Wistoria: Wand and Sword

Episode 9

It's pretty wild that we're getting a battle-heavy exam-style arc soon after finishing up with the recent Wizard Fortnite event. I suppose that is the pacing I should expect these days when most anime are confined to twelve-episode seasons that give no time for the “filler” that people make such a big deal about (nevermind that some of the greatest anime of all time earned those reputations precisely because they gave viewers a lot of necessary downtime to spend with the characters or get a break from all of the nonstop action and drama). Back in my day, we could expect a solid action-fantasy anime like Wistoria to get at least a couple of dozen episodes, but no, instead we had double down a model where we get hundreds of series a year.

Then again, a show that looks as gorgeous and cinematic as Wistoria: Wand and Sword would have been lucky to get a handful of OVA episodes spread out across a couple of years of VHS releases even back in the glory days of my youth, so maybe my crankiness is unfounded. The fact that Wistoria still hasn't completely fallen apart is a miracle given the current state of things. Although “Praxis Begins” demonstrates some obvious restraint in its production values in the wake of the tournament's end a couple of weeks ago. The gang's dungeon crawl is padded with still frames and motion-comic-looking panels. While they don't detract from the episode enough to significantly impact its overall fun factor, such shortcuts tend to stand out more when they're arriving in such proximity to animation flex-fest battle bonanzas.

Still, “Praxis Begins” is a good time for our slowly burgeoning cast a much-needed second opportunity to work with one another instead of against each other, especially since the wizard tourney focused so much on Will's one-on-one battles. Lihanna and Wignall contribute a welcome hybrid of the typically binary sets of character traits we see in Rigarden Students, too: They may be somewhat snooty and condescending to Will and his talents but they're not outright sociopaths like Julius or hardcore tsundere rivals like Sion. You can't blame them for being skeptical, either, since their absurd level of magical skill reminds us that Will's strength and knowhow are still pretty limited when he doesn't even have time to physically get close enough to stab enemy monsters before they get obliterated with chain-lighting or whatever else these prefects are cooking up. Lihanna even specializes in close-quarters offensive magic, which makes her an especially interesting foil for Will's mechanical specialization. Our boy is that one guy who puts all of his time into developing a hard-hitting heavy-melee build only to discover the pain of partying up with a lightning-fast DPS freak whose passive AOE procs trash all of the mobs too fast to even clock their health bars depleting.

(I'm currently up to my digital eyeballs in piles of Diablo 4 loot and Paragon Points, so I will apologize in advance for the distinct possibility that these remaining reviews might just end up being thinly veiled character build exercises that will give my Barbarian the chance to compete with all of these damned Necromancers and their fancy-schmancy Skellington armies.)

Anyways, the point is that even with the usual infighting and Will-bullying, this current storyline gives Wistoria's characters a more streamlined goal and an actual antagonistic force to work against. It's a tried-and-true formula for producing fun and thrilling Fantasy RPG Vibes. The kids have to go up against horrifying dungeon demons and bloodthirsty decapitation addicts means that even Big Sword Otakus like Will are going to have their work cut out for them, especially when partners like Wignall end up dropping the ball so hard in times of crisis. The mix of desperate survival and meaty monster horror gives the distinct impression that manga author Fujino Mori played a bunch of Shin Megami Tensei while working on this arc.

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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.