The Ancient Magus’ Bride Episodes 7 - 10

By: EyeSpyeAlex After holidays, conventions, and boxset reviews, I can finally say I am caught up on The Ancient Magus’ Bride! Need to catch up too? Check out my previous review here.These latest episodes have given us new characters, including a familiar for Chise. She meets her familiar when she and Elias head to the church graveyard to investigate a Grimm. The Grimm – named Yuris – has the ability to shift from a human form into that of a dog. He saves Chise from a dark being in the graveyard. In return, Chise saves him from being made into a Chimera by Cartaphilius, but not before the sorcerer can cause the group some harm.Cartaphilius gravely wounds Chise by impaling her, which causes Elias to transform into his true inhuman form. He also makes a Chimera out of Yuris’ beloved Isabelle. Recovering from her wounds, Chise bonds with Yuris, and renames him Ruth during their ritual. Feeling invigorated, Ruth finds the power within to slay the Chimera and save Chise.There problems don’t end there though. Having been in his true form for a while, Elias requires some alone time to sort himself out. This upsets Chise, who only wants to help and feel needed by Elias. When Chise travels to visit Lindel to make her wand, he gives her more insight into Elias’ past.Lindel admits that he is unsure exactly what Elias is and that they met traveling. Lindel took Elias to his Master, who also was unsure just how human Elias is. With support from his Master, Lindel befriends Elias and promises to teach him about being a mage.While Chise is learning about Elias’ past, Elias is pondering over Chise’s future. In her absence, he realizes how much he misses her and needs her in his life. A chance conversation with Renfred has him considering enrolling Chise in school; something Angelica also encouraged Chise to do. With Chise and Elias both realizing how much they care about each other, I’m hoping we see their relationship begin to blossom.On top of meeting Ruth, Chise also meets one of her neighbors, Joel. Joel is a kindly old man who loves writing, roses, and a mysterious woman he met long ago. What Joel doesn’t realize is that the woman he met is a Leanan sidhe, who is still with him and haunting him. A typical Leanan sidhe feeds on their human’s blood in a similar fashion to a vampire.This one however refuses to feed on Joel, and the pair share a life typical of an old married couple, albeit one sided. Chise tries to convince the Leanan that she is in love with Joel, but she denies it. At this point, it’s unclear if Joel and the Leanan sidhe are a foil for Chise’s relationship with Elias, or if they’re simply supporting characters. Either way, I really like them and hope to see more of them.While we did get a lot of character development and action in these episodes, the pacing made it hard to enjoy. The pacing felt all over the place, which made nearly all the episodes feel like they were ending at the wrong moment. It especially felt like the confrontation with Cartaphilius leading to Elias’ transformation was drawn out so the episode could end on a cliff hanger. It’s fine to end episodes on cliff hangers, but I feel like seeing Isabelle as the chimera would have been more shocking and relevant to the story at the time. I’m hoping the pacing issues are ironed out in the remaining episodes.New episodes of The Ancient Magus’ Bridge stream every Saturday on Crunchyroll and VRV platforms.