willing to believe she could have done it. Amnesia was swiftly and easily framed and convicted for four counts of murder as a result.
• Hates Their Parent: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena openly hates her parents and brutally murders them.
• Hot Witch: The witches like Niké, Fran, and Sheila are insanely beautiful. Mirarosé in particular is both insane and beautiful.
• A House Divided:
  • Both stories in Episode 7 are about the countries that divided each other and how the witches, Niké and Saya in "The Wall Etched by Travelers" and Elaina in "The Grape-Stomping Girl", united these countries.
  • Another story shows a county divided by the Bread-eating faction and the Rice-eating faction. Except, no one cares about this distinction except for the king and queen, who are too busy arguing to notice that no one else cares.
• Human Sacrifice: The country of Bielawald is very secretive and steeped in traditions and does not look kindly on those who question its traditions and want to learn of the outside world. Those who do too loudly and too often are selected for an annual ritual where, in actuality, this happens to them: they are drugged and placed in an airtight chamber in a shrine at the center of the town. This happened to Fran at the age of 13, and she really would have died there like everyone selected for the ritual had she not been transported to the ruins of Bielawald 22 years into the future as a complete freak of nature accident. Bielawald's residents abandon it after Fran returns and Niké exposes the country's barbaric practice for what it is, such that it is now a ruin by the time Elaina visits in the present timeline.
• Human Traffickers: The main source of tragedy in "Before the Snow Melts". A band of merchants, driven by greed, targets Elise's family, who were therianthropes. Elise's parents didn't go down without a fight and took a lot of the merchant band, in which the three surviving merchants then fabricated the story to the magistrate of an accident, in which the latter wondered if there were remaining family members. The remaining merchants then targeted Elise and her little sister Millina, thus starting the plot in which Elaina accepting the magistrate's request for Elise's sake.
• I Never Told You My Name: In "The Land of Mages", one of the clues that gave away Saya when she stole Elaina's brooch was the fact that she knew the latter's name.
• Innocently Insensitive: In "Bottled Happiness", Emil appears to be completely incapable of understanding that the reason Nino is so unhappy is because she's a slave and his efforts to cheer her up are simply twisting the knife: all the scenes of happiness he shows her just drives home how bad things are for her and how she won't ever be able to experience anything like that for herself.
• Inseries Nickname: The muscleman from volume 1 will only be known as "Muscleman" because he likes being called "Muscleman" too much to correct anyone with his actual name.
• Insult Backfire: In "The Wall Etched by Travelers", the government officials mistook Elaina as the traveling witch Niké until both commented on the former's chest. Elaina's tries to mock their age, but both accepted it as truth.
• Justified Criminal: In "Before the Snow Melts", the townspeople, out of pity for Elise, lets the latter even steal fruits.
• Kill It with Fire: In "The Princess Without Subjects", it's revealed that the cook, whom the princess loved, was burned at the stake after suffering a Cold-Blooded Torture under the king's order of execution, which caused the princess to snap.
• Laughing Mad: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena laughs in satisfaction as she succeeds in killing her own parents and having her best friend Estelle kill her. Selena even goads Estelle into murdering her.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle completely forgets her best friend Selena after coming back in their present timeline.
  • In Volume 4, the Holy City of Esto is an enigmatic magical supremacist society with very highly-advanced magical technology. The main reason it's so enigmatic is because since ancient times, it has been surrounded by a magic barrier which wipes the memories of any foreigners who visit Esto, so that they forget everything about the city and about their time there the moment they leave. This barrier doesn't affect (most) citizens who leave Esto, as citizens are trusted to keep the city's secrets until they return.
• Lazy Alias: In the book The Adventures of Niké, both of her disciples are named this way. Fran's nickname is Fuura and Sheila's nickname is Shilen.
• Legacy Character: Elaina is not the first holder of the "Ashen Witch" title. That would be her mother, Niké, aka, Victorica, whose hair is also ashen-colored like hers.

• Like Mother, Like Daughter: It is heavily implied that Niké, the main character of the book The Adventures of Niké which Elaina loved to read during her childhood, is her mother, with Fran as the apprentice witch, based on Fran's comments in Royal Celesteria.^note Episode 5. Fran even states in one of the chapters in the light novel about meeting her master in person due to her business in Robetta, Elaina's home country.
• Loophole Abuse: How does Elaina's group easily enter in the king's castle in "The Land of Truth Tellers"? By cutting up sentences since there aren't any "lies" in pieces of text.
• Lost Voice Plot: In "The Land of Truth Tellers", Eihemia sacrificed her voice and magic to create the King's magic sword, and recruits Saya and Elaina in order to restore them.
• Love Is in the Air: In "The Two Apprentices", Elaina, who has been body switched with Saya, opens a box with a magic smoke that makes people fall head over heels for anyone they have feelings for.
• Mask of Sanity: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena pulls this off so well that both Estelle and Elaina admit that they misread the situation completely after going back in time.
• Meet the In-Laws: A variant occurs in "The Wall Etched by Travelers". Saya, after noticing Niké's writing and how similar it is to Elaina's, basically does this to the wall, even asking for Elaina's hand in marriage.
• Me's a Crowd: The premise of "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches", wherein Elaina meets fifteen other versions of herself in The Land Where Wishes Come True. These include such possibilities as an intellectual Elaina, an Elaina who is deeply in love with Saya, an Elaina made of slime, and a violent Elaina who, in the light novel, is the Elaina that actually experienced the story of "Retroactive Grief".
• Metaphorically True: In "The Land of Truth Tellers", Elaina and the group easily enters the king's castle by cutting up sentences as there aren't any "lies" in pieces of text.
• Mirror Match: It's Elaina vs. Elaina in "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches".
• Mistaken for Spies: One of the Royal Magic Academy's guards assumed Elaina to be a spy from another country, prompting Fran to send multiple students to capture her without success.
• Mood Whiplash: Most of the episodes commonly considered dark start off fairly lighthearted, but end in some very dark twist.
• Mummies at the Dinner Table: In "Before the Snow Melts", Elise introduces her little sister to Elaina this way.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle's best friend Selena became a serial killer during the time Estelle left to study abroad, and upon returning, she was forced to capture and execute her with her own hands. Estelle wishes to go back in time to stop the incident she believes caused her best friend to descend into insanity.
  • In "Amnesia's Forgotten Homecoming", Avelia considers her refusal to accompany Amnesia to her investigation of their city's sewers to be this, as she believes that in doing so, she kicked off the chain of events that led to Amnesia discovering something she wasn't supposed to, and getting convicted of the Rose Witch Elimia's crimes and sentenced to a forgotten homecoming—exiled from the city, afflicted with a curse that erases her memories whenever she falls asleep, and to be beheaded should she ever return. Avelia has thus been awaiting Amnesia's return to the city, as it is only when Amnesia is about to be executed that her memories will return, and it is thus only for that very short window of time that Avelia will have the opportunity to rescue her.
• No Ending: Most of the earlier stories are short and end rather abruptly, ending on cliffhangers for whatever plot Elaina stumbled upon in her current location, ending with her high-tailing it out of there before any conclusion is reached.
• "Not So Different" Remark: In "The Two Masters", both Fran and Sheila realized, after subjugating the Antique Hall, that both of them have the same interest in why they wanted to become witches.
• Note to Self: In "The Princess Without Subjects", Mirarosé wrote a letter to herself before losing her memories due to using magic which transformed her father into a monster.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In the light novel, Elaina knew that her parents were only mages,^note amongst the hierarchy of magic users, mages are the lowest while witches are the highest that she was quite surprised that her mother is very proficient in magic and was one of the reasons that Elaina became the youngest apprentice witch in the history of Robetta. Little did she know that her mother is a witch and is the master of the two powerful witches in the story in Fran and Sheila.
• Oh, Crap!: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina has this reaction when she realizes that Selena was the murderer all along.
• Offing the Offspring: It is implied that the king ordered for Mirarosé's child to be killed along with her lover. The light novel outright states that he ordered a doctor to secretly induce a miscarriage.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: In "Retroactive Grief", the OST played at The Reveal of Selena's true nature is quite dark.
• Ominous Walk: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena walks towards Elaina when the former asks question about her fate in the future.
• Once More, with Clarity: In "Before the Snow Melts", the townspeople are quite antagonistic to Elise, until we get to see Elaina's POV after her Wham Line to the former. The magistrate and the townspeople in general wanted Elise out of the country out of pity for her.
• One Degree of Separation: In "Welcome to the Den of Crime", Saya and Amnesia happen to be sharing a table at a particular cafe and take the time to talk about their pasts. Saya talks about how she passed the witch apprenticeship examination thanks to a traveling witch with ashen hair and being in love with this witch, while Amnesia talks about how she was saved by a traveling witch with ashen hair and having flirted with her all along the way home. While the two very strongly suspect that the others' love interest is in fact Elaina, they part ways without ever actually having confirmed as much.
• Only One Name: None of the characters have their surnames revealed, if they have any at all, and are exclusively referred to only by their first names or by their titles.
• Parents as People: Elaina's parents fully support her goals, but also worry at how easy she accomplished them feeling the longer she went without a major setback, the harder it would be for her to recover. They end up paying Fran to basically be a Trickster Mentor for their own daughter.
• Perpetual Poverty: The series makes a point of how expensive Walking the Earth is for all the recurring characters who do so:
  • Elaina often has to take odd jobs (and in the light novels, often runs street scams) so that she can have a place to stay the night at and food on her plate every now and then across different countries she visits. In one chapter in Volume 6, she notes that paying for food, shelter, tolls, season-appropriate clothing, and daily expendable items rapidly burns a hole in her wallet no matter how good a scam she runs.
  • Saya joined the United Magic Association because she needed money after buying a pair of necklaces for herself and Elaina, but also because it's expensive to travel. On top of her work for the Association, she's also shown doing other part-time jobs such as proctoring witch apprenticeship exams in the Land of Mages to top off her travel expenses fund.
  • In the light novels, it's hinted that Niké often engaged in scams in various countries to be able to afford to keep up her very long journey, even ending up on a hit list in one country for it. When Victorica left Robetta as a 10-year old who couldn't support herself in her travels, she had to travel with a dodgy merchant. She sold dubious wares for him until he sold her to his debtors when his finances got dire enough, and said dubious wares got her in trouble with another country's soldiers. She was saved from a dire fate by a passerby witch who would go on to her mentor.
  • After the end of Volume 4, despite Avelia's wealth from her tenure as a high-ranking member of the Holy Knights of Esto, she and Amnesia are nearly penniless by the very next volume because of how expensive their long journey in search of a new hometown had already gotten. Although they try (and fail) a get rich quick scheme Avelia had come up with in their chapter in Volume 5, they're shown to hold various part-time jobs (and in Avelia's case, the occasional commission for the United Magic Association) to fund their journey in subsequent appearances.
• Pimped-Out Dress: During "Pioneers of Style", Elaina comes across a country where everyone is dressed in beautiful and elaborate clothing, as if the streets were full of princes and princesses. She thinks it is "dazzling" in the worst way possible, and wants to put a pair of dark-tinted glasses.
• Power at a Price: It's established throughout the series that witches can perform magic beyond their abilities by giving up something in exchange:
  • In "The Princess Without Subjects", Mirarosé sacrificed her memories to turn her father into a monster, though she got them back thanks to her plan.
  • In "The Land of Truth Tellers", Eihemia sacrificed her voice to create the king's magic sword.
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle has been preparing her time travel spell using her blood. During the climax, when Elaina severs their connection to try and prevent Estelle from killing Selena, Estelle sacrifices her memories of Selena in order to finish her off.
• The Power of Hate: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina, when she tried to stop Estelle from murdering her best friend in Timeline B by denying her magic power, speculates that Estelle used hatred to turn her own memories of Selena into magic fuel, so she could killed Timeline B Selena.
• Race Against the Clock: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina and Estelle have only one hour in the past to prevent the murder of Selena's parents from coming to fruition.
• Rags to Riches: In "The Two Masters", both Fran and Sheila came from poor backgrounds until Niké decided to train them as apprentices.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • In the second half of Episode 3, it's heavily implied that Emil's father sexually abuses Nino, based on Nino's disheveled appearance when she first appears, to her flustered surprise at seeing Elaina, and from the way Emil's father leers at Elaina from head to toe.
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Selena implies this to her father as she describes him as looking at her lustfully.
• Red Baron: Every full-fledged witch is given their own moniker upon completing their apprenticeship. Fran, for example, is "Stardust Witch". Fran herself gives Elaina the title "Ashen Witch."
• Refuge in Audacity: "Eyewitness Report" is about a thief who commits their crimes while wearing an outrageously bizarre and eye-catching outfit. Their face is a total blank on anyone who sees them, because all the eyewitnesses can remember is the outfit.
• Red Herring: In "Retroactive Grief", the murder of Selena's parents was blamed on a burglar. This turns out to be false, as Selena was responsible for the deed herself as comeuppance for their abusive treatment towards her.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In "The Two Masters", Sheila's the Red to Fran's Blue as both were being mentored by Elaina's mother.
• Riches to Rags: Avelia, as a high-ranking member of the Holy Knights of Esto, is paid well enough to be able to afford a house that Elaina considers rather luxurious. She gives it all up for Walking the Earth with Amnesia after the latter's innocence and memories are restored and they leave Esto for good at the conclusion of "Amnesia's Forgotten Homecoming". While they search for a new hometown to settle in, they realize they didn't have nearly enough money to travel indefinitely with absolutely no source of income, hence the first chapter where they reappear being a Broke Episode.
• Right on the Tick: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle sets the time they traveled into 5 to 6 pm, to stop the events where Selena's parents are killed, and they return automatically as soon as the clock strikes 6.
• Ring of Power: In the light novel version of "Retroactive Grief", Estelle originally wanted the rings she gave to Elaina to share their powers be given to her best friend Selena in order for her to experience the beauty of magic.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina is the only who completely remembers the events after returning to their own timeline.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: In most societies where mages and non-mages coexist, mages tend to dress this way to indicate their status. Notably, when Elaina goes out of her way to dress like a normal person, it's because she's in a country where mages are being targeted or are outright forbidden entry, like Qunorts or Albed, respectively. On the flip side, when she visits the Holy City of Esto, she notes that nobody follows this rule of thumb, as there's no point in dressing to indicate you're a mage in a society where everyone is a mage.
• Rule of Symbolism: The choices of cinematic narrative of "Retroactive Grief" as pointed out in this video.
• Runaway Bride: The story "A Runaway Princess, pursued by whom?", Elaina tries to figure out if Princess Chocolat ran away from her wedding or was kidnapped from it, based on two people coming after her. It turns out that Princess Chocolat was kidnapped from her wedding to lady knight Rosamia, but the kidnapper, Prince Robert, thought he was helping her to run away from a political marriage forced by her own country's faction. Once this misunderstanding is cleared up, the wedding takes place to the ageement of all three.
• Sad Battle Music: In "Retroactive Grief", the OST played during Estelle murdering past Selena is befitting to its tragic theme.
• Sanity Slippage: Elaina meets up with various characters that ended up in this state in her journeys, like Mirarosé in "The Princess Without Subjects", Elise in "Before the Snow Melts" and Selena in "Retroactive Grief".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the light novel version of "The Princess Without Subjects", Elaina gets out of Mirarosé's country as soon as possible.
  Elaina: (narrating) I took off into the air and made a beeline through the wind. She must be waving good-bye. But I don’t feel like looking back. I left that place as fast as I possibly could, speeding past the rubble of her fallen land.
• Sequel Hook: The final episode of the anime adaptation ends with Elaina meeting Amnesia, a recurring character first introduced in Volume 4 of the light novel.
• Serial Killer:
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Selena ends up being a Hedonistic type after she snaps and brutally murdering her parents.
  • In Volume 9's "The Resurrection Lily That Blooms in Solitude", Saya gets called in to investigate a case of this in Emadestrin, The Town Where People Live; the victims' corpses all have no visible wounds and are all lying face-up, hands in prayer toward the sky. The author's notes for this story drew inspiration from the FBI's classifications of the different types of serial murderers, which served as the base for how Sheila trained Saya in how to solve such cases. Saya successfully draws on this to identify the culprit: Monica, an Association-affiliated mage she had befriended during her days as an apprentice witch. However, Monica did not kill for the thrill of it; as the hospital's coroner tells Saya after she is rewarded for apprehending Monica, the city has been having a pandemic of Lycoris Disease for years, a terminal disease with no cure that causes its victims to suffer bitterly to the very end. In Emadestrin, where the act of taking a life is the ultimate taboo, euthanasia is forbidden; the disease's victims are put on life support magic, prolonging their suffering while their families go deep into debt to pay for the treatment. Given the circumstances, Monica had been administering lethal drugs to the disease's unfortunate victims she found with their ready consent, like her exiled father before her; although this act made the father and daughter pair reviled among the town's populace, they were secretly regarded as heroes by the town's hospital's mages, who knew their victims all carried Lycoris Disease and lamented the unreasonable culture that forced the disease's victims at the hospital to suffer and forced ruination and debt onto their families.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle and Elaina travel back in time to stop the murder of Selena's parents, in which Estelle believes that the reason Selena becomes a serial killer in the future is due to this event and the later abuse of her uncle, who took her in afterward. Both Estelle and Elaina greatly misread the situation as Selena already snapped due to the abuse of her parents. The uncle was her ''third'' victim.
  Elaina: (narrating) Thinking that people would definitely be able to live happily if they could turn back time and redo their past, that was an extremely careless way of thinking. Perhaps, even if you can look back on time that has already gone by, trying to redo it is wrong. Going back in time to change the relationships between people is on an entirely different scale from using magic to manipulate the bodies of people to heal their wounds.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog:
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle and Elaina travels back in time to stop Selena from snapping and becoming a serial killer in the future. Both completely misread the situation, Estelle still ends up murdering Selena and forgets the latter when they came back. Elaina is even traumatized by the events.
  • Capital punishment in Emadestrin, the City Where People Live. Killing is forbidden within the city’s walls; instead, the executioners escort the condemned outside the city into a field of resurrection lilies, fatally run them through with spears, and leave them to their fate. According to the mores of the city, this does not actually count as taking the condemned’s life. This is how Monica meets her end at the end of “The Resurrection Lily That Blooms in Solitude”, like her father before her.
• Slasher Smile: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena sports a very twisted smile as she brutally murdered her own parents.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Downplayed. Elaina is slightly shocked after learning that Nino is a slave and the village chief, her master, is portrayed as a huge jackass. However, how open the chief is about it may indicate that slavery is considered legal and/or seen as normal in-universe.
• Spanner in the Works: In "The Two Disciples", after failing to snatch the box from Saya, the Antique Hall's back-up plan was for someone to switch with Saya's body and carelessly open the box. Elaina ends up being that spanner.
• Spoiler Cover: The second frontpiece for Volume 8 features Elaina teaching magic to a younger girl with blue eyes, a beauty mark, and long black hair that covers her left eye, giving away the twist in "The Night It Rained Stardust" that the POV character introduced in the opening act of the chapter is actually Fran, that at age 13 Fran temporarily got transported 22 years into the future to the main series' timeline when a magic comet neared, and that during the main series' timeline, Elaina was the one who first taught Fran how to use magic.
• Spoiler Opening: Played with as the opening contains light snippets of the upcoming episodes, like the flowers in "The Girl as Pretty as a Flower", the grapes in "The Grape-Stomping Girl" and the Rostolf clock tower in "Retroactive Grief".
• Sunken City: The title and literal setting name of one of the stories in Volume 4.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena goads Estelle into murdering her, by attacking her, denying their friendship was anything more than a farce and even taunting her as a murderer.
• Sword In The Stone: During one chapter of the light novel, Elaina and Amnesia encounter a village being threatened by a dragon. The village has a mystical sword in a stone that can only be pulled out by someone of pure heart. Elaina, noting that she is anything but pure of heart at this point,^note Exact quote in the English version: "Well, even I, a rotten specimen of humanity who always put herself first, a liar with an impure mind, was able to pull it out, so I think the legend is fake" finds that she can pull the sword out with ease, but chooses not to, not wanting the duty of fighting the dragon. While she's "lamenting" her failure, Amnesia pulls it out without any trouble. Things just get sillier from there, to Elaina's exasperation.
• Tears of Blood: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle does this when she sacrifices her memories of Selena and says her final farewell to the latter. Selena also does this, though its more of the effect of Estelle cutting her neck.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Mirarosé, fueled by her own hatred and rage against her father, kills Javalier this way. She evens mutilates its body with Wind Magic after decapitating it.
• Thieves' Guild: In "The Two Masters", both Fran and Sheila encounters the Antique Hall, who is responsible for the crimes in the city of Qunorts, in which Niké accepts the request to subjugate them.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle is furious with Selena after the latter kills her own parents.
• Through the Eyes of Madness:
  • In "The Princess Without Subjects", at least in the anime, Mirarosé ends up cooking breakfast for her "family" in which Elaina, and the viewers by extension, doesn't see.
  • In "Before the Snow Melts", Elise is still delusional that her sister Millina is still alive, even giving her bread and dressing her up. It wasn't until Elaina, who was describing the corpse giving off such a bad smell that the only thing she could do was to keep from gagging, stopping and waking Elise up from this delusion that the latter finally accepted her sister's death.
• Time Stands Still: As Elaina explains to Amnesia in "A City on Ice", ice spells often incorporate time-suspending magic, so that even if someone has been frozen by an ice spell for a very long time, they may very well still be alive. Indeed, the city they're in during that chapter and all its inhabitants are completely frozen as a result of such ice magic cast by the Rudela, the city's resident witch, and everyone in the city is shown to indeed be alive when Rudela dies and the source of magical energy that froze the city dies with her.
• Time Travel:
  • First features in "Retroactive Grief", when Estelle devises a spell to go back ten years in time at the cost of much of her blood and all her magical energy. She says that the multi-verse theory is in place, and so her actions will not prevent Selena's death, but rather create a new timeline where a different Estelle will not have to kill a different Selena. Instead, the Estelle of Timeline B investigates the mysterious death of her best friend, never knowing that said best friend was a budding serial killer.
  • Next features in the "Many Years' Journey" arc in Volume 7, when Alte and Linaria, two students at Latorita State University, use a mysterious watch that allows them to travel back in time. Linaria, a history nerd, uses this power to go back in time and experience the past in person, while the failing student Alte abuses it to bolster her academic performance and to travel back in time to find golem sand that she sells to others on campus for a quick buck. Alte ends up becoming an Unwitting Instigator of Doom when all the sand she sold combines with the golem sand beneath the university's library to create a golem that destroys the school and country; the problem is only solved when Elaina, their professor, has the two take the golem seven years back in time for the Elaina of the main series' timeline to defeat, an event which Alte experienced at the age of eight. Unlike with the events of "Retroactive Grief", this does not create an alternate timeline, as these events are all part of a closed time loop.
  • In Volume 8, in the country of Bielawald, this happens as a complete freak of nature accident when the country's eponymous comet passes on its 22-year orbital cycle. A 13-year-old Fran is transported 22 years in the future, where she meets Elaina, her future apprentice, in the ruins of the country. After a week where Elaina teaches the teenaged Fran the basics of magic, the comet comes again, and Fran is returned to her era.
• Title Drop: In "A Story About All Kinds of Ashen Witches", when the Elainas have to pick a title for her travels, she first considers The Adventures of Elaina until she picks out the title Wandering Witch.
• Training from Hell: After treating Elaina like a glorified maid for a month, Fran eventually takes her out for a "show of magic". And by show, she means nearly killing the girl by easily overpowering her in what is a light sparring for Fran, but a fight for her life for Elaina. And Fran was holding back. However, it's not the Curb-Stomp Battle that breaks Elaina to tears, but the humiliation that went with it.
• A True Story in My Universe: In "Retroactive Grief", Selena was so infamous as the "2nd District Murderer" that there are many books and stage plays about it in Rostolf.
• Unrequited Love: In "The Resurrection Lily That Blooms in Solitude", Monica is openly stated to love Saya, the only person in the world she trusts; she also knows full well that Saya only has room in her heart for Elaina.
• Violence Is Disturbing: In "Retroactive Grief", Elaina gets traumatized by the events after Estelle murders past Selena.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Transformation is a genre of magic. Several times in the light novel, Elaina and Niké are depicted transforming into mice so they can enter places they aren't supposed to have access to, and they can revert to human form at will.
• Walking the Earth:
  • What Elaina wanted to do after reading the book The Adventures of Niké and becoming a full-fledged witch, though Fran speculates that it's one of the traits Elaina inherited from her mother.
  • Fran used to be one by virtue of being Elaina's mother's apprentice, and she followed in her master's footsteps and traveled for a stint after becoming a full fledged witch.
  • Saya does this as well, and she's shown to hold down various honest jobs to fund her travels.
  • Amnesia and Avelia do this after they leave the Holy City of Esto on good terms, searching for a new hometown and wandering through various countries after the events of Volume 4. On several occasions in later light novel volumes and a Drama CD episode, Avelia and Elaina even get mistaken for each other due to fitting a very similar profile—being young female traveling mages who have long, white hair.

• Wall Pin of Love: In "The Two Disciples", Mina, under the influence of the Antique's Hall Love Potion, confesses her love for her sister to Elaina!Saya.
• Weird Currency: In "Before the Snow Melts", the townspeople, out of pity for Elise, decides to accept her forms of payment, such as dead bugs in exchange for bread etc. This is what made Elaina curious about her situation and decide to help her.
• Wham Episode: "Retroactive Grief", so much so that even the anime director has stated that this is the heaviest episode of the anime adaptation.
• Wham Line:
  • In "Bottled Happiness", Elaina remembers how the story she read ended after she says goodbye to Emil and Nino:
    Elaina: Kindness and beauty can sometimes become cruel. I don't know what happened to Nino after that. No, I don't want to know.
  • In "The Princess Without Subjects", Mirarosé says this to Javalier after she regains her memories:
    Mirarosé: Goodbye... ...Father.
  • In "Before the Snow Melts", Elaina says this to Elise after the latter introduces her little sister Millina.
    Elaina: Elise-san, please stop doing that. Your little sister is dead
  • In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle says this when Elaina had to confirm if the former remembers anything about Selena:
    Estelle: That person. Who was she to me?
  • "The Day It Rained Stardust" opens with the life of an orphan in the country of Bielawald up until a particular day when she's 13, when she meets a traveling witch with ashen-grey hair and lapis lazuli eyes who offers to tell her about the outside world on the morrow; unfortunately, this orphan gets selected as a Human Sacrifice when the country's eponymous Comet of Doom passes by that night. This comet causes a random natural phenomenon whenever it passes by every 22 years, and in this orphan's case, she gets transported 22 years into the future, where she is found by a traveling witch with ashen-grey hair and lapis lazuli eyes—Elaina. Elaina observes that the orphan has long black hair and blue eyes, fitting a very familiar profile and giving a hint to her identity. Finally, for Elaina and the reader alike, the teenaged black-haired orphan drops this when introducing herself:
    The orphan: My name... ...is Fran.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • Episode 5, Royal Celesteria, is framed this way, with Elaina chancing upon a country where The Adventures of Fran is a bestseller, and her recounting how she reunited with Fran for the first time after a few years in Royal Celesteria six months prior.
  • Episode 11, The Two Teachers, is also framed this way, with Fran flashing back to her and Sheila's teenage years as apprentice witches under Niké while the two of them are departing on their annual vacation.
• Will Talk for a Price: How Elaina gets information about where her witch's brooch went in "The Land of Mages". An old woman who had beckoned her over claimed to have seen it and also that her memory has been failing her lately, but she spills the beans the moment Elaina offers her a gold coin.
• Wizarding School: There are several known magical schools across the world:
  • Fran's day job is being a teacher at the Royal Magical Academy of Celesteria.
  • Volume 6 introduces Latorita State University, a co-ed facility where half the students are mages and half are non-mages, with significant curricula dedicated to the study of magic. Elaina, in her mid-20s, is working as temp faculty here in the "Many Years' Journey" arc at the end of Volume 7.
• You Monster!: In "Retroactive Grief", Estelle has this reaction when she realizes that Selena is beyond saving.
• Yubitsume: Elaina does a variant of this to the Antique Hall boss in the light novel version of "The Two Apprentices", breaking the old woman's fingers one by one.