The Ancient Magus’ Bride Episodes 2 - 3

By: EyeSpyeAlexI had a jam packed weekend of catching up on the latest anime, and I am finally caught up on this week’s episode of The Ancient Magus’ Bride. Need to catch up too? Check out my review of last week’s episode here!Chise and Elias travel to the city to meet with one of Elias’s acquaintances, Angelica Varley. Angelica is a witch that practices in the arts of the Magus Craft, a skill that has been passed down her family line. While Angelica is only a sorcerer, she makes do and practices her craft well. Wanting to test Elias’s new apprentice, Angelica gives Chise a gem and tells her to transform it. Chise surprises Angelica, Elias, and herself by creating a magnificent field of flowers from the gemstone. The pair then leave Angelica’s workspace with supplies to help Chise hone her skills.While the title of the anime has a focus on Chise, we learn quite a lot about Elias in this episode. Elias can create a glimmer to give himself a false appearance. In this episode, he has a glimmer of what he hopes is a handsome human male. Chise destroys his self-esteem by commenting on how fake he looks. This exchange, while brief reveals that Elias has spent enough time around humans to capture the look of humans, but not enough time to perfect it. In the grand scheme of things, it reveals very little about his backstory. Did Elias always have a skull head, or is that the result of a spell gone wrong? Hopefully we find out.Elias also dabbles in helping out his neighbors. He is very familiar with the town priest, who comes to Elias to collect medicine for the sick townsfolk. The priest also informs Elias of any magical beings that are harming the townspeople so that Elias can handle the situation. When Chise expresses surprise at the church working so closely with a magician, Elias informs her that it’s been happening for centuries.The fun doesn’t stop there though as Elias surprises Chise by taking her on their “honeymoon”. He transports them to Iceland so Chise can see the last of the dragons. Before they can properly enjoy their honeymoon, Chise is kidnapped by a man and a dragon. The man reveals himself to be Lindel, a mage and caretaker of the dragons.While Lindel and Elias catch up, Chise plays with the younger hatchling dragons. The group soon bump into Nevin, the oldest dragon in Iceland. Nevin sees into Chise’s mind, and tells her she should be glad she didn’t “fly”. Nevin then asks Chise if she would like to experience flight.Chise and Nevin delve into Nevin’s memories, and are soon soaring through the skies. Unbeknownst to Chise, her mage powers are fueling Nevin’s memories. Back in reality, Nevin’s body begins to solidify and sprout a tree. Nevin tells Chise that the fate of all Uil dragons is to become one again with the Earth. Before dying, he urges Chise to make her wand out of one of his branches when she is ready.While there was a slight deviation from the source material, I still enjoyed this week’s episode. The animation was incredible, with both the dragons and the gem flowers animated and inked beautifully. Having read ahead and known what would happen to Nevin did not prepare me for seeing it animated. The cinematography coupled with the song playing had me bawling my eyes out. I look forward to seeing how this adaptation plays out.New episodes of the Ancient Magus’ Bride stream on Saturdays on the Crunchyroll and VRV platforms.