The art is beautiful, the initial characters are interesting and complex. Some panels are very stirring! the series holds up with creative problems and interesting magic lore outside of a school setting and held my interest up until about midwayish. There is an arc that occurs that has derailed any progressive storytelling on the relationship between Elias and Chise as well as Elias' backstory and Chise's magical progress. Also, there is a crazy amount of exposition on mechanics of magic and magic lore from multiple cultures; very interesting albeit a little excessive. That being said i reccomend it. This manga definitely has its problems yet it's prettygood.