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sw00ty

  • Joined Jul 6, 2016
  • 28

So... I'm not alone here, right? The Ancient Magus' Bride, winner of Crunchyroll's Best Drama 2017 award (despite not having finished airing... jumping the gun much?), darling to critics and anime viewers everywhere... it's not actually THAT good? Right?

Guys?

Now it would be very poor form to just leave it at a pithy declaration of cynicism, so I'll elaborate; TAMB has a number of interesting elements and I can certainly see why people were drawn to it initially, based on an interesting premise and world and a dearth of excellent dramatic anime franchises in 2017, but beyond that? It's actually a very fairly confused and incohesive series, and I can't help but be perplexed at its sterling reputation. It stars Chise Hattori, a young girl with the ability to see fairies and spirits, which has led to her being a social outcast (not to mention her tragic family life). After selling herself at an auction as a symbol of her own minimal self-worth, she winds up living with the Thorn Mage, Elias, a being whose origins are unknown even to himself, but who doesn't seem to be either fairy or human. Disarmingly, Elias refers to 15-year old Chise as his 'bride' (hence the title) and seems to regard her as a mixture of interesting test subject (she's actually an entity called a Sleigh Beggy who has endless magical potential) and whimsical puppy. The series then follows Chise and Elias as they begin to understand each other a little better and grow accustomed to the irrevocable change that each effects upon the other.

Sadly, despite being the main draw, Elias and Chise's relationship was one of the most underwhelming aspects of the show for me. Their development comes in dribs and drabs, and while I appreciated that the later season problematises the dynamic and makes it clear that this won't be a straightforward "grown man/demon and 15 year-old fall in love" romance (*phew*), I still feel like representing the pairing as more paternal (Chise finally having a stable guardianship after so long) rather than the bastardised mix of paternity, pedagogy and blushing crushes that the show actually decides on, would have been simpler and easier to execute. As it stands, I felt like Elias should have been more of a supporting character aiding Chise's development throughout (given that she's by far the more interesting and the show is mostly her meeting new people and making new relationships via Elias) especially since his own character arcs mostly follow a generic "do bad thing that Chise doesn't like then apologise" formula. This is especially salient as a point of criticism, given that Chise's mental health (which you would expect to be a real focal point in any drama) usually only comes up as a few short lines of suicide ideation once every other episode before another mythological creature comes sauntering in, and it would have been nice to explore Chise's past and mindset a bit more than we already did; if your show has a strength, why not play to it?

Otherwise, TAMB produces what I would call a healthy sized cast, but one that it continually mis-manages; characters and, it must be said, whole sub-plots are often dropped in with startling abruptness towards the midpoints or even last five minutes of certain episodes, and a number of them fade into the background just as suddenly, only to pop up again later. The series can go from 1 to 11 in no time at all, with some rather visceral and disturbing scenes cutting in jarringly towards the end, and its this haphazard mix of fantastical slice-of-life, action sequences and hard-hitting character drama that makes TAMB so baffling as an apparent critical 'gem'. One minute we're being introduced to the Fairy King and Queen, then they're gone for much of the plot and we've got a cat murder-related sub-plot to unfurl, then some backstory for a supporting character which doesn't fit in with the rest of its episode and then, oops, Elias hasn't done anything for a while so let's get him back in... for a show which coasts on magic and whimsy and British folkloric adaptations mixed with mild character drama, it can be awfully exhausting to watch.

Visually, the show has a distinct artstyle which, though it fits the story content and themes, didn't impress me all that much having watched the likes of Made in Abyss and Land of the Lustrous, two shows which in addition to being straight-up more interesting had really cool animation and art direction. It's kind of like being served high-end supermarket pizza the day after you've been to an authentic Italian restaurant; still pretty to look at, but it's not the kind of show where you can let your mind wander and just appreciate the art design (though characters like Elias himself are admittedly visually interesting). The extended voice cast does a fine job and are all well-cast, particularly Chise, but being someone who mostly comes to anime for outside-the-box concepts well-executed, this wasn't enough to remove the nagging sense that I was watching just to finish the series rather than because I was enjoying it.

TL;DR

Eh... I know many of the people who will (hopefully, hypothetically) read this will disagree, but there's just nothing in The Ancient Magus' Bride that made me all that invested, and the pacing and plot twists were just too wonky and poorly-reasoned for the story itself to be anything all that engrossing either. Whether you came to this one for the romance, the action, the atmosphere, whatever, I can't help but feel like there will be people (like myself) who will just end up disappointed. I don't like using the 'O' word... but yeah, overrated. IMO. Obviously. 

4/10 story
7.5/10 animation
8/10 sound
5.5/10 characters
5.5/10 overall

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deideiblueeyez Oct 23, 2020

>the bastardised mix of paternity, pedagogy and blushing crushes that the show actually decides on

MFW that is exactly the relationship dynamic I live for (between adults, of course)

Litafirestorm Sep 7, 2019

Totally agree with this.  I have an anime facebook group that I'm on all the time and people sing this anime's praises to the heavens...  I found it rather dull, and I didn't like Chise at all. I was hitting next just to finish it...

You are definitely not alone in your views!! 

RomanceOtaku Oct 3, 2018

That last sentence hit home, totally just trudged through the end to finish it. I had actually stalled it and watched three other shows before finishing the last 5 episodes. It was just too chaotic, and left a lot unexplained which just couldn't hold my attention.

peejeepie16 Apr 13, 2018

Hey. 

Just wanted to say there is at least one person who agrees with you. Thanks for showing me I'm not entirely alone. I also commented on raging roys review, so you can look at my rant there too, but, yeah.

I for one don't like how they made Elias a giant kid. Like I understand he doesn't know everything about humans, but he's hundreds of years old, right? Hence the "ancient" part?  He has to know more than they let on. I was hoping that they would keep him as the wise sage character and his relationship with chise would be more paternal/ mentoral. It really did make me hope that the whole "bride" thing was just going to stay a kind of gag due to him not entirely knowing what the word meant. ( eventhough I don't believe that either) when the romance came up it made me uncomfortable, no matter how much they tried to make it ok.

Also, while I do not hate chise, I dislike what happened to her. She became so typical. Apparently you have to fit into the same mold for a teenage female lead or you don't get an anime. I liked that her tragic past actually affected her as it would most real people. And while I'm all for her getting better, she very quickly crossed the line into almost mary sue status. When Josef asked for her arm and eye and she more or less just agreed right off the bat is one example. I understand this may not be a "good" trait. They may be trying to point out how she is impulsive or even dumb, but it also comes off as kind of "look how selfless she is, willing to give her arm right away even to an enemy" I know most people would say she did that because of her suicidal thoughts, but that doesnt add up, since he made no promise to kill her, just take her arm. That might hurt. Suicidal people look to end their pain, not take on more. Plus every body likes her and she's so cherished, etc, etc. 

I don't hate the characters and I still like the art and story background, but overall this one dissapointed me. I'll quit ranting now, just wanted to say I agree with you 100%. Thanks for making me feel a little more sane.