Where’s the sorting hat?

OP:  “Dear” by JUNNA

Five years is a long time.  That’s how long it’s been since the first season of The Ancient Magus’ Bride ended.  There have been some OVAs since then, and rather good ones, but they were semi-original and not directly connected to the main storyline.  As a rule I like to go back and refresh myself on the first season of a series when the break has been this long, but I only had time for a fairly cursory one here.  There are a lot of details (including names) that are going to take a while to come back to me, though in point of fact much of the cast this time around seems to be new – and the setting certainly is.

That a second season would come eventually never seemed to be in doubt – the manga is extremely popular, and the first season even did well on disc (which mattered fractionally more in 2018, and isn’t completely irrelevant even now).  The issue was that the first season gobbled up all the manga material, and Yamazaki Kore has taken a number of hiatuses over the years.  That explains the five year wait, and there are several changes.  Most prominently we’re now at Studio Kafka instead of Wit, and Terasawa Kazuaki is now directing.  But both were in place for the interstitial OVAs, and Kafka, while not officially part of I.G. Port, is comprised of I.G. and Wit veterans and was more or less created specifically for the Mahoutsukai franchise.

Given all that you’d expect a smooth transition, and for me that’s exactly what we got.  The look of the series – always one of its greatest strengths – hasn’t changed much.  Given that the venue has shifted from the bucolic English countryside to The College, a magic academy underneath the British Museum in London, the feel of the show is obviously quite different.  But one would never feel as if they were in any other series, I don’t think.  The vibe of Mahoutsukai no Yome is very distinct, and that definitely remains the case here.

Manga fans often dub this part of the story “Chise Goes to Hogwarts”, so that should give you a good idea of what to expect.  I don’t remember a lot of discussion of Chise going to school in that finale from 2018 to be honest.  I do remember a resolution involving the villain Cartaphilus and Chise and Elias seemingly getting married – and that feeling very rushed.  But the tone between them doesn’t seem to reflect any change because of that, nor the major fight they had just finished having.  They’re more or less the same Chise and Elias as ever.

As for the College (which seems to be its only name), it’s Adolf Stroud (who I barely remember), who suggests that Chise attend – mainly because with her weird magic history she’s such a cool research subject.  Elias hates the idea but he defers to her judgment, and she decides to go – which I think is very much in character for Chise.  Elias only agrees, though, on the grounds that he go too – which means Adolf has to make him a member of the faculty.  We only get a little taste of the College here – the headmistress Liza Quillyn (Koyama Mami), the nurse (who’s seemingly half-caterpillar), a few locations.

The most interesting part of this is that the dorm matrons are cats (this series is rather obsessed with them) and that Chise has to choose one that matches her individual story – Chise chooses Rose Lyn (Tamagawa Sakiko), who represents freedom.  She also meets her roommate, Lucy Webster (Tsuda Minami), who comes across as pretty anti-social to say the least.  Obviously more students are going to be introduced in coming episodes, and they’ll prove critical to the rise or fall of the season.  Despite the name, “College” is meant in the British rather than American sense here  – a vocational institution (sorcerers in this case) where students can be of any age (Chise refers to herself as a first-year middle schooler).

All in all, this was a fine start which finessed the transition and long absence relatively smoothly.  It wasn’t especially exciting or enchanting, which Mahoutsukai certainly can be at its best, but it was clearly an introduction and no more.  That said, this season is only 12 episodes as compared to the original’s 24, so it has less time to really engage the audience and kick the story into high gear.  I expect the pacing to be brisk, but there’s certainly no evidence of that yet.

ED: “Mubansou” (無伴奏) by edda