Mahoutsukai no Yome

There was a lot of hype leading up to the Ancient Magus Bride. Its first three episodes were shown in theaters months before it began to air, and critics and the masses alike were declaring it the best thing ever. In a lot of ways, it lived up to all of that hype. However, I think all of that glowing praise is overshadowing some actual issues with this adaptation.

Before going into the story, I’d like to quickly run down the structure of the narrative. Magus Bride is a slow-paced and contemplative journey, and that’s not for everyone. Several friends of mine dropped it about a ... third of the way through simply because they didn’t feel any drive to see it through, which was exacerbated by a reliance on cheap cliffhangers. But if you’re willing to give the story time to unfold, it does have interesting ideas to explore. Now, into the story:

Magus Bride invites its audience to a world of magic in which dragons and fairies are commonplace. But despite its grand fantastic setting, the focus of its narrative is on the grounded and personal story of its protagonist Chise. To put it lightly, Chise begins the series in a dark place, and believes that she is worthless and no one would care if she died. Much of the show is dedicated to characters exploring their attitudes towards death; every person Chise meets helps to shape her perspective towards life, and these encounters change her as a person.

Chise develops a lot over the course of the series, and it’s not always for the better. Something that’s often ignored in fiction is that change isn’t always exclusively positive or negative, and Magus Bride handles this well. At one point, Chise decides that her life only has value on the condition that she can be useful to others, which leads to her becoming the needlessly self-sacrificing protagonist that we often see in anime. This particular plot point was kind of a weak point for me – most often the results of her self-martyring were that she would just be unconscious for a few days and then have no lasting damage. Still, it was interesting to see how Chise changes over time, and how this affected her interactions with those around her.

Chise’s growth is best shown through the evolution of her dynamic with the other lead Elias. At the onset of the story, the two of them are teacher and student, but over the course of events, Chise comes to realize that Elias isn’t the all-knowing figure she had taken him for, and that he has at least as much to learn from her as she has to learn from him. They spend a period of codependency, though Chise’s emotional growth leads to her trying to form meaningful relationships with other people, while Elias becomes increasingly dependent and obsessive. Chise’s relationship with Elias may be what starts her on her path at the beginning, but it’s also an unhealthy relationship that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. This was another shortcoming – Elias does some genuinely terrible things which are downplayed by the narrative. Chise tries to see the best in everyone she encounters over her journey, including its villains, but it would have been nice if this nuance had extended a bit further into exploring the dark sides of its heroes.

But while the story itself is interesting, the visual presentation of it is lacking. The character designs are elaborate, but the models decline over the run of the show. There are also comedic aside scenes where the characters are chibified, and these detract from the narrative and disrupt its tone. One of the most disappointing things is that the second opening is composed almost entirely out of big scenes from the first half. None of the visuals are terribly bad, but they don’t really live up to the rest of the show. Everything is fine, but the attempts at spectacle don’t always land. Animation could have been used to accomplish things that wouldn’t have been possible in the manga, but instead this adaptation plays it safe and doesn’t add anything new to the story.

The audio makes more of an effort to go beyond the source material. Some sound effects are exaggerated for emphasis, which is a small but effective detail. On the larger scale, there are insert songs added to climactic scenes, which are sometimes effective but more often feel forceful and try to imbue drama into a scene that isn’t there. They’ll make scenes feel too drawn out, or they’ll go into the territory of melodrama. Other than that, the audio is unremarkable. The voice work and opening and ending themes are perfectly fine, though nothing exceptional.

What is the purpose of adaptation? If it is simply to increase awareness of the source material, then this anime was a resounding success. But I believe that an adaptation should try to elevate itself above its inspiration; it’s a different medium, and it should play to its unique strengths. In this regard, the anime adaptation is a failure. Everything that I enjoyed about this would still be present in the manga, and a lot of the things I disliked would then be absent. I think Magus Bride is a really interesting story, but I don’t think that this anime is the way to enjoy it.

Regardless of how nice the music or art is I simply can't get excited about a show that is so extraordinarily repetitive and boring. The characters repeat the same boring lines of how Chise never had anyone call her family before and how Elias doesn't understand humans. They literally had Chise monologue how Elias was the only person to call her family about 20+ times. We get it, that and Chise is constantly being taken and going through the same process with a bit of a variation multiple times. A mediocre story can not be made into a good anime with great art and music.

Based on the premise and quality of the art and animation, I really wanted to like this show. But even in just the prequel OVAs, there were some warning flags I really should have paid attention to, because they forecasted the subtext of the rest of the series pretty well.

In the fewest words possible, Ancient Magus' Bride is a quintessential girls' escapist fantasy. In a sense, it's a bit like Sword Art Online in that it knows its target audience very well, and feeds them exactly what they want to see. In the case of Ancient Magus' Bride, this generally revolves around "a unique power ... that makes you misunderstood and miserable", "a male benefactor who accepts and loves you for who you are", and "sacrificing your health, happiness, and well-being for the greater good makes people love and admire you".

I had a very difficult time just watching this show and accepting it for what it is, getting way too stuck on the tropes to enjoy the story it was trying to tell or the characters it was trying to develop. Whenever I was able to look past the patterns and just enjoy it for what it is, it was a perfectly okay time with hard-to-follow, magically-themed stories of some intensity, charming-if-cliche characters in Chise and Elias as they experience this weird quasi-marital relationship, and generally beautiful art.

This anime is bad because its base , at least until now, are " sad love stories" that happened in a magical world. I'm not kidding you, this is a fact.


What I wanted from this anime was an odd couple that had lots of cool adventures, filled with action, especially magic, and sometimes a look to their feelings. Elias' character is pretty badass, I look at him and I think, damn, this "monster" looks awesome, and Chise is the opposite, she looks plain boring and dumb, she's a teenager and since she's damaged because of her traumatic "upbringing", then we get a teenager with sad ... and emotional problems, and this will be a trait of her personality that we'll have to tolerate.
The relationship between these two characters is not funny, on the contrary, it's strange and always boring, they're both different and live knowing almost nothing about each other, except that the monster wants to make the human his bride and that this girl is happy that someone wants her as part of his family.

What I actually watched was not what I wanted, it was a bunch of sad short stories that happen to the protagonists, unfortunately, the characters like I said, are uninteresting, and although everything is filled with lots of magic this doesn’t helps to compensate. Sadly for the viewers, all the stories presented so far share the same romantic cause that originates them, and this really bores me to no end. In each chapter they try to make you feel sad and this is awfully tiresome, I’m not a machine that was designed to feel funny feelings and more importantly: I don’t care that much about the feelings of every character that appears on screen at every moment, it makes the anime a romantic drama. What infuriates me is that every goddamn character has suffered or suffers because of love or the lack of it, or the absence of a loved one, this repetition makes the stories awfully inane because of the way in which this love is presented and above all, I really don’t care that much about love stories and how the characters, especially, Chise, is feeling at every moment.

Anyways, I like the desing of Elias, but not his character, at least, in the anime, I haven't "read" the manga. Yeah, he's a magician, not a sorcerer (there' s a difference, one uses "good" magic and the other one, gets his magic from evil spirits), he has a horrowshow costume and a menacing skull as a head, but his personality is boring... I guess I'll keep watching the anime with a hope of a sudden change that makes it watchable...

This is one of the most disappointing anime I have watched this season. It starts off great with awesome premise and all but leaves you hanging right there. the worst parts of ancient magus bride are the pacing and the overall story , when there seems to be a fight people just summon some random stuff saying some other random stuff which makes some random stuff happen and everything goes just as it should have. Absolutely no rules apply to their magic and tbh it was kinda good in the beginning but man does it get boring , after episode 5-6 it was an utter ... waste of time. There are some real good things about it though : the sounding is done really well , the op and ed theme songs are really good and the soundtracks used in between are simply perfect . The visuals rock too , really colorful and with details not to mention the amount of animations used but again it gets boring after a while.

Depression. I think most of us has experienced depression at some point in life. Anyone who has can recognize the lack of energy, self-preservation, emotions (good or bad), life lust, motivations and drive. When the world feels grey and empty, and you question why you even bother with even the easiest tasks. The reason for being in such a state may be very different; the death of some close to you, money problem, bulling, stress etc. A depressed character could be winning card in a story, if portrayed right, and create relatable feelings in the viewer/reader. To follow a depressed person´s journey out of the ... grey fog can be very emotional and touching and make up a good story and/or characterization.

But why am I talking about depression when reviewing the new big contribution to the fantasy, magic, shounen, and slice of life genres? I will get down to that now.

Mahoutsukai no Yome (The Ancient Magus´ Bride) may be one of the most anticipated anime of late, both by fans of the manga as well newcomers, me belonging to the latter category. The visuals looked colourful and sparkly, the story appeared unique and gave the impression of caring a certain depth by embrace darker subjects such as depression and loneliness. I´m sucker for fantasy stories with loads of magic and character growth, so I had high expectations for MnY. I´m going to be honest, I was a bit disappointed. Not that the show was all that bad or boring, in many ways it holds a high quality, it just contained some bits and parts that didn´t rub me right. Mainly the relationship between Chise and Elias, the pacing, and the shows episodic nature. I will discuss those later, but let’s talk about MnY´s strong suit´s first.

MnY tells the “hidden-magical-world-in-the-real-world” kind of story, little like Harry Potter. Mages, fairies, banshees, sorceress, dragons, talking animals, and many other creatures lives side by side with humans, who doesn´t know about their exotic neighbour’s existence. Personally, I love this type of set up, it has almost endless potential to turn into something really magical. This element is what really made me watch the whole show. Each little new treat of world building, such as collecting and preparing herbs for a magical potion, exploration of mystical creatures or realms, or the art of making a wand, was accompanied by stunning visuals. I enjoyed those parts a lot. MnY slowly but caringly explores this subject, which shows us both the beauty and the dark of magic.

And of course, the art and animation are one of MnY other strong suits. The character designs have a unique and distinguished style, colourful and cleanly designed, which speaks for a great innovation ability from the creator’s side. Wit Studio is behind the animation, so if you have watched “Shingeki no Kyojin” or “Owari no Seraph” you know what to expect from it visually. Backgrounds looks detailed, colourful and all over very stunning. A dark winter forest, a blooming garden, or a living room with a crackling fire, have all a great atmosphere and detail, which makes you want to be there and experience it yourself. As mentioned before the characters have a distinct design, which luckily fits in the stunning backgrounds. The animation is clean, with very few scenes were something look out of place. Well done Wit Studio.

Normally, the slice of life genre isn´t what I prefer, I often go for more action filled and goal driven shows/stories. MnY has “it´s about the journey, not the destination” kind of narrative, which often have a “yay” or “ney” effect on me. It highly depends on the other content of the story/characters, and the enjoyment I find there. MnY has a pretty slow paced and episodic nature. This is necesserly not a bad thing, it just didn´t fully worked for me this time. I get that the main theme is Chise´s and Elias emotional journey´s, as well introducing new characters and world building, but a little clearer direction would´ve made this a more enjoyable watch to me.

As individual characters, both Chise and Elias are very interesting and fresh. I talked a bit about depression in the beginning of this review, and the reason why is because or young female protagonist is deeply depressed. Chise is not only very depressed, but also extremely lonely. Life has treated this young girl really cruelly, which has brought her to a point to where she don´t care what´s happening to her, and passively want´s to die. Chise´s journey through the grey vail of depression fog was emotional to watch, and her slow progress forward felt aligned with what happened to her. Elias is a 500-year old magical experiment gone wrong (my personal guess), belonging to no race at all. He has with guidance been able to gain control of his animalistic instincts and have learned how to interact with those around him. Elias journey is more about loneliness, alienation, and to learn what it means to be human. The depth of Chise´s and Elias problems was portrayed with care and dimension, so my expectations for deeper subjects were mostly for filled.

I mentioned before that Chise´s and Elias relationship didn´t rub me right. This section contains minor spoilers to exemplify why I had problems with it, so if you want it completely spoiler free, continue to the next section. The first thing that really bothered me after Elias bought Chise on an auction is that he declared that she is to be his apprentice and bride. A 500-year old creature who states that the 15-year old suicidal girl he just bought is to be his bride, is just wrong. It´s not like he takes her to his bed and have his way, far from it, but right there and then it became creepy. That he takes the liberty to bathe said 15-year old girl the first thing he does when they arrive at his home, only amplified that creepy feeling. And throughout the show, similar situations are not to uncommon, and most of the other characters doesn´t even raise a brow at it, and sometimes even encourage it. They have for the most part a dysfunctional relationship, were the power balance between them were quite skewed. They grow together and strengthen each other at one hand, and at the other hand, they are completely destructive to each other. There is spelled out that they depend on each other to learn about self-value, to trust people to not to leave them, and what some emotions really is. Some of it is kind of heart-warming but having the bought-slave bride thing in the background kind of ruins the beauty of it. Had they gone for just the apprentice route and let the relationship grow more naturally I would´ve liked the show so much more. I wouldn´t even have minded a romantic relationship developed later on, but Chise´s situation and behaviour remined me all too much about a kid falling prey to an adult predator.

The quality of the supporting characters varies in depth and importance, but some of them were quite nice to follow, such as Ruth, Mikhail and Alice. They were interesting characters with interesting pasts, I wouldn´t minded if they had gotten more screen time then they did.

To get to some conclusion, MnY had some brilliant parts, some mediocre parts, and some out right disturbing parts. The magic part was satisfyingly inventive, beautiful and interesting, and is the part of the show I enjoyed the most. Chise´s and Elias individual emotional journey´s were slow but nicely executed, and their coupled was at times warming to watch, and sometimes down right disturbing to watch. Some episodes were better and felt more important than others, and some I forgot almost instantly. Since I´m not a slice-of-life person in general, I won´t hold it against MnY that it stayed true to its label. Over all MnY is a good show, it just didn´t hit bulls eyes on every point for me.

The Ancient Magus Bride starts like a big buffet of delicious food. You gobble up everything as fast as you can, in awe of how delicious everything is. Yet you quickly run out of food. Dissatisfied, you pick at the scraps, settling for eating them as you wish you had more of that delicious food you started with.

But enough with the similes. It's time for the review.

*This review contains some minor spoilers for the purpose of critiquing the series as fair and accurately as possible.

Plot: 3/10
What little over reaching plot there is serves as a poor excuse to aimlessly guide the characters through ... a show that can't quite decide if it wants to be episodic or plot driven. Floating between the two, it visits location after location of new, exciting places, but runs out of them as early as episode nine. The rest of the show then struggles to make up for this fact, by introducing new characters, villains, having old faces re-appear, or traveling back to old locations. For a show that seemed to be oozing creativity at the start, to run out of ideas so quickly is just a shame.

As for the overreaching plot, the show has a terrible habit of throwing in a new villain whenever it wants some plot. Yet these "villains" are all fake. Every single one of them proves themselves harmless and that they never intended the main characters harm all along, leaving every scenario involving them feeling pointless and empty at the end.

What makes the plot worse is it's terrible habit of thinking: blood = edgy and cool. Whenever the show wants to be serious, it'll suddenly have lots of blood. Especially the tried and true "crying tears of blood," a trick that should be extremely rarely used to make it more effective. And yet, this show uses it without a thought, as though it were written by a teenager who once heard, "Hey, this is how you make a cool and exciting story." It's desire to be dark out of nowhere is another disappointment, because not only is it executed poorly, it clashes with the overall tone of the romance and whimsical world. It feels completely out of place here, and I can't imagine why the author is so obsessed with being dark.

Lastly, the plot is interspersed with dry humor where the characters say something that's supposed to be funny and turn into simplistic chibis. The fact that I didn't find the humor amusing on its own would have been fine, I'd of accepted it as just the sort of thing I don't find funny. Yet what annoyed me about it was the chibi aspect. Every single joke, they turn into chibis. Every. Single. Time. It felt like the author was screaming, "LAUGH, THIS IS WHERE YOU LAUGH!!"


Characters: 5/10
Chise: Chise is an extremely bland protagonist. She has dry reactions and thoughts about the incredible environments and people around her, making her a buzz kill to the wonder and whimsical tone of the show. Drowning? Guess she won't try to flail or move at all, just sink to the bottom. Elias transforms? Guess she'll just tell him to turn back or he won't fit in the doorway. She constantly has empty reactions like this.

Now, I've seen people make the argument, "She's depressed, that's just how a depressed person would react." I have friends with depression, and she doesn't strike me as someone that's depressed. A depressed person is someone who feels they have little future, have few wants, and feel horrible whenever someone is nice to them. Chise shows that she has hopes and desires for a future with Elias, and she quickly goes from feeling bad about receiving his love to just accepting it. That's not depression. So, her blandness is just her personality. This personality of her kills my interest in her as a protagonist because it drastically clashes with the setting and tone.

Elias: Elias is a compelling character. He has a truly unique design, a backstory that leaves me eager for more information, and he has an interesting relationship with Silky. And yet, Elias's main point in this story would be his relationship and romance with Chise. A relationship the show failed to invest me in. Elias's stalker tendencies, ominous one liners, and degrading nicknames turn me off from this romance. Don't believe he's a stalker or a creep? Allow me to remind you: he has a tracker on Chise at all times, can follow Chise in her shadow without her realizing it, reminds Chise that she can't refuse him because he owns her, threatens a friend of Chise's because he's jealous that Chise spends time with her, ties Chise down with his tentacles against her will to keep her from leaving him, and calls Chise his puppy. So when this man tells Chise that he wants to marry her, when he also said that she can't refuse him because he owns her, I can't help but hold an extremely low opinion of Elias. He's not meant to come off in this way; he's just supposed to be childish. And yet, the writer doesn't know how to write Elias's lines and actions without him coming across as a creep rather than just being immature.

Cartaphilus: Remember how I said all the villains are fakes? There is one exception in Cartaphilus. Yet even then, he's not a particular good character. He's a villain that starts out like a cliché psychopath that we've seen in a hundred different shows, with little to separate him from other characters of his trope other than he really HATES being called a certain name. So while he's not that compelling at first, at least he's a real villain, right? Not really. Later the show works hard to undo any progress it made building him up as a villain.


Music: 9/10
Wit Studio has a whimsical and grand soundtrack that brings forth the majesty and splendor of the world of Ancient Magus Bride.


Animation: 10/10
Of course, breathtaking landscapes and smooth movement are abound with Wit Studio at the helm.


All around, Ancient Magus Bride is a heap of wasted potential. Its many failed villains, the utter lack of new places to explore in the second half, and it's poorly executed protagonists come together to create a show that constantly disappointed me after the beginning set itself up as an unforgettable glimpse into a world of magic. For those interested in experiencing the beautiful world and stunning animation, give it a shot. Just don't buy into the hype everyone's trying to feed you.

While delivering fantastic visuals, and some world-building, it fails at every other aspect— I just couldn't care for the other characters or the relationship between Chise and Elias.

The whole time I felt like Silvery (my favourite character), just a spectator. No actual connections, but episode 22 was done well. The visuals and sceneries were amazing at times breathtaking and impressive. The story on the other hand was lackluster, along with the characters —They were interesting but lacked depth...

Some review readers or watchers will like this, but others will not enjoy it. I'm in the middle.Some review readers or watchers will like this, but ... others will not enjoy it. I'm in the middle.

Plot

Magus Bride does not have much of an overarching storyline, instead following the ventures of Elias and Chise as the mage teaches her the way of magic. Luckily it doesn't attempt to imitate a large plot and does well with the smaller subplots.

Speaking of subplots, the anime includes many individual stories that are encapsulated into two or three episodes at a time. Most feature some sort of sinister element and an emotional conflict - one that Chise has familiarized with by the resolution. She will, with help from other characters, be the one to bring said stories to their ends.

In the long run there is, ... apparently, some concern as to Chise's health as a Slay Vega. I assume that this issue will either never be dealt with or handled melodramatically to elicit some sort of visceral response from the audience.

MahoYome does an impeccable job at executing small-scale stories with a mystical edge. Most if not all of its fans were captivated by the alluring sense of imagination that it effectively succeeds in delivering. I commend the show for truly taking advantage of the fantasy genre and incorporating it into the vast magical world it presents.

Characters

Here you have it, my sole issue with the Ancient Magus Bride anime. It's not that I dislike all of its characters but more so how horrendously unsubstantial and pretentious the narrative portrays them as.

As stated subplots compose the overall story, each arc being a tale in and of itself. Therefore characters aren't people so much as roles in a single circumstance that does absolutely nothing to show their personality, ambitions, etc. The majority of side characters - those who are often pivotal to what occurs in a minor arc - have no real soul because they are only cardboard cutouts to be pitied due to the situation.

If you don't get what I'm trying to say, think of the plot in which an earnest man murders several cats for his frail wife, all the while being deceived by a manipulative sorceror. All three of those characters have just about no other notable traits. This, unfortunately, is because their only purpose is to fulfill the story instead of existing as legitimate people. Then of course MahoYome demands for the audience's sadness not by exploiting a character's likability but rather via their stance as a victim in an unpleasant predicament.

So I guess that's why I'm not too fond of the portrayal of side characters. For the mains (right now they're really just Chise and Elias), I don't have much praise either.

Chise is a flat lead. She will occasionally omit some amusing deadpan humor and will constantly look aesthetically godlike but her genuine personality is just that. Dull. She might've had my sympathy if her backstory wasn't executed as abruptly as it was. If...they had bothered to sprinkle it vaguely throughout episodes. But it was just thrust upon us in the meat of episode one, before anyone was concerned about how this redhead had crippling trauma.

She is a generic character who has been told time and time again, in far better ways than the cheap and forced development Mahoutsukai provides her with.

As of episode eight, the characterization of Elias totals to about zero, so I won't waste time talking about him. Instead let's move on to his relationship with Chise, the beginning and crux of the series and, logically speaking, its strongest point.

Just kidding. In no way is that even mildly true; they have no chemistry, no space for progression, nothing but inexplicable motions of affection. While the initial premise is intriguing and sets for a detailed and complex relationship ('he was the only one to ever want me!'), this concept is not elaborated on but relied upon heavily for the actions of each. As they have been shown to already possess feelings, one might expect some layers and depth to the bond - and be thoroughly disappointed by the boring interactions they share.

Animation & Sound

Well. Considering MahoYome's reputation, this almost goes without saying. If there is a visual error I have yet to find it; everything from art to direction is done phenomenally. The style wholeheartedly embraces the 'fantasy vibe', supplying seamless backgrounds and gorgeous character designs.

The music is much the same, occasionally with a European flair of sorts and blending masterfully with the natural animation. Honestly with this category, there's nothing that hasn't been said already so I'll leave it at that.


-

Overall, from what I can tell Mahoutsukai is a stunning production with a charming, simplistic way of storytelling and immense shortcomings in characterization. But despite that black mark it is certainly worth watching for the rest of the anime.

Sad girl stops being sad after people are nice to her for 26 episodes.


The anime is just too long, it's an episodic SoL in disguise. The core story of Chise and Elias' relationship and their growth as individuals doesn't justify more than a few episodes, so it ends up being heavily padded. The bulk of each episode is some inconsequential subplot that contributes little more to the overarching narrative than reaffirming what we already know about Elias and Chise so far. There's very low "content density", where only about 10% of the ~500 minutes of total runtime is dedicated to progressing the plot and ... the rest is split between little subplots and hammering in Chise's mental state. This might be fine if the show embraced its episodic nature and put more thought into its subplots, but they are usually only shallow metaphors for whatever Chise is currently feeling, or contrived to create an opportunity for Chise to monologue about her feelings.

Chise's story is itself endearing but overly simple. Ultimately she is a pure-hearted nice girl antagonized by sadistic weirdos, so there isn't a whole lot of depth to her character. She hasn't done anything wrong and doesn't have any real flaws, so she has no character arc to progress through - she only needs to accept that she's not a bad person. This isn't exactly an applicable moral story, since real people aren't innocent, perfect, and only sad because evil people traumatized them; real people are flawed, do less-than-good things, and must self-improve to feel better. There is some tension between her and Elias, but usually in the form of one of them being broody and refusing to communicate which does less to create actual drama than it does to insert fake tension and prolong the story, since it never amounts to anything significant.

It's just too slow and unengaging. The setting and subplots aren't given the attention they deserve, and so they end up feeling like padding that stretches the story thin instead of an engaging world to explore. The emotional core is simply that a perfect girl is sad because she was bullied in the past, and she eventually realizes there's nothing to be sad about and stops. It could easily be condensed to a few episodes, which it is in the OVA's, so just watch those instead.

A beautiful and artistic rendition of a magical world beyond our own. The story, however, falls flat as it plays second fiddle to the animation. Emotional high notes never quite climax as they should and the relationship between the two characters (in what is pitched as an anime about romance) is largely forgotten in favor of the artistic acrobatics and animated pinups.

That said, if you're looking for a magical world setting to immerse yourself in this might be the anime for you. I won't deny that the setting itself is a character you can become enamored with, but as very little actually carries over and ... bears consequence to the overall story I have a hard time feeling particularly attached.

Mahoutsukai no Yome has cool looking characters, interesting magical concepts, visually striking art and animation, good soundtracks. It's clear that this show has high quality production value, but that's about it. The main problems with this show are the story and the characters, which are really important as these are meat and bones of a show.

The story has huge potential being that the settings involved magical elements and how the MC starts off new and fresh from her old miserable past in a new place far from her old home accompanied by ancient creature who is a magus. On paper it sounds promising and definitely ... opens up many possibilities. In execution though, it's kind of pale. Being slice of life, that justified for it not having "end goal", it's just that what they presented are not very engaging, entertaining, or even just funny. Majority of the time it's just trying to show serene moment, beautiful looking and "calming" scene with sprinkle of beautiful looking magic, which I don't mind if only they do it in moderation. The problem is that they do it almost all the time, which if your story is about slice of life in magical world, it's definitely a wasted potential. The magical aspect is just there to help the visual a lot of time instead of the story.

There are many times when they try to point out "this is funny scene" by making the characters looks cute and kinda derpy, but honestly I don't find that moment to be funny at all. Plus the fact that they are using technique that reminds me of laugh track in sitcom, kinda pissed me off.

The characters themselves are not helping either. The main characters are bland. The other supporting characters are not adding anything interesting either.

Chise and Elias(our mains), it's very clear that the show is trying to show us that their romantic feelings are developing slowly but surely, but honestly it feels forced. Sometimes there will be scene where at first you would think "Aw they're cute together", but honestly when you take a step back and remembered what happened before that, there's nothing that would suggest that is the natural progression from their experience being together. It's feels like they made to act like that so that it feels romantic. Plus thinking how Elias is supposed to be ignorant of human emotion, what he did most of the time definitely made you question that. There are moments of tension from Elias that looks really dramatic, but after not for long, he returned to normal like it never happened, which really took you out of the moment, especially when accompanied by nonchalant response from Chise after that.

Some of the supporting characters are definitely have more personality than those two, but most of them are just there. They exist to spoon fed the story to Chise a lot of time if not all the time, which means there's huge amount of exposition. The interaction between supporting characters and main characters most of the time are just limited to that, story exposition. Whenever something happened, they usually just running around or stand still doing nothing watching Chise doing something.

I really wanted to like this show, because it looks really promising. Too bad the story and the characters are not good. The only thing that this show has going for are the character design and high production value. If the production value is just average, I'll bet this show would receive less score than what it have right now.

I'll give it 5.2, wasted story potential and wasted high production value.

Mahoutsukai no Yome: one of the most popular shows of the past two seasons- and with good reason. At first glance, everything invites you in; the stunning visuals, the intriguing premise, the great OST and the general production. However this is precisely why, despite its tremendous potential, I was ultimately let down.

The premise is quite simple and interesting. Chise is a depressed young girl who is bought by an ancient magus. He declares her his bride and takes her as his apprentice. The magical atmosphere of the show is captivating; there’s so much to explore and every new side character brings along new fascinating information ... through their experiences. In my opinion, this is the series’ strongest aspect.

Unfortunately, I think the story does a spectacular job of creating potentially deep and interesting characters and then making you not give a shit about them. Why? Each character is given a unique past, which is usually sad and makes you sympathize with them. However, as soon as their main contribution is over, they are thrown aside or offered a very one-dimensional role that ultimately cancels out any depth they initially had. Chise becomes just a compassionate, self-sacrificial apprentice; Elias becomes a wise guardian who acts petulantly because of his lack of understanding human emotions; Silky assumes the singular role of a housekeeper. If you offer flashbacks and precious character development, then you should follow through instead of just putting the characters in the background and giving them the blandest role they could have possibly had. Ultimately, this flaw makes most emotional scenes flat and not as moving as they were intended.

Another main problem I had with MahoYome is the way the plot is handled. From the first cour, it is already quite obvious that the plot follows a very distinct and repetitive pattern. There’s trouble---> Chise acts against Elias’ wishes ---> Chise gets hurt [insert ep’s cliffhanger] ---> Chise is fine after all in a very anticlimactic way. I mean, if you want to keep the audience at the edge of their seats then you need to shake things up a bit! If you keep endangering the main heroine’s life then the audience will stop getting shocked or concerned. We literally see this pan out at least in 5 separate occasions.

All in all, I think the show had amazing things to work on; the dragons, the sorcery and generally a more thorough exploration of the setting. Not gonna lie, it is by all means an enjoyable show. But the clumsy way of handling character and plot development will make you lower your expectations significantly.

When watching Mahoutsukai no Yome, here’s what to expect;

The highlights of the series include:
*A beautiful fantasy world, that makes you want to explore it.
*Eye-catching art where every character is distinguishable and easy to tell apart.
*Simplistic, but unique plot.
*Enjoyable music, specifically the first OP and second ED are my favs.

The downfalls of the series include:
*Character personalities fall flat.
... *Fails at building up to the ‘mood’.
*Repetitive Story
*Can be confusing, doesn’t fully explain things.

I’ll now go into more detail on these aspects listed, from which point on there will be spoilers so tread carefully. First, I’ll start with the highlights.

One of the major aspects I have to commend Mahoutsukai no Yome on is it’s world building. All the different locations, creatures, and scenery is beautifully done and well presented where you can immerse yourself in the magical, fantasy world with little effort. From the town of cats, land of dragons, magical forests, the world of faeries, all of the setting changes can stand on their own and are very beautifully animated. This major appeal of the anime is only possible thanks to the unique spin on a simplistic plot paired with the rather charming art.

My original attraction to this anime was the plot. Before I watched it, It came off to me as a different take of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in a way; a beastly-looking creature captures a girl and they fall in love. Though there are some aspects of my original expectations in the series, I would say romance is only part of the focus. This series tries to add a little bit of everything into it; a touch of humor, some horror, mild romance, a lot of fantasy, etcetc. Though there’s a tons of magician/sorcerer/etc anime out there, this one stands out that in the sense it stays away from the typical shounen route that many of them go down. I do however, think the series would’ve done better if it had honed in on a particular genre, but I’ll go into that more later.

Another good aspect of this anime was the art, especially the scenery though the characters were well animated too. Each character looked very different from the next. I really liked how each character had its own distinguishable features, different face structures, eye shapes, etc. The artist definitely put in the time to make each character stand out with their appearance.

Lastly, the music was also very enjoyable and memorable. I specifically really enjoyed the first OP, and the last ED of the series. There’s also some scenes where a character or two sings which I thought was very pretty.

Now for the Downfalls of this anime, which I have to admit really put a huge dent in the series.
For starters, though the artist put a lot of work into making each individual character stand out, the same effort was not put into the personalities unfortunately. I could describe almost every character as ‘nice’ with only one or two quirks, but overall everyone is relatively flat. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of character development in the series, though it tries to force you to think there is with ‘Chise gaining confidence’ and ‘Ainsworth feeling human emotions’, but it feels artificial and not well hashed out.

Not only does the character personalities feel incomplete, but so does a lot of the scenes. The series some reason fell into a weird spiral of repetition where Chise and Ainsworth get some sort of task, Chise gets hurt or uses too much magic and almost dies, Ainsworth freaks out, Chise passes out for days(or even weeks), and then she wakes up and all is good again. Then this exact loop happens several times throughout the series. As a result of this vicious cycle, every ‘mood’ the series tried to create seemed to fall short. The chibi-art moment’s that was suppose to serve as comedy relief felt poorly timed, the serious moments lacked any depth, and so on. This is why I feel that the series should’ve picked a genre (either romance, mystery/horror, comedy, etc) and used one of those as the main focus. It would’ve made the series feel more complete and solid as a whole.

Lastly, and one of the most frustrating things about this series, is that it left more questions than answers. What was the relationship between Ashen Eye and Cartaphilus? Also, what was up with Simon? All the characters who met him showed in obvious dislike/distrust towards him, which I took as clear foreshadowing of something but in the end it was brushed off as nothing. Also, the series states that there is a dislike between the Mages and the Sorcerers, but it’s never explained why and it’s not taken very seriously considering not long after this is stated, everyone’s all buddy-buddy afterward. Also, what happened to Chise’s dad and brother? These questions and more spiraled on and on through my head when the series ended and it made me very unsettled.

In saying all this, keep in mind I did score it a seven in enjoyment despite all of its major plot/character issues. For whatever reason, I still found myself liking the characters despite their lacking - personalities, and though I was frustrated with all my questions at the end, I never found myself feeling bored while watching it. Plus, I’m a sucker for good art. Overall, I wouldn’t go into this series with very high expectations, and unless you are an avid fantasy-genre fan that will allow you to look past it’s glaring flaws, this anime will be complete bust for you.

Story: The story is no where near as good a the hype was for this anime. The story starts off with the main character being lost and Wanting a reason to live, within the first episode she finds her reason to live, but Somewhere around episode two or three the story takes a nosedive and Becomes this mess of side stories for the main and side characters and It just feel’s as if the story becomes lost at some point.

Art: The art style and Animation are beautiful with many vivid colors and Clean animation. I would say the animation is top tier within this anime.

Sound: ... The intros and outros are just as beautiful as the art. Music orchestrated with the sound of classical music and Not your generic EDM or Rock music. Not to say that EDM and Rock are generic always, but Sometimes it’s best to have different genres within the music being played within an anime kinda like Naruto, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist etc etc.

Character Development: Character development is just as bad a the story. Chise Hatori and Elias hardly ever change at all. It seems that Chise is always playing the “ Victim “ and I hate that cause it’s pretty much a generic personality for lazy writers to use when designing said characters. Chise is suppose to help Elias understand humans more and Elias is suppose to help Chise with understanding her abilities more, but There is rarely any interaction of that at all. It’s just Chise being a victim and Elias saving the day.

Personal Enjoyment: Overall I’ve always wanted to see the anime when it first came out cause of the hype, but Now that I’ve seen it I’m actually disappointed. It’s just like when I bought that crappy game “ Jump Force “. People hyped that garbage up and It was literally only being played for six or eight months. Most people who played it dropped it cause it was overhyped trash. Which is pretty much this anime. So I didn’t really enjoy the anime at all.

Overall: This anime had potential, but Like Akame Ga Kill it’s characters were wasted and It’s story became irrelevant. I really wanted to like this anime, but It just didn’t do it for me. I wish the anime was good, but What can you do? We’re at the point where anime is ruined by Worthless Hypebeast, Generic titles, and Overused tropes. Maybe one day the anime community will notice a true animes perfection and Not seem like a bunch of ignorant trolls.

I rate this anime a 5 out of 10 Stars!

Hope you enjoyed the review and I will be glad to make more. Thanks for reading. Peace! :D

Not bad, but not good either.

The anime captivated me a lot with the first episodes that proposed a very good theme of magic and fantasy, and a little different from what I am accustomed to watch.
However, the development did not please me because I put a lot of emphasis on secondary backgrounds, which did not add anything to the plot of the end of the series.
The construction of character was almost nil, being the protagonist and the maid, the only ones that had a personality growth descending. Elias, who was a character who looked and thought, "This will be a great character to build", but ... no!
All events, it seems they were absolutely nothing to him, or any of the other characters.
And the end ... no comment. It disappointed me because I expected so much more.
It seems that they wanted to shape an end, that could give hook for a second season. Only that.

Just giving positive points to the visual art that was very beautiful by the way, and the depth of scenery. Which was well taken advantage of. Other than that, it disappointed me. At least to me, who expected a lot more.

Where do I begin. I was scrolling through Crunchyroll and so happen to see this out of the line up. I'm the type of person who's always looking for new anime to watch and the art style of this one immediately caught my attention. I loved the design of Eliodis and Chisme so I thought I'd give it a try. If it weren't for my need to finish things once I start them, I'd probably would've stopped watching this after episode 3. It's such a repetitive cycle of a needy, depressed, teenage girl trying to find herself amongst these random magical creatures that have little ... to no substance. The only really ones I found entertaining were the dragons tbh. I also can't stand cry baby characters and Chisme is very much like that. We get it. You had a depressing childhood as do most protagonist do, but are you really going to spend the ENTIRE show feeling sad for yourself? Spolier... she does, up until the very ending at least. This anime had so much potential. I expected to see Chisme being trained into this powerful, fearless, mage that was just gonna whoop everyone's a**, but that wasn't the case. You barely even get to see hardly any "magic" in the entire show. Even the final boss fight was totally mediocre and required little to no actual magical battle tactics. Overall, I did love the soundtrack and I still feel the same about the artwork. Eliodis has a really unique design that made me want to like his character but he (very much like Chisme) is also a cry baby who literally get jealous if Chisme even looks in the direction of another living breathing creature. I was expecting so much more out of this </3 didn't live up to any of the it.

Mahoutsukai no Yome it's hard to judge. I'm at the same time pleased and pissed off. The first half of the anime was really enjoyable, but the second half is just meh and triggering.

From the visual side, it's weird anime. Some of the scenes are beautiful and feel real, but some of them look like they were made by seven years old. Also character design, I really liked the design of Elias, Alice, Angelica, Ruth, and Lindel. Creatures have also nice designs, for example, water dragons, a monster with Isabell's head, or these flying sheeps. They're creative and well-made. But when it comes to ... real animals it starts to get worse. When Elias and Chise are in the cat kingdom some of these cats just look like they were cursed. Chise's design isn't that bad, but it's just basic and in some close shoots she looks like from '90s anime.

Sound is ok, it's not that bad or that good to write a lot about it. There are 2 openings, they're just meh it's not really better with endings. But during anime music is nice.

When we come to the plot. Chise is depressed and wants to make a kickflip from the roof of her school. But then she is an "auction product" to see if she is worth anything. Elias buys her and wants to make her his student because she is ✨ child of the night ✨ And then he takes her to his cottage and basically tells her that he bought her not only to be his student but also his wife. Later they go to a lot of places and meet a lot of people but that's not really important.

So what's wrong with this plot? Basically, it's ok, but the way how it's developed is weird. Elias should be her teacher, but he teaches her maybe two times during anime. Also, she should be his teacher of human feelings, but she does it also twice.

There are just too many side stories. They're too fast, characters appear, and never get back screen time. Also, they trust her too much, she's just like "tell me your story", and everyone just imidetaly agrees. And about the storyline with "villain". It's just weird. He appears in the fifth episode and from the situation you know that it's not this character who appears and disappears after his episode. He's an interesting character, but his motivation is just not enough.

The main problem is that a lot of things happen around but don't really in Chise-Elia's relationship. I know that it's a concept to discover themselves slowly, but it's too contrasting to all that happens with other characters. I think during watching I was more prepared for an emotional conversation about their relationship than they were. We don't really have shown their conversations too and that is probably a mistake, because it helps the development of the characters.

Chise in the beginning had a potential, depressed teen with trauma and problems with trust. She was scared to do anything on her own. Then she finds out that she would die if she's not enough careful. She can't use a lot of magic so what is she going to do? Use magic in almost every episode. She can't get hurt so what is she going to do? Get almost deadly injured every five seconds. She can't get far from Elias because he would protect her in case of danger so what is she going to do? She goes to another city, without telling that to him in person. I think her depression already gave her suicidal thoughts because she does everything to die as fast as possible. Honestly, she is trying to kill herself in almost every episode. Also, the amount of crying is terrifying. In the first few episodes she didn't show her feelings, but when she starts here starts on a roller coaster. Idk, maybe she just try to dehydrate herself. She's crying in moments with aren't accurate to cry and sometimes it gives you a cringe.

She is also pretty weird in relation to Elias. On her first or second day with him, he is like "yeah, you're my future wife". They don't go back to this during the next 15 episodes. And I can understand this from the side of Elias, he doesn't understand the concept of marriage so maybe he wants to find out this before he will start a serious conversation about this. But Chise for the first 10 episodes wasn't concerned about this, she just acts like that hasn't happened. Only later does she thinks about it, but she doesn't speak to him about it.

On the other hand, Elias is a well-developed character. He is a child in a man's body. Even if he lived for many years he still doesn't understand humans. It's cute when he tries to describe his feelings, but doesn't know how to call them. For example, he says that the house without Chise is cold and he doesn't like that cold. It's just a pleasure to watch how he tries to understand human feelings. I think that choice of giving him this deer skull was great because you can't see feelings on his face, but you know that feeling from his eyes.

But why the heck Elias's background is so poorly developed. All his background is "I was walking in bushes, became mage and probably eat human before". What the heck he is? Idk. Why he is like this? Idk. How did he become like this? Idk. What he did do before getting in those bushes? Idk. Why he isn't curious about this? Idk. I'm just triggered because I would like to know the answers to these questions.

When it comes to my enjoyment it's even harder to tell something goo. The first half was really pleasing to watch, but the second, oh boi, I got frustrated. I thought after they will know each other better there would be more emotional talks and trying to understand each other feelings. But it's just "we gotta talk", they talk but it's not shown to the viewer and that was triggering me a lot. And the worst thing is that even after these "talks" they don't really change.

Honestly, I don't know who will be satisfied after watching it, it's just really overhyped anime. I heard many times that it's the best anime that someone watched, but it's just meh. I wrote some of this review in half of watching anime. I was almost sure to give this anime 8/10, 6/10 for the plot, characters, and all this stuff, and +2 for my enjoyment. It was a mistake that's why my grade is 5/10, it just disappointed me so much that I can't stand this.

I wish I had more things to say, but since this anime was quite a disappointment to me, I'll try to make it quick and painless.
I must mention though that I haven't read the manga and haven't seen the prequel episodes which may affect my view on this anime.

The base story is quite cute: a depressed and very flustered young adult is trying to recover by coming into terms with her traumatic past experiences, learning how to trust someone again as well as getting an amazing opportunity to explore the fascinating world of magic (let's dismiss the fact her journey began at a slave ... auction). We also have Elias, who is a 'man-child' in the shape of a dangerous beast, discovering a new realm of emotions, notions of beauty, guardianship, etc. Seems to have some potential, eh? However, the relationship these characters develop throughout the anime does not seem very sincere to me. It seems quite forced and more like 'we need each other for practical reasons and it is convenient for us' instead of them actually developing a close and meaningful relationship as sweethearts and a teacher - a student. In fact, does Elias actually teach her something major? Him guiding her and introducing her to various magical creatures, spells and rituals was supposed to be the premise of their relationship after all. In addition, this anime uses too many cliff-hangers in my opinion. Lots of episodes end with Chise getting in trouble - the viewer is left wondering. However, it usually appears that those situations are not dangerous and this repeated tension had no deeper meaning than to create suspense.
Yet there is a honorable mention: the side story of Leanan sídhe. It was really refreshing to see some Celtic mythology included in this show in general.

The characters lack development in my opinion. Also, secondary characters seemed to just come and go: I wish there was more continuity between the different side-plots.

The soundtrack didn't leave any particular impression on me. I'm not saying it was terrible, but it just wasn't my cup of tea, I suppose.

Mahoutsukai no Yome's art style was the main element that kept me intrigued and had me coming back to watch this anime. There were quite a lot particularly beautiful scenes (very desktop background friendly), which made me extremely happy. Funnily enough, I remember the aesthetics of different scenes, but I couldn't tell you anything about the various side plots. This sure should tell one something about the relationship between the form and the content of this anime. *This show's attempts at comedy are quite admirable in my opinion. The characters' faces were so cute x3

This is not so much a review as more of expressing personal thoughts, so please take this with a grain of salt.
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The Ancient Magus Bride was hyped up a lot for a long while before it's release, following up a year long ova series for the manga to introduce the said upcoming media. The ova was used to help grow a more hyped fan base, and I found myself being one of the many who jumped aboard, but alas not without caution as I did so.

Even though I was pleased by the ova, giving it a 7 out of 10, I could still make out ... some problems that could potentially hold the potential of the show back a few notches. Examples of such were pacing, misfocus on characters and plot points, and directing that at times was indecisive about it's theme.

Yet even with these rather apparent flaws, I was still able to find some good enjoyment and awe from the short series, and made myself believe that these mistakes would be gone by time of airing the official series.

Oh how wrong I was.

To trace back, I did pick up the manga and read to the first chapter. That's it. Never got back to it because I thought the anime was going to do most of the good show don't tell for me.

Yet even though I haven't picked up the manga in over 4 months time, I have come across screenshots of it online. And what I can get from all that I've read and seen, there is very much a consistent theme happening on those pages. The vibe I get from the manga is a magic fairy tale like feel, yet with an insidious feel lurking in the shadow of the magic.

Like blending Disney, Grimm Brothers and harry potter together to create it's own dark fantasy, an all time favorite genre of mine, and a solid theme from what I've seen.

The anime fails to capture it.

The anime's theme even without the manga to compare was always indecisive, the directing having to difficultly maneuver between the lighter and more heart warming scenes to the much more grimmer and horrific scenes. Even though not impossible, still highly difficult, and could only be done well by a professional or someone talented specifically in smoothly connecting such opposing tones.

The Director even though not bad, still doesn't have the skill to direct this media as of now. He has potential, but I don't think he's there yet, and his work on this anime I'd say shouldn't be given anything higher than a 6 to a light 7. In my opinion, I don't think he did anything to improve and degrade the media, only keep it in place.

The animation is rather solid, so I don't have many complaints. The scenes jarring even though are consequence of the animation, not nearly as much as that of the directing and screen writing. I couldn't find an official screenwriter for either the ova series or the official anime series, so I don't have much to say but an okay yet rather flawed outcome by someone with around just as much experience as screenwriting as the director with his directing. To chalk it all up, good story with good animation, with mediocre directing and bits of jarring writing.

Because of my lack of knowledge with the source material, I don't have much of a right to nitpick this adaptation, if not call it a bad one, which I'm not. The manga could've gone down hill and fans believed it to better media than the original, or it could be that the original was great and that adaptation suited the positive fan's needs.
Or it could be fans that loved the original and felt betrayed as well by the anime, only more because of their closer connection leading them to hate the anime. Because of lacking that closer connection like others, I'm not as shaken as some others who are also upset by the result, yet my disappointment still exists, and enough so to write this messy rant. Even though I aim to complete this series and give it a rather positive score, 7/10 that is, I won't be returning for it's next season. Unless like one punch man there will be a new director and maybe a person listed for series composition at the helm, people who are actually talented at their jobs. Yet because of that being highly unlikely, I'll probably return to the manga in the near future.

I don't mean to throw shade at the director and people in charge of the series composition, but I won't deny my saltiness towards them. Yet I only mean to be critical of them, their strengths, but mostly focus on the weaknesses I hope for them to realize and take on assignments with that in mind if they really want to put out some real amazing anime.

This just isn't one of them.