Initially, Mahoutsukai no Yome is a manga, authored by Kore Yamazaki, whose publication began in November 2013 in the Magly Publishing House Monthly Comic Blade.
The fifth volume of the manga announced the release of an anime prequel consisting of three episodes, Mahou Tsukai no Yome: Hoshi Matsu Hito. The creation of anime was taken by Wit Studio. The series was sold on discs along with limited editions of the sixth, seventh and eighth volumes of the manga. The first series was also shown in cinemas for two weeks, starting on August 13, 2016. Let us dwell on this prequel in more detail.
The addition to the limited editions of the 6-8 volumes of the original manga tells about some events that took place before the meeting of Chise and Elias.
The action takes place in the modern world, where secretly from people there are spirits, dragons, fairies with which wizards, sorcerers and alchemists can contact. However, due to the urbanization of the earth's population, deforestation and the growth of the human population, the number of fairies is steadily declining, and for some reason wizards are on the verge of extinction.
The powerful ancient magician Elias Ainsworth buys at an auction for a huge sum of money the fifteen-year-old Chise Hatori, a girl with great magical powers, so that she becomes his student and bride.
So, Chise Hatori lived a life that was filled with alienation and violence, and also deprived of any form of love and care. Without family care and affection, the girl experienced all the hardships of life. Gifted by nature with magic, a girl once stumbles upon a mysterious library in the middle of a forest in which she meets a person like her, he also sees strange creatures and invites her to visit the library “every day if you like”, following some rules. Chise really begins to often come to the library, she enjoys reading and, after a while, she has less and less books to read, which is why she finds a strange book and asks the caretaker about it. Later it turns out that the man from the library was supposed to give this book to his beloved, but died while performing such a complex assignment. This is the main storehouse and source of the plot, and, in combination, the main collapse of the series.
The fact is that the drama in the plot is based on the absurd and stupid actions of the library supervisor called Riichi Miura. At first, his death can give some drama to the series, but in the final episode we will learn his story, and it makes you despise and laugh at this character rather than empathize with him. The same feelings are caused by his beloved Mayumi Niikura, for the sake of which he tried to fulfill his promise. She says that she “loves the last pages of the book most of all”, hinting that she does not love her future husband. Moreover, she makes an appointment on the platform where her new lover should bring the book. In this case, it becomes very interesting what was the number of her future husbands in the list of her suitors, and how much her nature is false, if she could go so far with a person whom, in her own words, she does not love so much that she is ready to leave for another man almost from the wedding crown. I rule out a forced marriage, since the actions of the two heroes took place not so long ago, in addition, Chise finds Mayumi old at the end of the series and she already has grandchildren. Also of particular note is the stupid death of Riichi Miura. It is extremely curious why he chose the way to the station through the forest with ditches, into which he safely fell and died in it. Obviously, this is one of the most stupid deaths that I have observed in the modern anime industry.
In the end, we have a stupid, nerdy, clumsy, awkward hero who wants to meet a married woman. Hero who has been stupidly (but deservedly) dead in a ditch, while carrying out the usual request to return the book. And the shameless harlot, a wife who wants to leave her future husband, spit on all concepts of morality. Empathizing with these characters is very difficult.
In all stories, plots, films, books, if the author pursues a goal so that to his heroes sympathize, feel sorry and worry about them, then the latter must be done in such a way that the observer can see in them a piece of a real living person, a particle of himself or Something like that. The character must be in a stalemate situation in which there are no simple solutions, only then it becomes really exciting for their fate. But when my gaze is offered the fate of a whore, who did not have another love affair due to an unfortunate (and very absurd) case with a stupid man, it becomes not interesting for me to watch this.
As a result, the last scenes evoke an absurd laugh rather than a sad smile.
