There, I saved you some time reading the summary.
When I first started watching this show I thought the "Bride" in the title was just euphimism for a teacher - student relationship, or that the romantic undertones would at least remain undertones and it would be mostly about a girl learning magic in a magical world. Well... I was wrong about that! Not completely, but the series did seem to be way more focused in the romance story aspect of "boy meets girl and they become better through their interactions", rather than the "girl becomes independent through magic" aspect. I mean the second is still there, but is way too bogged down by the first to be actually enjoyable for those who can't stomach the "romance". And I definitely am one of them.
Contrary to popular belief, I can say with confidence that this is one of the worst series that I was able to complete. It didn't have bad production values, (even if it wasn't the best sometimes), the horror elements were suprisingly strong, and it had its powerful character moments, with the most impactful being the episode explaining why Chise's mom ended up the way she did. But the rest was a creepy mess. Every single aspect of conflict was always cut off or resolved in the most anti-climatic way possible. (someone tried to actually strangle Chise but kidding it was supposed to be a teachable moment so let's laugh about it, tehe~!) Most of the times there wasn't even conflict - just beautiful magical stuff in a beautiful magical world. They would serve as perfect wallpaper images no doubt, but plot wasn't a part of them. In all cases, the side characters went the extra mile for Chise by default, as per the already known female MC in shoujo character syndrome. But the worst part was by far Elias' entire existence.
I would have forgiven pretty much everything else, but the "romance" this series was trying to sell? Absolutely not. Let's ignore that he bought her in an auction. Let's ignore his monstrous, inhuman appearance. Let's even ignore that he's an ancient magical being and she's only 15 years old. Ignoring his lack of empathy and incapability of functioning beyond a toddler's emotional understanding, while this is served as something Chise is supposed to "fix" as he'll get better if he's with her, is something that I can't do and it noped me completely out of the series. If all of the above weren't problematic enough, she's even referred to as his mother in the way she handles his tantrums, because poor him he's ancient and inhuman and doesn't know better! One would think that millenia on this Earth would have taught him at least some basic stuff, but no. He was clearly waiting for a special 15-year-old redhead female protagonist to do that.
To put it into perspective, it's like someone watched Natsume Yuujinchou, shipped Natsume and Nyanko-sensei together and then wrote a romance about them. That's it. That's the relationship equivalent. And at least Nyanko-sensei wouldn't need extended therapy sessions for "understanding his feelings" in every episode.
There is definitely an audience for this series, I'm just not included. 4/10.
