El Cazador de la Bruja - Nadie and Ellis make a great couple

Today I want to talk about El Cazador de la Bruja, an original anime series from 2007 (not based on any manga or novel) produced by Bee Train that I first watched back in 2008, right when I had just started exploring anime in Japanese as I was learning the language.

As you may have noticed from the recent posts, in the past few months I’ve been revisiting several older series to re-experience them with fresh eyes and see how my impressions change now that I’m… well, much older. And in this case? The result was honestly amazing.

I remembered not liking El Cazador much at all. I thought it was slow, boring, and lacking punch. But watching it again now, I had some of the most fun I’ve had with an anime in a long time. I’m genuinely shocked that past-me didn’t enjoy it, because present-me absolutely loved it.

The story follows Ellis, a fugitive quiet girl with amnesia, and Nadie, a cheerful bounty hunter who ends up escorting her across Latin America as they search for a mysterious place called Wiñay Marka, even though Ellis herself doesn’t fully understand what it is.

Ellis also has some special power that allows her to control metals that she uses whenever in distress, sometimes without even realizing what she's doing. Her past life is shrouded in mystery for good part of the series, only small bits get revealed episode after episode through some flashback.

The atmosphere is heavily inspired by Westerns: deserts, small towns, gunfights, Latin music, dusty roads, lone travelers… the whole package. But it’s still anime, so of course there’s a bit of fanservice sprinkled in, from both the heroines and some antagonists (like Blue Eyes).

The structure is mostly episodic, with Nadie and Ellis meeting different people and getting pulled into all sorts of situations, some supernatural, some grounded. While each episode tells its own story, they all contain little hints pushing the main plot forward.

There are some stories that are honestly quite sad like the fake witch one and some that leave you thinking for a bit like the one with the old "acquaintance" of Nadie. There are only few recurring characters aside from Ellis and Nadie and everyone else just appear for a single episode before they move on to another city.

You also get a lot of funny scenes, like the one in the video above with Nadie trying to use her sex appeal without much success to enter the mansion, which help break up the gunfights and the otherwise serious developments. It’s a really nice way to keep the pacing fresh.

Two factions are following and influencing their journey:

The CIA faction, led by Douglas Rosenberg, one of the men connected to Ellis’s past. He manipulates events from behind the scenes, assigning agents to “assist” Nadie and Ellis whenever it suits his goals without ever actually showing up or making them aware of him. Marco and his daughter are technically hired by this faction.

The witch-related faction, operating under Jody “Blue-Eyes” Hayward, a beautiful investigator suspicious of Rosenberg and his experiments. They know about Ellis’s witch-like powers and constantly debate whether she should be protected or eliminated. Nadie works for them initially before getting attached to Ellis too much.

What truly struck me this time is the relationship between Nadie and Ellis. They start off as strangers bound by convenience, Nadie doing it for the job, Ellis simply needing a companion to escape with. But little by little they go from strangers, to friends, to something very much like family. And by the end? It’s hard not to see them as essentially a yuri couple, especially with how forward Ellis becomes in the later episodes.

With every episode, I found myself more invested in their journey. And when the ending approached, I got that familiar bittersweet feeling you get when you finish a story you’ve gotten attached to, wanting to see the ending, but not wanting the adventure to actually be over.

I genuinely recommend everyone to give El Cazador de la Bruja a chance. It’s a real hidden gem that never got the attention it deserved back in its time. Watching it again now made me appreciate just how special it actually is.