#Wandering Witch’s Elaina Has A “Darker” Personality In The Books, Author Says

Elaina, the titular star of the anime Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, isn’t a perfect heroine. Although the traveling witch assists good causes and has displayed kindness and empathy, she’s also smug — despite her lesson in humility in the first episode — and far from selfless. Even so, it seems that anime Elaina is a much better person than her light novel counterpart.

In an interview with Mipon, author Jougi Shiraishi was asked if he thought that Elaina’s darker side, such as her greed and craftiness, was properly reflected in the anime adaptation. In response, he said that “the anime plays down that part of her somewhat.”

“There’s even one chapter, in which Elaina tries to earn some money, that was deliberately not put in the anime,” Shiraishi revealed. “Although there were a lot of chapters that the anime staff probably wanted to adapt, with only 12 episodes, the chapters that were chosen didn’t focus too much on the darker parts of Elaina’s personality or her unscrupulousness with money.”

Shiraishi added, “You don’t see much of that in the anime, so people who discover the series by way of the anime then go on to read the novels will probably be surprised at how underhanded Elaina can be sometimes.”

Shiraishi had previously shed light on Elaina’s personality in an interview with Anime News Network, calling her “a realist who understands that magic can’t accomplish absolutely everything… She is not traveling to fix the world; she is simply a wanderer seeing the wide world.”

In the Mipon interview, Shiraishi also said that romance is unlikely to be in the cards for Wandering Witch, due to difficulties in writing from the perspective of a female in love as well the lack of necessity for a romantic element. In addition, he revealed that Saya, a “reckless and unpredictable” witch who was trained by Elaina, is one of his favourite characters to write. “They naturally form a sort of ‘manzai’ comedy team, with Saya being the goofy ‘boke’ half and Elaina being the serious ‘tsukkomi,’” Shiraishi said. “Originally though, Saya was just a one-off character I wrote for volume 1, and at the time, I wasn’t planning for her to be a regular part of the story. But since then, especially with the drama CDs and anime, I’m glad that I have her character because she’s so much fun to write for.”  

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina is currently streaming on Funimation, Hulu, and Muse Asia as part of the Fall 2020 season lineup. Elaina and the show itself have done well in the Anime Trending weekly charts, often being one of the top ten entries of their respective charts and reaching number one at least once. Saya, the Elaina x Saya ship, and the opening song “Literature” by Reina Ueda have also proven to be popular.