Ever since she was a child, Elaina has been enamored by the stories in her favorite book. It tells the tale of Nike, a famous witch who enjoyed many great adventures around the world. After becoming a fully-fledged witch herself, she departs, becoming entangled in a number of stories of those she meets around the world.
What I appreciate most about The Journey of Elaina is its bare bones plot allows it to really explore a magical world without being restrained. It can show off a lot about the world and the people in it through its episodic traveling. If you are looking for more anime recommendations like The Journey of Elaina, then wander on down below.
Anime Like Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina
For Fans of Wanderlust
Kino’s Journey
Accompanied by her talking motorcycle, Hermes, Kino travels through her mysterious world, spending only three days and two nights in each town. The idea is that three days is enough to learn almost everything about a place. This is the story of her journey.
Take out the actual magic of Elaina and replace it with a more metaphorical sort of magic, and you have the same series. Both anime series follow girls who travel around and explores the short stories they go through in the areas they visit. Kino’s Journey, however, is distinctly more pensive compared to the oft-light-hearted Journey of Elaina.
Girls’ Last Tour
With all civilization dead, only Chito and Yuuri remain. Together they decide to hop on their motorbike and wander aimlessly looking for their next meal and fuel. Despite a bleak existence, they remain each other’s light in this dead world.
Both anime series follow girls that travel around and have short adventures. As you could anticipate from the synopsis, Girls’ Last Tour is darker and more depressing than the magic and whimsy that permeates the Journey of Elaina.
Spice and Wolf
For generations, Holo was a revered wolf deity that helped the local wheat harvest in exchange for tribute. However, as the villagers become more self-sufficient, they no longer need or even believe in her anymore. During her annual festival, she sneaks into the cart of Kraft, a visiting merchant, hoping he will let her hitch a ride home.
While Holo is a goddess rather than a mage, like Journey of Elaina, Spice and Wolf tells the tale of Holo and a merchant she takes up with traveling around. Both series do a good job at showing a variety of places and following their variety of adventures so the world feels vast. Spice and Wolf also has that nice element of romance as well.
For Fans of Whimsical Supernatural Folk
The Flying Witch
The young Makoto Kowata is a witch, but her skills in magic leave something to be desired. To further train her craft, she moves to rural Aomori to live with her cousins. This area, rich in nature, is the perfect place to commune with natural forces and hone her craft.
Both series are obviously about witches, but not in the way we have been conditioned to expect. They are not action series, but rather take a slower look at magic. Elaina travels and The Flying Witch puts more of an emphasis on the magic of the natural world, though it is not without its adventures.\
Mushishi
In this world, there exist Mushi, spirits that often exist with no purpose. However, these Mushi can affect the physical world in countless forms from diseases to more pleasant phenomenon. Why do these Mushi exist? That is the question that Ginko the Mushi-shi, a researcher on the phenomenon, asks himself as he travels the land investigating Mushi-related incidents.
While Mushishi is more investigative in nature, it is similarly a series about travel. Ginko, like Elaina, travels around, and though he is not supernatural himself, he finds himself in supernatural incidents. Both series do a good job of being both interesting and just chill as hell.
Iroduku: The World in Colors
In this world, there is only a small amount of magic left. Hitomi is a descendant of an old witch family who lost her emotions and ability to see color at a young age. Feeling bad for her granddaughter, the great witch Kohaku sends her into the past where interactions with her young self and Kohaku’s friends will hopefully foster some growth in her granddaughter.
While Iroduku and Journey of Elaina don’t seem to have much in common other than they are both about witches in a world that only seems lightly magical sometimes, they are actually more similar than you would think. At the core of each series, they are about people and the connections that we build with each other.
For Fans if Interesting Magical Worlds
Somali and the Forest Guardian
With humanity all but extinct after severe prosecution, the world is ruled over by spirits and all manner of strange creatures. One day, a golem that serves as guardian of the forest meets a young human girl. She has no memory of her parents, but the golem decides to at least seek out other humans to return her.
If you were enchanted with the world presented in Journey of Elaina as well as enjoyed some of the fluffier bits, then Somali and the Forest Guardian can satisfy. Their journey shows off a similarly magic world, but with the benefit of having very few boring old humans in it.
Ancient Magus’ Bride
After being abandoned by her family, Chise Hatori is a 16-year-old teenager without hope. In order to not have to worry about herself, she sells herself to slavers, only to be purchased by Magus Elias Ainsworth. There she is told she will become his apprentice and, in the future, his bride. Together they work together to build a relationship and work to control her own magus powers that will eventually result in her early death.
Elaina is a series that invites you to explore a world with the character and entices you to meet more people, the same can be said of Ancient Magus’ Bride. While it has a plot that is much more focused, it still takes you very much on an adventure through their magical world.
Mononoke
Mononoke follows the story of a man simply known as the Medicine Seller. However, it is not medicine he sells, but rather he travels feudal Japan ridding villages of malevolent spirits called mononoke. Before he can kill each spirit he encounters, he must first learn its Form, Truth, and its Reason.
While Mononoke is a more serious and ponderous series, it is a series that takes you on an adventure. You explore the world the same way through its episodic mysteries as you do in the Journey of Elaina, but with more visual flair.
Do you have more anime recommendations like The Journey of Elaina? Let fans know in the comments section below.
