Mahou Tsukai no Yome: The Ancient Magus' Bride

http://i.imgur.com/wsua8kG.jpg

With her mother dead and father long gone, Hatori Chise has spent her childhood being passed unwanted from relative to relative, until she finally makes her unfortunate way to a strange and improbable auction block. Offered as a sleigh beggy to the highest bidder, Chise is purchased by the (literally) boneheaded Elias Ainsworth, who promises to take her on as his apprentice. Elias is a mage, and his world is one of dragons and faeries - but before Chise can begin to get accustomed to all that nonsense, Elias drops another bombshell. Apparently Chise isn't just intended to be his apprentice - she will also be his bride.

Source: MU

Note: The three volumes of the anime bundled with the sixth, seventh, and eighth volumes of the manga. The first part also have a limited two-week run in eight theaters throughout Japan, starting on August 13, 2016.
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...nime&aid=11982

First episode of a 3 episode OVA for Mahou Tsukai no Yome (The Ancient Magus' Bride). Have been very curious about this one, so hopefully it doesn't disappoint. Though I hate the whole waiting for other installments shtick. If it measures up, I'll probably hunt the manga down.

Horriblesubs episode 1:
http://www.nyaa.se/?page=download&tid=848815

AniDB listed this as 40 mins per ep, but at least that HS release was of standard anime episode length (~23 mins). I wonder if the source has cut the eps in two, making it 6 eps in practice, not 3. Or maybe AniDB is simply wrong.

Hard to say anything definitive based on the first episode. The world reminds of Ghibli with the spirits of myriad organic shapes wandering around. It's equally difficult to judge the character yet, either. At least the main girls insecure personality is sufficiently explained and founded by her long-suffering past.

This could potentially be jolly good.

I was pleased with visual quality.
We had an overview of light and heavy sides of the story. But I think non readers might be somewhat lost. Afterall, it's a bundle with recent volumes, so it's not really a problem as the vast majority of buyers aren't new to the story.
I was waiting for the character managing the house (sorry, no name as it would be spoiler already I think). It was short but I liked it, even with the gag drawing style of the manga author.
Good fanservice intro.

Edit: too bad it's a short OVA. There's enough material for 24x23min show. But maybe they judged the audience isn't large enough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kraco

AniDB listed this as 40 mins per ep, but at least that HS release was of standard anime episode length (~23 mins). I wonder if the source has cut the eps in two, making it 6 eps in practice, not 3. Or maybe AniDB is simply wrong.

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Good point, will keep an eye out.

Just in case, all 3 episodes of the OVA are out now (and they are now listed as 25 minutes episodes).

In a few days a tv series will begin, which seems to be a sequel to this OVA as I understand it.

Season 2 has started, so time to employ Necromancy on this thread. We never really talked about the tv series during a forum dead period, and nobody talked about the 2nd OVAs either (it was OVA-original anyway. The manga jumps right to this arc).

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It just immediately jumps into the academy arc without any recap, so I'm a little lost. I mostly remember all the events, but not the names associated with them.

Visually, it also is framed a bit weird. It feels like most shots are zoomed in, but the overall animation quality is still quite high.

It feels right though. All the cast sound exactly as they did, it still has its hypnotic mystery vibe, and I'm intrigued by the undertone of conspiracy and hidden threats. Elias and Chise were invited into a very dangerous situation it seems, and while Chise it taking it as an opportunity for personal growth; a chance to move past being a Thing used by the mystic world, and a Magus in her own right, able to act rather than merely throw herself into the fray.

Mahoutsukai no Yome S2 - 02

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There's a very sinister undertone of the college and the students within it that I'm really enjoying. Much like Yofukashi no Uta's latter half, but more refined. We get very few hints on what it is, but absolutely know something is wrong already. The OST builds this incredibly vivd sense of unease quite completely. The dread is offset by funny or beautiful moments like Elias' lesson and Chise's gentle yet powerful command over magic and how she communicates with spirits. She's learned so much since the fairy tried to steal her.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryll

It just immediately jumps into the academy arc without any recap, so I'm a little lost. I mostly remember all the events, but not the names associated with them.

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I had a lot of catching up to do, because it turns out that I never watched episodes 23 and 24 from the first run, and I actually didn't remember anything from Episodes 17 onwards anyway.

Compared to the old cast, Alice sounds a little more boyish and less rough from memory, but other than that everything else sounds about right.

I thought the Joseph by the river was her inner voice initially, but they're making it out such that he wakes up, has conversations without being tormented by pain then goes back to sleep? That's awfully peaceful of him, and kind of goes against the point of lullabys.

S2E13

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This show is back!

Not too much in the first ep but to show us the insides of the College after closing it off, and giving us a relative power scale of the students in combat.

S2E16

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Still going strong. I quite like S2 especially compared to the most of S1. The set up was a bit slow at the beginning of the series. but I like the world expansion and delving into the side characters. The show currently reminds me of a lot of the old Clamp shows.

I can't remember if I finished season 1 or not...

I hate characters like Veronica. Narcissists who view their treatment of others and orders to them as blessings when they're usually just extending someone's torment. They're blissfully unaware that they're doing it. The ones who willingly do it to deliberately torment another person are honestly better.

It's made worse because Ueda Reina can play them so loathsomely. She's really good at amplifying this disgusting personality type.