A beautiful story and my favorite entry in the franchise to date. Chise’s character, in particular, was one I got to enjoy - someone finding a glimmer of light in the darkest of times. Like in the first season, she spends much of this mired in depression, but you're given a lot of reasons why she feels that way, and particularly as she's a child facing all this down, you cannot help but feel for her from the outset. It makes me appreciate her character quite a bit more, which is how prequels should work. The animation was among the best I’ve seen for the series, smaller in scale but made all the more affecting for the space it occupied. I wouldn’t say that her costar entirely worked for me, though. His story was pretty basic, his background not well explained enough to attach us to him or his aims, and the central conceit (the magical library) still only lightly explained and mainly via exposition. His actions did make sense, though.
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