Review of The Ancient Magus' Bride

The Ancient Magus bride provides a stellar soundtrack, breathtaking visuals, and a story that had great potential but ultimately fell flat in a number of areas. First, lets talk about the good. As far as the visuals go, the world of the Magus Bride has some of the most colorful, vibrant visuals in a show that I've seen in a long, long time. The characters themselves looked clean and detailed, but also with just enough simplicity that they remain a good dose of visual eye-candy. What really takes the cake for me, however, are the amazingly cohesive and imaginative backgrounds. I caught myself pausing theshow a few times from just the sheer awe of how amazing the background work was. They often incorporated the use of music into some of these scenic shots as well, which for me is definitely some of greatest highlights of the Ancient Magus Bride.

But then comes the show's shortcomings. While I feel that a fair number of the fantasy elements were interesting, a lot of the defined elements of the show never really came together in a way that felt cohesive. At times, it even felt as if the writer was just throwing every fantasy idea they had into the story, leaving some portions of the fantasy aspect, and story as a whole, to feel misdirected and somewhat meaningless.

As far as the characters are concerned, while I personally felt that characters like Elias and Joseph were somewhat intriguing, mostly due to their aura of mystery, most of the cast came off as fairly flat, with most of them having a similar level of kindness and compassion, but not enough personally to truly stand on their own. I do feel that each character's backstory was interesting and at times heart-wrenching, but I feel that, overall, they gave more off more of an illusion of character depth rather than any actual depth.

I believe my true issue with the series, however, was the pacing. There were times where the show felt as though it was moving way to fast, and should have spent more time focusing on more key aspects of the fantasy world and story. At other times, certain arcs felt as though they were drawn out for way to long, even when the ultimately had little importance on the overarching story.

Regardless, The Ancient Magus Bride is still an enjoyable show, especially if you enjoy mystery, the heavy use of original fantasy, and stunning scenery. The somewhat one-note characters and overall lack of focus made this show difficult to watch at points, but that's not to say those can't be improved upon, especially since the manga series is still continuing.