That’s right, it’s once again time to wonder into more mysterious locations with the wandering witch, Elaina! After reflecting on her journey back in volume 2, she’s back to being the proud, confident witch as she walks on the open road, but Elaina mysteriously runs into a prince and a female knight looking for their princess — the issue is why are they looking for her separately? She then happens to take on a job in looking out for a beast girl, Elise, who’s doing everything she can to help her sister, Milina, in a town that seems to despise them.
Elaina then happens to wander into a house where the ones in control are the objects — and her witch powers can’t help her escape. How will she get out of this predicament? Well, it may involve using a spell, a broom, and said broom running into a former apprentice of hers…
Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina volume 3 once again gives us different tales that Elaina finds herself in, ranging from the goofy, to the more serious, to a mix of bizarre and serious, and to the four-panel chapter (where the conclusion should happen next volume). The bizarre and serious is the one involving Elaina entering a house where objects can control the humans who enter. Only her wits and her broom can get her out of this sticky situation. No seriously, she throws her broom out the window, and it transforms into someone similar to her. That someone similar runs into her apprentice — Saya, who’s now a full-fledged witch, and together they aim to save Elaina.
Which leads to them discovering the objects have all been abandoned, and they’re not at all happy about it.
In less capable hands these types of stories can be overwrought and trite, but Itsuki Nanao makes them fairly engaging. The beast-girl story for example is one of the times where it shows Elaina caring about anything involving other people. It’s also a case where the visuals can sell the story more than the words, and getting those range of character emotions — from Elise doing her best to seem cheerful but in truth, she’s not facing reality — are an asset in this series.
The knight and princess tale was one where it wasn’t attempting to hide much. You have the prince Roberto asking Elaina to find the princess. You then have the knight Rozamia also asking Elaina to find the princess. But you note neither of them came the same way nor teamed up to find her. So what happens instead? Elaina gets hungry, smells something nice, and finds it’s croissants. She also finds the princess, Chocolat, quickly stuffing the croissant in her hand once Elaina shows up, and attempts to have a elegant air about her. This scenario is funny, but what happens after that was quite entertaining since the reasons why the knight and the prince weren’t searching for Princess Chocolat come to a head. It actually ends in a surprising note too.
This also made me wish that the anime could’ve adapted that as well, but the only thing the manga keeps doing is reminding me how the studio should’ve just followed the manga path instead. With neat paneling, visuals, and better chosen stories from the light novel, there’s much to look forward to as Wandering Witch continues.