(This review covers all 24 episodes of the second season)

The second season of The Ancient Magus Bride has a considerably different feel to the first, yet just about manages to avoid losing what made the first season compelling. The setting and plot hook are, on the face of them, fairly pedestrian - Chise goes to the sorcerer's college in London to get a bit more magical life experience, and Elias tags along to keep an eye on her, but something nasty is loose inside the walls. What makes this well worn stuff work is that it's being seen through Chise and Elias's eyes, and they bring the strangeness of their world into the college with them. Sorcery might bring forth horrors beyond human comprehension, but our protagonists might as well have been horrors beyond human comprehension to start with, and are friendly with a few more to boot.

There's a good contrast between the slightly odd but genuine bond between Chise and Elias and the jealous, possessive, exploitative aspects of sorcerous society. The two mages are still learning, still growing, still figuring each other out, but give each other a supportive environment to foster this. Many of Chise's new peers, on the other hand, have had such things taken from them, or fail, or be denied them outright. The challenge for Chise is to learn to interact with them well enough to be able to change those things. Elias is less of a presence this series as more time is given to Chise spending time with people her own age, but there is also valuable time spent with him as he gradually starts to talk to new people too.

The overall plot sort of wobbles along in fairly predictable fashion (although it is more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit from the get go), and the nature of being a mere slice of the story of a longer ongoing manga means that some character threads are picked up only to be lightly toyed with. For example Lucy and Rennfred's own slightly dysfunctional relationship gets a lot of focus until it doesn't, and there's a fair number of characters who feel like they're just sort of there to pad out the world. Still, it's a perfectly solid story, well told, and now and then it still shows you something delightfully unexpected and weird.

The animation uses a lot more CGI than the previous season, which does rather change the look of the show compared to the previous instalment. It's used well and generally isn't distracting, but it is noticeable. It is overall not quite as pretty as the first season, but it's perfectly serviceable. As with the first season there's some jarring use of chibi and some excessively outlandishly "anime" character and creature designs, which are faithfully translated from the manga.

Overall, if you enjoyed spending time with Chise and Elias in their first outing, this will probably see you right. If you were hoping for more of the weird creepiness of the more standalone episodes of the first season there's more of a chance you'll leave disappointed.