Wistoria: Wand and Sword

Episode 7

For as cute as her little scenes in the episode are, I have to admit that Wistoria is maybe shooting itself in the foot with its Elfaria cameos since they serve as glaring reminders of how little the character has done in this show that is ostensibly about the main character's refusal to give up on his dream of being by her side. Yes, this episode at least uses Will and Elfaria's relationship as a plot element in the fight against Julius, which is something, but I had assumed that the show would find a way to do much more in integrating Elfaria as an actual character by now.

The fact that she is just killing time in a big tower and doing nothing but waiting for Will to just show up one day is such an old cliché that it is almost impressive that Wistoria is playing it completely straight. That said, with just a few frames of animation, Wistoria does a great job of depicting the unbridled thirst that Elfaria has for the big, firm, and girthy longsword that Will uses to penetrate his targets. That alone takes a commendable level of skill. I guess you could also argue that “Being so horny for your childhood bestie that you have to leave life as a normal human behind and exile yourself to life as a mythical paragon that dwells in an impossibly large spire” is technically a new layer of characterization for Elfaria.

As for Will and Julius' fight, the biggest thing working in Wistoria's favor this week is that we're operating strictly within this anime's wheelhouse. The show is the most comfortable when it allows Will to overcome crazy magical obstacles to put smug assholes in their place, and there are few assholes more smug than Julius Reinberg. Sion, at least, is the kind of spiky-but-ultimately-human jerkwad that has solid “Best Frenemy” potential; Julius' one personality trait is that he has devoted his entire being to being an insufferable, preening douche. As such, it is very entertaining to watch Will put Julius and the Squad 6 Goons in their place with his giant-ass sword.

Truth be told, there's not a whole lot else I can say about “Twelve Secret Ice Magics”, because this is a single twenty-minute long fight scene that lives and dies on how cool it is to watch. There's very little in the way of story or character development that I haven't already covered, and the show is firing on all cylinders with its production values this week, so to try and cover the best cuts of animation would result in a shot-by-shot recap of nearly every action beat. Do you like watching preppy posers fling sick ice spells every which way while an indefatigable Hero Guy does cool sword flippies and Big Stabs to win the day? If you do, then I promise that you will have a pretty good time with this episode of Wistoria.

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Wistoria: Wand and Sword is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.