The Ancient Magus' Bride

**The Ancient Magus' Bride** is an action, adventure, supernatural, fantasy, mystery, romance, comedy, drama, tragedy

   anime series.  It was based on a manga written by Kore Yamazaki and published by Mag Garden for the magazine Monthly Comic Blade from November 2013 to July 1 2014 and then Monthly Comic Garden from September 2014 to present.  It's been ongoing from November 2013 to the present day and has 9 volumes in total so far.  The anime adaptation began with a 3 episode OVA, titled The Ancient Magus Bride: Those Awaiting a Star.  The first, which aired in theaters, was released on August 13, 2016.  The second was released on September 10, 2016.  And the third, on DVD, was released on September 9, 2017.  After that came the anime series.  It aired from October 7, 2017 to March 24, 2018, with 24 episodes in total.  The anime adaptation was directed by Norihiro Naganuma, written by Kore Yamazaki and Aya Takaha, musically composed by Jun'ichi Matsumoto, and produced by Hiroutsugu Ose, Toshio Iizuka, Masaou Ito, George Wada, and Wit Studio.

## Plot

Chise Hatori, a 15-year-old Japanese girl, was sold for five million pounds at an auction to a tall masked gentleman. Abandoned at a young age and ridiculed by her peers for her unconventional behavior, she was ready to give herself to any buyer if it meant having a place to go home to. In chains and on her way to an unknown fate, she hears whispers from robed men along her path, gossiping and complaining that such a buyer got his hands on a rare "Sleigh Beggy."  Ignoring the murmurs, the mysterious man leads the girl to a study, where he reveals himself to be Elias Ainsworth—a magus. After a brief confrontation and a bit of teleportation magic, the two open their eyes to Elias' picturesque cottage in rural England. Greeted by fairies and surrounded by weird and wonderful beings upon her arrival, these events mark the beginning of Chise's story as the apprentice and supposed bride of the ancient magus.

## Why It Rocks

1. Beautiful animation in almost every single scene.
2. Very appealing art style and character designs.  They find a perfect blend between creative designs and more realistic designs.
3. Excellent soundtrack.
4. Good voice acting in both sub and dub.
5. Solid pacing which isn't too slow nor too fast.
6. Amazing cast of characters.  All of them are complex, interesting, or at the very least entertaining.
7. Chise is one of the best female characters that anime has produced in a long time.  She starts out really weak, both literally and figeratively, but has a massive character arc that spans the entire show and is unbelievably engaging.
8. Elias is the perfect compliment to Chise's hcaracter, interesting, complex, and also has an engaging character arc.
9. The main villain of the series, Joseph, is also interesting and tragic, almost as much as Chise herself.
10. The way Chise's character arc ends is masterful.  At the beginning of the series Chise is being sold into slavery, and we believe throughout the majority of the show that it’s because Chise’s mother didn’t want her, regretting having given birth to her after her father left them.  However, towards the end we learn that while Chise’s flashbacks of her mother attempting to choke her were real, she immediately regretted it, and soon after committed suicide.  When this happened, what most stories would've done was having Chise’s mother being completely redeemed and Chise forgiving her.  This would have presented a huge problem.  Parents, even mothers, shouldn’t be given eternal respect just because they bring a child into the world, they have to earn that respect based on their performance, and if you attempt to kill your own child, your own flesh and blood, even IF you regret it afterwards, then you don’t deserve that respect.  While it is true that before her father left the three of them were a happy family, that becomes irrelevant when you try to kill your kid.  However, the series doesn’t redeem her mother.  Not only that, but Chise chooses to not forgive her mother, at least for the time being.  It’s one of the few stories, not just in anime, but in fiction in general, that understands that you can move on from trauma in the past without forgiving the ones who directly caused said trauma.
11. The way Joseph's character arc ends is also well written.  he was a sorcerer who, while on the brink of death, fused together with a being known as Cartaphilus to save his own life, with the price that he would become immortal.  This eventually caused him to go mad.  In addition, since he was a child when he became immortal, his personality and morality remained that of a child for the past 2,000 years.  Joseph’s and Chise’s confrontation at the end of the series was monumental, as well as debatable for my favorite moment in the series.  It starts with Chise and Joseph having a brief battle with each other, after which Joseph confessing why he’s really doing this.  His reasoning is that he’s been suffering as an immortal for over 2,000 years, and what made it worse was that everyone else was aloud to be happy.  Then Chise makes the argument that he isn’t the only one whose suffering, and that even if his suffering is greater than everyone else’s, that still doesn’t give him the right to cause pain to others.  It’s after this that the series impressed me, because Joseph brings up that Chise is a hypocrite because she is the same way.  Which is true.  While Chise did get a massive amount of character development, earlier on in the show she was very selfish and was only thinking about her own situation.  While she never went as far as Joseph, as in intentionally causing harm to other people, you still can’t deny that her and Joseph weren’t much different with their selfishness.  And then the series continued to shock by having Chise AGREE with Joseph, that she had been very selfish.  After that she looks like that she’s going to kill him, but instead she hugs him.  This is important for both of them.  While Chise did have a good young life at first, that ended after her father left; all the warmth her mother had once given her disappeared.  And Joseph, as far as we can tell, had never been given any warmth in his life.   She realized that what they both needed what not to fight, but to feel loved, even if for a moment.  This simple act ended the battle immediately.
12. Lots of the side characters are also well written and interesting and/or important.  Many of the stand outs includes Silky, Ruth, Alice, Angelica Barley, and Jade Ariel.
13. The conclusion of the show was very good.  While not every single string is completely tied up, and the original manga series does go on further, the ending of the anime does have a sense of conclusiveness.  If the story ended after that, most viewers probably wouldn't be that disappointed.

## Bad Qualities

1. The only bad thing about the ending is something that was confusing with Joseph.  After his and Chise’s fight ends, he somehow fuses with her soul.  The outcome of that was good.  We learned earlier on in the series that Chise is going to die soon, but Joseph, grateful for what she did for him, is able to subdue this imminent death for awhile.  That’s nice.  However, towards the end of the final episode his body is shown in Chise’s basement.  She goes down there real quick to cover him up, and then leaves.  This part was confusing, because he was supposed to exist inside of her now.

## Reception

Volume 2 reached the 9th place on the weekly Oricon manga chart[42] and, as of September 21, 2014, had sold 104,518 copies.[43]

The series had sold half a million copies as of June 2015,[44] 2.5 million copies as of March 2016,[13] and over three million as of September 2016.[45] By December 2017, the series had five million copies in print.[46]

The series was number two on the 2015 *Kono Manga ga Sugoi!* Top 20 Manga for Male Readers survey.[47][48] It was number 36 on the 15th annual "Book of the Year" list by the *Da Vinci* magazine in 2014.[49] *Da Vinci* readers also ranked it at number two in a poll to determine the series most likely to "make their big break" in 2015.[50] The series ranked number one on a poll of 2,360 bookstore employees to determine 2015's top 15 manga series of under five volumes.[51][52] It was one of fourteen titles nominated for the eighth Manga Taishō awards in 2015.[53]

Volume two appeared on *The New York Times* manga bestsellers list for four weeks, rising to third place for two.[54] Volume three debuted on the list at second place,[55] volume four debuted at first place,[56] and volume five debuted at fourth place.[57]

Reviewing the first volume for *Anime News Network*, Nick Creamer gave it a grade of A-. He praised the series art, noting that it "does great work in impressing upon the audience the same sense of wonder Chise experiences throughout. The character designs are expressive and backgrounds ornate". Commenting on the relationship between Chise and Elias, he wrote that "having this story go in a legitimately romantic direction would likely raise thorny issues of power dynamics and consent", but remarked that, as it was, the story "does a commendable job of making both Chise and Elias understandable and likable characters." He concluded his review by writing: "What conflict all these lovely details might be leading towards is a mystery so far, but the execution is so strong that I'm ready to follow wherever it leads."[58] In his review of the second volume, he admitted to coming to an appreciation of the main characters' relationship, writing that "the ambiguities of their relationship actually seem like one more fitting piece of a world where *every* relationship is ambiguous". He called the series' magic "classic but still refreshing". He also commented that the series art "remains gorgeous and well-suited to the story all throughout this volume ... the backgrounds are lush and faces expressive, and the whole style has an ornate looseness to it that works perfectly for this kind of fantasy storytelling." He concluded by saying "If you have any appreciation for this style of classic fantasy storytelling, Ancient Magus' Bride is a can't-miss production."