Review of The Ancient Magus' Bride

There are a wide number of reasons for why I think this anime is great, but in this review, I will try to focus on two of them. The first reason is Kore Yamazaki’s ability to portray the deeper emotional, and mental attributes of the characters (may be due to lack of exposure to other anime, but I think it is particularly well done in this anime). The second reason is that in almost every episode; there was a little gem in the form of a life lesson or theme explored through the story. In other words, while I will not dedicate time to the soundtracksand art, I think you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who completely hated them even within those who gave strong negative reviews to the show.

Character development
Sadly, it would take more time that I have in my hands or perhaps that I care to dedicate to this review (as I want to watch it 2 or 3 more times) to go into details, so I’ll just list some of these without further development.

-Elias and Chise as children.
-Elias and Chise as master and apprentice.
-Angelica as comedic relief/mother figure.
-Simon as comedic relief/life of giving

Life lessons/Themes
I think part of what makes this anime so affable (at least to me) is as I said earlier the life lessons imparted throughout the series. Furthermore, the exploration themes of dark vs. light and the struggle within the individual add to the series. Some of the lessons have religious undertones to them, some do not, but overall, they add a lot of meaning and depth to the anime.
Some of the lessons/archetypes/symbolism that I can recall include:

1.Slavery/Freedom/Value of human life/Individual Responsibility/Importance of home & family/Self-interest (somewhat dark as manifested by Elias)/Hero’s Journey (and setbacks)/Marriage – I mean, is it even possible to add any more themes to a 20min episode?!

2.Value of human life/Positive impact on society through individual responsibility/Life of serving others.

3.Circle of life/Living everyday to its fullest potential/Passing the torch to the next generation – possibly one of my favorite episodes, land of the dragons. Some dark vs. light, but mostly light.

4.Light standing up to darkness/Importance of truth/Doing bad things to protect those you love/Forgiveness/Temptations to darkness/Redemption/Reason to fight and live for– cat town episodes.

5.Oberon and Titania “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and garden of Eden reference.
6.Phoenix (symbolism) – the first time Chise uses her wand to make magic and voila we have the powerful mythological bird known for its constant cyclic death and regeneration from the ashes of its predecessor. I simply do not think there is any better symbolic figure out there that represents the growth of Chise and others throughout the story better than this.

7.Life is suffering/Overcoming evil (dark) with good (light)/Importance of talking and establishing ground rules in any relationship so as to not create resentment– some of the last explored themes in the story, and certainly some of the most important.

Could go on, but I want to spend more time watching than reviewing it, so I will cut this section here.

Criticism
My limited criticism is that the story did feel somewhat rushed and that as a result it did rely heavily on the soundtracks to pin point the “magical” moments of character growth. I can see how that can be distasteful when overdone (but certainly not something that would push my rating of the show as a whole below a 6). Disclosure, while I rated it an 8, I can see how different weighting criteria could rate it anywhere from 6 to 8.5 fairly. Another problem that arises from rushing the story is that some of the countless themes brought up are merely just that brought up and not explored to their fullest potential.
One last parting thought. Perhaps it might be the higher focus of the story on the mental and emotional attributes of the characters and their development in the storytelling that has turned off some people who would rather see more action/competition themes within the story. I think the latter point might make this anime easier to be liked by females as opposed to males (I’ve been seeing this trend in most comment sections with posts related to this anime), but while that might be a general statement given male/female preferences; it certainly did not prevent me from enjoying it a lot as a fella.

Recommendation
Have an open mind and give it a watch! Hope you enjoy it at least half as much as I did.
If you are reading this, thanks for taking the time. Apologies for the writing being all over the place, and hope you make it a great day!