Review of The Ancient Magus' Bride

Mahoutsukai no Yome it's hard to judge. I'm at the same time pleased and pissed off. The first half of the anime was really enjoyable, but the second half is just meh and triggering. From the visual side, it's weird anime. Some of the scenes are beautiful and feel real, but some of them look like they were made by seven years old. Also character design, I really liked the design of Elias, Alice, Angelica, Ruth, and Lindel. Creatures have also nice designs, for example, water dragons, a monster with Isabell's head, or these flying sheeps. They're creative and well-made. But when it comes toreal animals it starts to get worse. When Elias and Chise are in the cat kingdom some of these cats just look like they were cursed. Chise's design isn't that bad, but it's just basic and in some close shoots she looks like from '90s anime.

Sound is ok, it's not that bad or that good to write a lot about it. There are 2 openings, they're just meh it's not really better with endings. But during anime music is nice.

When we come to the plot. Chise is depressed and wants to make a kickflip from the roof of her school. But then she is an "auction product" to see if she is worth anything. Elias buys her and wants to make her his student because she is ✨ child of the night ✨ And then he takes her to his cottage and basically tells her that he bought her not only to be his student but also his wife. Later they go to a lot of places and meet a lot of people but that's not really important.

So what's wrong with this plot? Basically, it's ok, but the way how it's developed is weird. Elias should be her teacher, but he teaches her maybe two times during anime. Also, she should be his teacher of human feelings, but she does it also twice.

There are just too many side stories. They're too fast, characters appear, and never get back screen time. Also, they trust her too much, she's just like "tell me your story", and everyone just imidetaly agrees. And about the storyline with "villain". It's just weird. He appears in the fifth episode and from the situation you know that it's not this character who appears and disappears after his episode. He's an interesting character, but his motivation is just not enough.

The main problem is that a lot of things happen around but don't really in Chise-Elia's relationship. I know that it's a concept to discover themselves slowly, but it's too contrasting to all that happens with other characters. I think during watching I was more prepared for an emotional conversation about their relationship than they were. We don't really have shown their conversations too and that is probably a mistake, because it helps the development of the characters.

Chise in the beginning had a potential, depressed teen with trauma and problems with trust. She was scared to do anything on her own. Then she finds out that she would die if she's not enough careful. She can't use a lot of magic so what is she going to do? Use magic in almost every episode. She can't get hurt so what is she going to do? Get almost deadly injured every five seconds. She can't get far from Elias because he would protect her in case of danger so what is she going to do? She goes to another city, without telling that to him in person. I think her depression already gave her suicidal thoughts because she does everything to die as fast as possible. Honestly, she is trying to kill herself in almost every episode. Also, the amount of crying is terrifying. In the first few episodes she didn't show her feelings, but when she starts here starts on a roller coaster. Idk, maybe she just try to dehydrate herself. She's crying in moments with aren't accurate to cry and sometimes it gives you a cringe.

She is also pretty weird in relation to Elias. On her first or second day with him, he is like "yeah, you're my future wife". They don't go back to this during the next 15 episodes. And I can understand this from the side of Elias, he doesn't understand the concept of marriage so maybe he wants to find out this before he will start a serious conversation about this. But Chise for the first 10 episodes wasn't concerned about this, she just acts like that hasn't happened. Only later does she thinks about it, but she doesn't speak to him about it.

On the other hand, Elias is a well-developed character. He is a child in a man's body. Even if he lived for many years he still doesn't understand humans. It's cute when he tries to describe his feelings, but doesn't know how to call them. For example, he says that the house without Chise is cold and he doesn't like that cold. It's just a pleasure to watch how he tries to understand human feelings. I think that choice of giving him this deer skull was great because you can't see feelings on his face, but you know that feeling from his eyes.

But why the heck Elias's background is so poorly developed. All his background is "I was walking in bushes, became mage and probably eat human before". What the heck he is? Idk. Why he is like this? Idk. How did he become like this? Idk. What he did do before getting in those bushes? Idk. Why he isn't curious about this? Idk. I'm just triggered because I would like to know the answers to these questions.

When it comes to my enjoyment it's even harder to tell something goo. The first half was really pleasing to watch, but the second, oh boi, I got frustrated. I thought after they will know each other better there would be more emotional talks and trying to understand each other feelings. But it's just "we gotta talk", they talk but it's not shown to the viewer and that was triggering me a lot. And the worst thing is that even after these "talks" they don't really change.

Honestly, I don't know who will be satisfied after watching it, it's just really overhyped anime. I heard many times that it's the best anime that someone watched, but it's just meh. I wrote some of this review in half of watching anime. I was almost sure to give this anime 8/10, 6/10 for the plot, characters, and all this stuff, and +2 for my enjoyment. It was a mistake that's why my grade is 5/10, it just disappointed me so much that I can't stand this.