The Ancient Magus' Bride Series Review

Our world is just full of wonders, don’t you agree? May it be from the differences in culture to the variety of people you get to meet, it’s all just so exciting to explore! However, what if you experience things far more weird than the average person does? Scary events, a lot of hardships, supernatural encounters, and all in a span of a few years. Will the world, and life in general, still keep on being wonderful to you? The Ancient Magus’ Bride deals with just those kinds of questions, all while immersing you in a journey full of magic!

Synopsis

Hatori Chise can see beings no one else can, which made life so painful for her to the point where she wanted to end it all by taking her own life. However, a suggestion to sell herself at an auction due to being a rare ‘Sleigh Beggy’ changed her fate, as it was where a mysterious mage named Elias bought her for a really huge sum to be his apprentice and future bride. And so Chise gets even more involved with magical adventures and troubles, learning for herself what living and dying really means.

Plot

Oh boy, where do I even start? I’d first love to commend the incredibly beautiful writing of this story as a whole (both the anime and manga)! Tackling deep themes such as life and death, finding a place to belong to, and adapting to painful experiences is totally difficult to pull off! And yet, Yamazaki Kore did it so effortlessly! Add to that the immense number of literary references she put into her world, whether mythology or folklore, or even her own spins that made them seem legit! I really, really admire how she put it all together into this one, beautiful story!

When it comes to the anime’s writing though, I admit it’s not entirely perfect. I found the first few episodes a bit dull and slow, with some montages seeming to drag on. But man! As soon as things started getting interesting, I was quickly sucked in! And I never got out since, even until the ending that made me love the anime even more! The series closed wonderfully in my opinion, which is great in itself, given that it already surpassed the manga by the last episode. Yes, it’s true that stories too deep and filled with drama might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I assure you that once you give it a few episodes, the plot will start to pique your interest, the beauty of the world around Chise will captivate you, and the characters will capture your hearts.

Speaking of which, a deep story as this needs characters that aren’t superficial. Each of them, both major and minor alike have their own good and bad traits, conflicts, selfishness, you name it! Just with our protagonist Chise, her development was able to be so beautiful because she had a lot going on inside herself, which in turn affected how she dealt with things around her. At times it was also vice versa. Even the antagonist – well since I don’t want to spoil those who haven’t watched yet, let’s just say he’s also not entirely black and white. I personally became attached to him at some point, and I’m not one to like generic villains!

Art & Music

As expected of Wit Studio (the same ones who worked on Attack on Titan), they did a good job bringing the beauty of Yamazaki Kore’s creation to life on screen! One that’s most noteworthy to me is the atmosphere that each episode has, which, depending on the mood of the scene, really leveled up the emotions and added to the wonder! Of course, it’d also be hard to appreciate an anime if the art and animation of the characters wasn’t consistent or lovely to look at! I’m actually in awe of the animators’ skills because most of the designs, especially for Elias and the rest of the fairies, would’ve been hard to draw! Yet they had to draw them, again and again, depicting different emotions and body languages! Week in, week out, the visuals brought me deeper into the story, as if I was there myself! Everything was just gorgeous!

Putting the cherry on top were the background music and the voice acting! What would a rollercoaster ride of feels be if they didn’t match up to the story and visual’s standards, right? The BGMs made the whole experience even more magical! Plus, the voice actors did such a great job of breathing life into their respective characters, more so when it came to highly dramatic parts of the story. Overall, this show was just aesthetically pleasing!

Themes & Trivia

Manga adaptation: As I mentioned earlier, The Ancient Magus’ Bride is originally a manga created by Yamazaki Kore. It currently has nine volumes in Japanese, and seven licensed in English. Actually, the anime cut a lot of extra info from the manga about different references that Yamazaki-sensei put into her story, so I recommend reading it after finishing the anime!

Literature references: This series is a treasure trove of literary shoutouts. All kinds of European folklore, titles based on quotes and proverbs, and a bunch of inspiration from famous stories, it’s fun to figure them out! I personally enjoyed researching trivia for the episodic reviews! These honestly made the show’s world building a lot more flavorful!

Life and death: The most prominent theme apart from a few others. Chise’s journey to find the place where she can call home really makes you think a lot. How can you keep on living knowing you’re forever cursed with an ability you don’t want? How can you come to terms with your own selfishness? What about the death of people around you, or your own? Very deep stuff.

Comments

Yet another series I love a lot, so now it’s up there among my favorites! This really just took me on a journey that I would’ve liked to have had as a kid, one full of magic and wonder, and even now as an adult, full of things to reflect on and relate to. But it wasn’t only a journey, it was more of a rollercoaster ride, too! Every week, especially by the half of it, I always kept wanting more as soon as the episode ended! For real, The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a series that you shouldn’t miss out on!

A Magical Journey

Plus:

I love Chise so much. Such a beautiful, strong and kind protagonist, with one of the best character developments out there!
Beautiful story, beautiful art, beautiful everything!
Gotta love those literary references!
I really liked the ending.

Minus:

Some episodes could’ve been written better, as certain montages were dull that they felt dragging, or useless.
There were also some important information mentioned in the manga that could’ve helped make the whole thing better. But alas, time constraints.

If you haven’t given The Ancient Magus’ Bride a try yet, please do so now! Afterwards, head on to the comments to share all your feelings and opinions on it! As for the ones who faithfully watched it while it aired, let us know in the comments what you thought about the whole thing! Help us convince the ones who haven’t seen it yet!