English Dub Review: Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina “The Two Teachers”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Sheila gives Saya an errand to deliver a box to the Magic Association office in Qunorts, the town of freedom. Sheila then says that she’s going on vacation and heads to her friend’s place. It turns out that she knows Fran, Elaina’s mentor, and picks her up for a vacation. The two witches ride on their brooms reminiscing about their days as apprentices while butting heads with each other. The witches arrive at Qunorts with their teacher as the country considers mages to be useless. The Magic Association requests them to help fix the reputation of witches by catching the robbers of the Curio company.

Their teacher gives the two apprentices the task of capturing the Curio company. The two apprentices argue a lot which causes the Curio company to escape. Then the Curio company captures Fran and Sheila and they break free before they arrest the robbers. After their reminiscence, Sheila recalls something important about the box she gave to Saya and changes her route to go after Saya. Meanwhile, Elaina arrives at Qunorts, a place mentioned in her favorite book series.

Our Take:

After last week’s dark episode, I expected Elaina to play a part in this episode and develop as a person. However, the anime instead chooses to expand on Fran and Sheila and their connection to each other.

Surprisingly Fran and Sheila have the same mentor, Elaina’s mom. It’s confirmation for us that she’s the author of Elaina’s favorites series, the Adventures of Nike with Elaina mentioning Qunorts. Fran and Sheila in their early apprentice days were like oil and water as their personalities clashed from the start. Whenever the two apprentices start arguing their teacher makes them meet in the middle. For example, when they argue on what to do when they lose their wands, their teacher teaches them how to wield knives instead of martial arts. Their teacher’s lessons prove to be useful when the Curio company catches them.

Now the Curio company is a cocky band of robbers and the episode aims to be lighthearted with their antics. The robbers have magic tools which hindered the country’s witches from capturing them. However their gawking ruins any danger they pose as robbers. They’re up against two mages of course Fran and Sheila are going to use magic when they have their wands. The lady in charge of the Curio company is fodder for the two apprentices to take care of with the rest of her crew.

The two apprentices have a heart-to-heart after becoming exhausted from using so much magic when they get their wands back. Both of their reasons for becoming witches are out of self-interest and to improve their quality of life. The scene provides some depth to both their characters and it ends the conflict with a happy ending. Furthermore, the apprentices get their official witch names from their mentor who decides to name them because of their hair color. It’s reminiscent of when Fran named Elaina the Ashen Witch and it works to a layer to their relationship.

Overall it was a good episode featuring the teachers. It’s obvious that the episode serves as a parallel to their students since they’re both traveling to Qunorts. Therefore we’re most likely going to see Elaina and Saya in Qunorts facing similar shenanigans.