###As soon as The Ancient Magus' Bride starts, you can tell how deranged this is going to be. Without knowing anything at all, you're shown Chise Hatori getting handcuffed, looking like she didn't sleep in the last 150 years and then being sold to a weird beast whose head is a skull in a slave auction for 5 millions dollars... Kind of unusual for a supposed Slice of Life and Romance to start with this scene, but hey, who am I to judge ? What makes our new slave friend worth so much is that she's actually a Sleigh Beggy, an abnormal being which (to my understanding) produces an infinite amount of magic and attracts all kinds of magical beings. No need to say that in a magical world, this is quite valuable, but it also brings her all kind of problems, such as rejection, neglect, intimidation and death being involved. However, to the surprise of absolutely everyone (no), the "beast", named Elias, isn't going to continue to put her through such things anymore. Calling her by her name instead of being degrading to her as his slave and even breaking the chains off her hands and neck. The little home where Elias teleported them not too long after, in the rural side of England, was now Chise's home.
###This is more than just some chains breaking, while yes it means that she gets her freedom back, it wouldn't do much on it's own. She just gained something much more important, someone to rely on and somewhere to go back to. Just as hope was extinguishing, she had found everything she wanted since long ago, someone who actually wanted her to be alive when she herself didn't care about life anymore. Still, because of the heavy past she carries with her, nothing just becomes easy and there are still many hardships to overcome.
###The first few episodes are meant to explain this new magic world. Only being reserved to a limited amount of people, magic isn't part of your everyday life, I would compare it to Jujutsu Kaisen, where only a few people have access to cursed energy. There is some magical beings (called fairies but not looking anything close to fairies) just living their lives on the side, invisible to the "normal" human population. While we are explained how magic works, we get to meet a lot of new characters, which more often than not require some help, and Chise, now a mage's apprentice, tries to get some experience by helping them. Which isn't so easy for two main reasons, the first one being her crippling social anxiety. Being unloved by the people around her for the entirety of her life, she cannot believe that someone might actually need her, that she might be useful for someone. She is also still suicidal from her traumatic past and doesn't want to live anymore, making her more than satisfied when the only solution to a problem is her death, and oddly, it happens a lot. Happily, Elias is there to save her. The second reason why it's so hard to help, is because she can't do shit as she just became a mage and barely knows anything about this whole "magic" thing , she's would most likely be completely useless if it wasn't for her risking her life without a care every single time. The good thing though, is that because of the fact that she manages to survive, she gets to make some friends, and is now more social with people than she ever was. And now she looks like she slept a bit more !
###On the other hand, while we have Chise progressively rediscovering how to interact with other people, we learn that Elias doesn't feel emotions, at all. He doesn't seem to understand why Chise worries about other people and why she wants to help them, if he doesn't have anything to win from it, there is nothing to be done.
###I really love these two characters, Elias is hard to appreciate at first, but with time affection comes. I've rarely seen character development done so well in any form of novel in my life, the difference between the Chise and Elias from season 1 to the ones in season 2 is a light and dark contrast. Without going too deep inside this, I've had a lot of problems with death throughout my life and still to this day I don't always understand what kind of emotions I'm feeling which became a problem in how I handled some situations more than once. I relate to both of these characters very much, from Chise's low self-esteem to Elias' emptiness, I felt as if I was watching another me through my screen. Also, even if Chise feels better when we get into season 2, she still has issues and questions regarding her behavior that she needs to work on, so it doesn't really feel like there's any repetition about her needing to change her way of thinking.
###I saw some people saying the vibe of master/slave because of the auction makes them feel awkward, but like... it's said and shown that they don't have a master/slave relationship AT ALL. So I really don't see how that's an issue
###The soundtrack is jaw dropping (click on the first image of the review to listen to it). It made me jump up of my chair more than once, covered my mouth in awe while in the bus, screamed of excitement when I was home alone, and when I go back to watch the best moments (which often have a precise soundtrack playing) I can't stop myself from having a big smile on my face. I concede, the scene playing is also part of the hype, but without the audio, it would miss something. It's one of the few anime soundtracks (not opening, soundtrack) that I actually listen to in my free time, and when I do all the good memories come back to mind and once again, I can't stop myself from smiling. I can't put into words precisely how it feels to listen to the soundtrack, but if I had one word to describe it, I would say magical. Not related to the anime, the production couldn't have made a better decision than to trust JUNNA to handle 3/4 openings which are just as good as the soundtrack, and are also in my playlist as of a few days ago. If you feel like listening to the openings, here they are. ☺
###The visuals are good, while obviously not being as beautiful as recent popular shows, the animation team was able to make beautiful scenes out of what they could've done. Mentioning the best moments again, a few of them are there not because of the action, or the audio, but only because of the beautiful dialogue between the characters paired with beautiful sceneries. However, except these few moments, it's nothing that would blow your mind episode after episode.
###What did blew my mind though, is this
Spoiler, click to view
###To be clear, this is a direct screenshot from the anime, I did not turn it to the side. Literally took a note on my phone with the time of the episode with the caption "wtf is that" written next to it, knowing I would use it in my review.
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###To conclude it all, The Ancient Magus' Bride is more than just a normal slice of life revolving around magic. It shows what it truly means to be someone, it shows how much our lives are worth living even when we have close to no reason to keep going. While surrounded by an excellent soundtrack and beautiful animation, seeing Chise and Elias' progress at understanding their emotions is beautiful to see and our affection towards them only grows more and more. The theme of death is really well approached and makes the characters relatable in a way I've rarely seen before, making everything more emotionnal.