As we enter day 4 of the 12 Days of Anime and today I’m turning my attention to someone far more mysterious and supernatural than the Princess Ani from Dame X Pri. However is being mysterious enough of a character trait?
I guess that’s something to be discussed while we are looking at Elias from The Ancient Magus’ Bride.
I really wanted to love The Ancient Magus’ Bride when it began. I loved the three episode OVA that came out prior to the series and I think that really elevated my expectations, that and the hype surrounding the title. Ultimately, the anime works and is certainly aesthetically beautiful, you could lose yourself in endless screen caps of it and in the music, but the plot itself and even how the characters are presented at times remains fairly ordinary. Not bad mind you, just not particularly good and certainly not as strong as the other elements.
However, today I want to look at Elias as a character because he was quite the intriguing figure throughout the anime and one who I don’t think was given enough time, or enough scope to really be all that he could be. In the end, the idea is more interesting than the execution. Now, I haven’t read the source though it is on my read list for that eventual someday, so my views here are entirely constructed through how Elias is presented in the anime.
In the beginning, the air of mystery surrounding him worked in the anime’s favour. He was this mysterious figure steeped in magic who swept in and took Chise under his wing when she was at her lowest. However, this character type only works with the understanding that as the plot progresses we will come to understand him and see him in a different manner.
While The Ancient Magus’ Bride most definitely gave us some back story on Elias, actual emotional connections with him were few and far between and far too many of them were buried underneath his relationship with Chise. While that was really a fundamental part of the story it meant that Elias as an individual was neglected and only the Elias in relation to Chise really got to progress anywhere. There seems like there’s a lot more to his character but it just never had the time to go anywhere.
By the end of the anime series I still feel like I don’t know Elias as a character. He’s still that mysterious figure with one foot half in the world of magic and one foot firmly in the human world and trying to guide/help Chise to navigate her own path, but who he is and what he actually wants remains very much something surrounded in mist. Which is a shame because I would have loved to get to know him more.
It is possible that this is all there is to the character, but it seems more likely that with time constraints and everything else, his character just didn’t get the chance to really go anywhere. I do know that one of my main disappointments as I look back on the show is that I never really felt like I got to know what Elias was all about.
So here’s to Elias and the hope that if the anime gets a sequel his character gets the fleshing out it deserves or at the very least a little bit more revealed to help the audience to connect with him or understand him more.
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This continues to be a fantastic season for me in finding anime that I have really taken a shine to. The shows aren’t perfect and how many of them will stand a rewatch test after the fact (or even manage to end well) still remains to be seen, but so far I have genuinely loved the Autumn season. Looking forward to what all these shows do next. Except, of course, Evil or Live which I dropped this week.
Let me know your favourites and the ones you have dropped in the comments below.
This show is not in any danger of losing the top spot here. There are very few shows that hit me the way March Comes in Like a Lion consistently does. It just has the perfect emotional resonance for me to be completely absorbed in the story. The pace is slow, there’s a lot of shogi chat, some of the slice of life moments may not feel overly purposeful, but the driving emotions come through so beautifully clearly and the contrast between the moments of hope and despair hit hard. Completely in love with this.
That was fantastic. This episode gave me everything I was wanting from this series in that the relationship between Chise and Elias is further explored (or made a bit murkier), we learn more about the complexities of the magical world and they continue to expand on the difference between mages and sorcerers and hopefully that will continue, we also get an interesting plot in this episode with the Kingdom of Cats and to corrupted soul that needs to be cleansed. Absolutely no complaints from this week’s episode.
Another superb and beautiful episode that gives us a little more knowledge about the world and helps Phos grow just a little bit more. I really wonder what will happen next week given they left us on a cliff-hanger but this episode was solidly done and truly mesmerizing to watch.
Falling a little bit in the list this week, Kino’s Journey remains interesting, but I wasn’t quite as impressed with episode 4. Possibly this was the because the focus wasn’t on Kino and the stand in protagonist for the week, while a nice side character, just didn’t seem as interesting.
Episode 4 doesn’t do much but it doesn’t really need to. The girls are kind of charm personified and while they are just going through the motions of survival they are doing it with a firmly grounded optimism (which is kind of better than an over the top and fake kind of optimism). Really cute show and really enjoying it despite how laid back it is.
Fairly solid episode this week advancing the characters and the story and still being relatable and charming. While this show does have its flaws and the characters aren’t exactly deep, it really is adorable to watch and I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far.
Anime-Gataris shouldn’t take moving below MMO Junkie personally. It is just that as we hit episode 4, MMO Junkie has continued to build on its strengths while this one kind of plateaued this week. It was still good fun and highly entertaining but the cracks in the story are starting to show and they are going to have to start filling some of them in soon or work harder at distracting me from seeing them.
Episode four was a fantastic follow up and almost seemed to be a mini-climax to some of the plot points developed throughout the first three episodes. Yet I remain very interested in this show. Mostly because the question of what these characters will do now that one’s confessed and one’s been shot down before he ever got to is one that really interests me. For the most part this show is fairly solid but there are definitely scenes where the visuals aren’t quite up to scratch and the general slow pace is a little bit of a problem for me, but I’m really enjoying it overall.
Okay, as badly as this one is written, it is still topping this list. I’m enjoying watching it even though you could probably pick it entirely to pieces if you think about any of it for even a minute. Still, it is unashamed about being melodramatic teen horror and while it isn’t exactly going to challenge any of the classics, it is entertaining enough for the season.
This one might just drop a bit in the list if it doesn’t pick up soon. It is still a pretty chill viewing experience but a few things are starting to become a little annoying about it. That, and for all the frantic energy of some characters in this episode, I am not certain anything was really accomplished other than a lot of still frames with guys grunting of shouting over the top of them.
Cardia continues to get better as a character and while I had some issues with the logic of this episode, the quick pace and just the general tone was really entertaining. It isn’t going to hold up if you think about it, but if you just want to sit back and kind of enjoy something kind of historical and kind of romantic, with just a little bit of action, this may fit that spot for you.
Black Clover is kind of finding its way. It is definitely taking its time but I think there were only two moments in this episode where I actually found Asta annoying and the rest of the time he was surprisingly okay. We also finally seem to be moving things forward and introducing characters who might actually be interesting so fingers crossed for future episodes.
Another boring character mumbling plots and observations to himself as we get some background on the Sheep. Meanwhile, the fight set-up last week happened but wasn’t resolved, and realistically we are no closer to actually knowing what any of the characters want. It is kind of shame because actually seeing Monkey and Rabbit fight could be pretty cool if they were actually going to show us that instead of giving us a few lines of dialogue, one strike and dodge, and then cut away to someone else.
This isn’t really moving anywhere on this list. It is watchable and the show works. I can imagine that some people will have fun with it. For me it is just too generic in its story and the balance between comedy and action isn’t quite fitting. There isn’t a single character I particularly like nor am I particularly curious about anything in the story so realistically there’s little appeal drawing me back to the show. But it isn’t broken and there is some silly fun to be had. The fights aren’t too bad and there’s a decent amount of carnage given none of the characters ever die so they just put them through hell.
Nope. This show hasn’t improved. It is just finding new ways to confuse me. There’s still a very small hope that maybe all of this will eventually make sense and I will move this back out of the ‘They Made This’ category at that point. But for now, this is an incoherent ramble of ideas and gore.
Well it went from They Made This with me wondering who the audience was for this show, to not even caring. Episode 4 did nothing to further any of the points I was kind of interested in and really emphasised the points I hated about the show. So this one is now officially dropped from my line up this season.
My Girlfriend is Shobitch (Episode 2)
TWOCAR (Episode 1)
Taisho Mebiusline Chicchaisan (Episode 1)
Love is Like A Cocktail (Episode 1)
Konohana Kitan (Episode 1)
A Sister’s All You Need (Episode 1)
Urahara (Episode 1)
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This is a really silly way to release a show given part 1 came out way back in September last year, but hey, whatever. It just means you have to rewatch the first part to remind yourself what had happened before you can get into this. I still have no familiarity with the source material so I’m probably missing a lot from this story but that doesn’t seem to ruin the enjoyment. The mix of fantasy and reality is just kind of perfect and the story, while fairly tragic, is predictable but moving. It all works in a very mundane way with pretty visuals to glide over the slower moments.
Of course the story delivered in this part is pretty ordinary when you think about it. She’s given some basic rules for visiting the library and ultimately fails to follow them. Though, part of the blame definitely falls on the librarian given he explained nothing and all things considered I guess we’re not going to be given an explanation now. It’s one thing to have the story from Chise’s point of view and she is ignorant of the world of magic, but they are keeping the audience almost totally in the dark as to why anything is occurring which means events seem fairly random.
As I said at the beginning though, this is still a really enjoyable watch. It’s relaxing and slow and visually appealing and the characters are interesting even if not well explained.
It was absolutely ages ago but I previously did review part 1 of this. Really glad that a full season has been announced given how interesting the world is in this story.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride is available on Crunchyroll.
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