It hasn’t happened all that often this season, but this is really the Mahoutsukai no Yome that made me fall in love with the series in the first place.  This series is so at home in the quiet places, the dark places, the wild places.  Its perspective on the ancient and myriad myths of the British Isles is something unique in manga and anime – more unique than the face it’s mostly shown us this season.  That’s a handsome face too, but for me the magic just isn’t quite there in the same degree, pun intended.  Besides – who doesn’t love Japanese actors trying to pronounce Gaelic names?

Elias, being both overprotective and emotionally needy, has invited himself along on Chise’s camping trip.  But this is a practicum for her, and she rightly insists that having him along rather defeats the purpose.  So he compromises – splintering off a piece of himself he insists won’t be useful.  She’ll end up wishing she had the real thing with her later, but even this Elias is good for keeping the voices of the many local neighbors from being too scary at night.  Especially as Ruth has tagged along as well.

That’s when things really start to get fun.  Folklore doesn’t get more arcane and wild than in the highlands and islands of Scotland.  A mix of creatures from the Celtic and Norse psyche, myriad and mysterious and often terrifying.  The first encounter is with an each-usige, a water horse (that’s literally what the name means) which takes its riders on a wild journey and then drowns them in a lake or river, devouring the corpse but leaving the liver.  It’s known as having a special fondness for young women, so Chise surely looked delicious.  The first thing she does when she gets back to the tent is warn Lucy not to go for a ride if she meets a horse in the woods.

Speaking of Lucy, something or someone drains her of magic when she gets up for a bathroom break in the night.  This is a pretty big disturbance in the force – Elias certainly feels it, and so do Rian, Isaac, and Zoe.  Chise goes to investigate and finds her, and is in the process of lending her some magical power when another neighbor comes along and changes the priorities.  This is a nuckelavee, a particularly nasty beast which probably made its way to Scotland from the Viking countries.  It’s kind of a water horse too, but can’t stand fresh water, and Elias describes it as a sea monster.  And with its huge size and poison breath, it looks and acts the part.

Well, this is certainly Chise’s opportunity to prove she can cope without depending on Elias.  And her decision is to ask his advice, which she does – what about asking the each-uisge for help fighting the nuckelavee?  A high risk strategy to be sure – Rian certainly thinks so, as he literally comes along for the ride.  And it works to a point, but even after the each two-foot kicks the nuckelavee into the lake, it grabs Chise and it seems about to take her with it.  That’s when Chise reveals a side of herself we haven’t seen before, and if there’s an arms race coming, she certainly has a head start.

This whole sequence is pretty great, especially the stuff with the each bemoaning that drunkards and lost travelers never wander into its hunting grounds anymore.  Chise already knew that was something ominous about that arm of hers, but this puts things in uncomfortably concrete terms.  Self-defense or not she killed the nuckelavee, and that’s not an enjoyable feeling.  Rian understands – all too well, if his flashback is to believed.  A lot to unpack here, between the arm, Rian’s past, and the attack on Lucy.  All in all, one of the most entertaining Mahoutsukai episodes of the season to be sure.