I personally think the spinny-flourish looks best, like in any of these examples.
Not only does it appear somewhat flashy, but the movement is also much more fluid overall than the hop back, reversed momentum, then the attack.
(Of the ones I posted, #2 is my favorite overall.)
The issue i have with it is that the hop doesn’t serve any purpose. She could just not hop and accomplish the same thing. If you feel it needs more movement, perhaps just have her bring the energy down and back before throwing it forward?
(Making the crit flashier is also an option!)
there was this thing i remembered about somebody telling me that magic users should move back because of the positioning of the fire spell animation so i was trying to take that into account
that and i don’t really care for that shrinking magic circle thing i did the last time i touched this several months ago
this is only true for anima magic and is explicitly anti-true for the animations of elder magic
positioning something for both elder and anima isn’t super feasible as a result of this:
but you don’t have to move backward to be an anima caster – valkyrie, mage knight, druid, etc all don’t and it doesn’t look that out of place even with fire/elfire.
I hadn’t thought of that, but the vanilla caster animations appear to move back as part of the casting motions. Eirika’s hop is part of her rapier lunge but doesn’t really work without the sword.
I made an attempt at something that flows a little better, but really the best way to handle it if you want her to move back would be to actually sprite a new motion for it. I know it’d be a pain to do, but it would look better and less “forced” and keep the normal and critical animations looking distinct.
But, i mean, it is your animation so if you’re satisfied with using the twirl for both of them then you can just do that! Taking critique only means considering it, not always having to agree with it 
So…
This for the crit
This for the normal attack?
Sounds good to me. I like that her normal attack now has a ‘shotgun’ punchiness to the motion, like she’s blasting the magic at her enemies.
here’s another of my older designs that i never finished
the skeleton shaman
I had some help making some more improvements to the dark knight design
yes i flipped the horse forward only to flip it backward again