So ends what has to go down as one of the more disappointing seasons for any series in a while. At least Mahoutsukai no Yome goes out on a couple of rather good episodes, among the best of the season (though not a patch on the best the first had to offer). I knew a lot of manga readers considered the Hogwarts arc to be the weakest in the series so I wasn’t totally surprised by the step-down in quality. Nevertheless you always hope to feel differently, and more than anything the good eps tended to be remind me of how much untapped potential there is in this show.
There was certainly an element of “just die already” with Lizbeth, but even with half the mortal and faerie population seemingly desperate to end her she stuck around to twirl her moustache for a while longer. In the end it was the werewolf cub who finished the job (and rather cleanly too), the timing of which suggests the answer to Philomela’s question of why she attacked the Websters was information Cubby’s master didn’t want getting out. The fact that master was Veronica is certainly a twist. She’s acted plenty suspicious and not without reason, as it turns out. She has the book now, which suggests that unfortunately we may not be free of the school setting yet.
Morrigan did her thing, asses were kicked, and soon enough everyone was back at Elias’ country cottage. Which of course is where Mahoutsukai no Yome really belongs. Even with the college cast hanging around just being in those surroundings leveled things up, especially with Silky on-hand. I remain singularly unmoved by Philomela’s arc or indeed any of the other students’, so the denouement there did nothing for me. But the idyll of the place, the backdrops, and stuff like the Mother of Winter sequence still click. Again, a bittersweet reminder of what this series can be when it wants to.
It was nice – or cruel – of Kafka to give us a taste of what’s to come, considering that the manga only just restarted after a long hiatus and the anime has pretty much caught it up. In short it will be several years before another anime season is in the works (though I’d love it if they adapted Majutsushi no Ao, which is way more interesting than this season was, to bridge the gap). And that’s if Yamazaki Kore is able to keep up a consistent publication schedule this time around.
The other notable Mahoutsukai development is that Bushiroad (Yamazaki’s new publisher) announced that the manga will be simultaneously released in Japanese and English. Which might sound like good news until you read the next line, which is that it’s going to be machine translated. This is truly mortifying both for the series itself as the translations will surely be terrible, and in what it portends for the future. It feels like a levee has been breached here, and what happens after levees are breached is usually a flood.
None of this is stuff I’d really like to be talking about with Mahoutsukai no Yome, which was once a series I held in very high esteem. I’d be disinclined to pick up the manga anyway after this arc, and I certainly won’t patronize a machine translation. By the time the anime rolls back around I may have lost interest in the series to a considerable extent, and the burden of proof will be on it to win be back. But it showed just enough flashes of the magic it’s capable of – a magic pretty close to unique in animanga – to avoid losing me altogether. Let’s hope the next stage is better than this one was.
Nellie
December 22, 2023 at 3:29 pmI’ve been following up on your reviews for this series, and I have to say I profoundly disagree with your general view of this season.
I think the Hogwarts arc (for the lack of a better term) was a welcome change of pace- and I say this as someone who adored the first season to bits. Too much “British countryside + Celtic folklore/mythology galore” would’ve been too much of a good thing, in my view. I think of this season as the “steel” to the first season’s “silk”, and I think the contrast was necessary. The quality which the made the first season so special would have worn thin if it had been allowed to go on for too long, I think. Chise’s continuing journey to assert herself was a treat to watch, and it was gratifying watching her save someone the way she was saved.
I found the core group of student sorcerers- Lucy, Philomela, Rian, Isaac and Zoe- immensely likeable, and I do hope they pop up again in the manga. The heart of Mahoyome is the tenderness with which it tackles relationships in a fantastical setting- and I don’t think the writing has lost its touch in that regard despite trading one fantastical setting for another.
PS: Enzo, have you watched Totsukuni no Shoujo? And what’s your final verdict on Good Night World?
Guardian Enzo
December 22, 2023 at 3:39 pmAgree to disagree. I didn’t get tired of that other stuff because pretty much no other anime was doing it. This season struck me as an attempt to look and sound like everybody else.
I didn’t get much with Totsukuni – I thought the writing was clunky and it was just OK. I have one episode left of GNW and while it’s flawed, I have to say I do like it. It got much darker than I expected.
Nicc
December 23, 2023 at 3:36 pmOkay, now it’s a good time to get back to talking about the show again. I’ve had a difficult finding much worth to write about for the past few episodes and so I just didn’t. I liked the idea of Chise going to the College. It helps to expand the universe; it expands her own universe, and it will have been good to make connections with other people of her age. We see the payoff at the party back Elias’ home where she’s having a great time with everybody and Silky gets to feed a lot of people. However, I still think about it could’ve been different in-between Chise entering the College and then the year end party.
The final battle has Lizbeth, and the others has been a back-and-forth affair, but the kids seem to have the upper hand as Philomena now has the book. Grandma tries one last time to get into her head, but Philomena is able to stand up for herself and at that point Lizbeth is down for the count and that thing that she summoned is also sent back. It’s all over but the crying and even Adam’s curse calls it quits as there’s nothing left for him to do. Philomena wants one last request from Grandma and wants to know about the circumstances of the Webster family but is literally cut off when a werewolf cub finishes her off and also makes off with the book. It’s one of the cubs from the female werewolf but doesn’t acknowledge her. Right, it looks like it’s working either for the Rickenbacker family or personally under Veronica. Now, we have to wonder how much of a hand they played in all this.
Everybody is brought back to casa de Elias and Rian has recovered enough to join in. He’s got some things to work out with Philomena. There’s gift-giving, feasting and Chise makes sure to tie up some loose ends with the offering of mistletoe. Don’t forget next year. After that, we are teased with a future arc which will probably take some years before it gets animated. I just recently read about the machine translation for the simulpub. I’m rather indifferent about the AI stuff in general (I probably haven’t spent even 5 minutes using ChatGPT, Bard or whatnot), but it sounds like humans will still be involved. Still, I hope that the official English release from Seven Seas won’t head that direction. I really wanted to like the College arc more, but it just didn’t do it for me. We got some glimpses of different magic being used, a glimpse of the magical side of London and I wish we got a bit more of that.