If I’m being completely honest, the premiere of Mahoutsukai last week reminded me a bit of Johnnie Walker Blue.  Nicely packaged, well put together, looks expensive, no rough edges.  But ultimately, kind of boring.  To be fair, it had a lot of heavy lifting to do given that the series has been away for five years (apart from semi-original OVAs).  And I think it did that job quite well, transitioning smoothly back into the narrative without too much turbulence.  Johnnie Blue works better as a palate primer than the last dram of the evening, after all.

Now we’re into the meat of the story proper, more or less, and can hit the ground if not running, at least at a trot.  And it’s another question that comes into prominence.  Is this series going to be as engaging in the basement of the British Museum as the mystical English countryside?  It’s far too early to tell of course.  I can say that the folkloric side of The Ancient Magus’ Bride always seemed ideally suited to that Beatrix Potter meets Pink Floyd setting.  But there were some interesting seeds planted here, and this series has plenty of credit banked with me.  I’ll give it time to win me over.

Chise has many encounters this week, the first of them having actually started in the premiere.  That was with Philomela Sergeant (Kawase Maki), the girl who passed out in her arms.  Chise is naturally a nurturer of course – and thanks to the dragon’s curse freakishly strong.  She offers Philomela some tea and potpourri for her health, before remembering Elias’ admonition that she has to ask for compensation when dispensing magical aid.  Philomela is friends/acquaintances with Veronica Rickenbacker (Ueda Reina) who later comes on very strong when she finds out Chise is a mage.

Narcisse Maugham (Toriumi Kousuke) is the first teacher we meet.  He opens big, with a rather grandiose speech about the history of magic and sorcery and the doors their studies may open for the students.  But he’s just there to teach Latin on the first day, which sucks the air out of the room pretty quickly.  He also notes that Chise, as a mage, won’t be required to practice sorcery – a reminder that she’s something of a fish out of water in this setting.

Things heat up (pun intended) in the next class, which is basically “magic use for sorcerers 101”).  And the teacher is none other than She-lias, as the big guy assumes (probably correctly) that his real form would be a bit much for the kiddies on their first day.  Chise is in his class already of course, and Elias has called Alice in for demonstration purposes.  We meet several students here, some of whom will presumably be important in the future.  I saw two sets of twins, and then there’s Rian Scrimgeour (Yamashita Seiichirou), who gets flat-out rejected by one of the “neighbors” Elias has called in to help with the first lesson.

The thrust of Elias’ efforts here seems to be, more than anything, to shake the tree and scare off any sorcerer who doesn’t have the backbone to follow the path of a mage.  He gets scolded when things go badly for one of the twins (who completely ignored his warnings), but I suspect Elias strongly suspected something like that would happen and wanted to make a point.   This is the best scene of the season so far  – watching the faerie folk interact with the students  – especially Chise and the salamander – strongly recalled the sense of wonder of the first season.

Rian didn’t exactly make a positive first impression, but when he turns up again Chise’s instincts seem to react positively to him.  He asks her to teach him magic, and there could even be some romantic interest from him in the future, so Rian looks to be a significant player in the story going forward.  The difference between magic and sorcery (there’s no absolute consensus on exactly what that is, but in broad terms there is agreement) is obviously going to be a major theme of the season.  We’ve certainly seen the dangers when sorcerers try and use magic without thorough training – I wonder if at some point, through Chise, we’re going to see the reverse.