Life is a wonderful, horrible, fascinating, disturbing, and complicated concept to experience.

The idea of existing is fascinating, as you get to have experiences that leave memories that you take with you and leave behind as you live your days in your world. No matter what twisted and painful situations occur in someone’s life, the idea of happiness, and memories worth cherishing, is nigh-universal. Everyone wants to have happy memories before they die. Death is a sad, chilling reality we must face, so we must cherish the life we have as much as we can, with people who will make us feel happy about living and having them in our lives.

Mahoutsukai no Yome serves as a brilliant reminder of this, with death looming as an intense shadow over everyone, characters whose lives were so devoid of meaning or love until they found someone who showed them any semblance of warmth that made them depend on said person and find meaning in their own life, and a world and atmosphere that is otherwise fascinating and majestic. It truly shows off a sense of life not many shows nowadays can, and in many ways, acts like a puzzle, slowly piecing itself together. Despite minor logical errors such as walking on water with nothing supernatural to back that up given the fantasy world (among other things that require explanation), Mahoutsukai as a fantasy, is leaps and bounds above its modern contemporaries, ignoring the occasionally photorealistic-esque CGI flowers and grass, and how the visuals for both openings largely consist of footage from the show itself.

Bit by bit, with each passing episode, we learn more and more about Mahoutsukai’s world, its creatures, magic, rules, and civilizations. The creatures we learn about have lovely, inviting designs that make you want to leap into the screen and explore nature to interact with them. We constantly learn about these fictional cultures and how they “interact” with each other and human societies. Not revelation about magic and this world feels believable, but most of them do. To have such large discoveries consistently make sense and feel even remotely like a powerful revelation, is a testament to the fantastic world-building this series showcases, as it is easily the show’s crowning aspect, partially thanks to WIT Studio, and partially thanks to the original mangaka's writing.

Revelations about Elias, other major recurring characters such as the show’s first antagonist, and about characters with their own stories to tell in miniature arcs, and even Chise herself, are all methodical and placed in such a way where they feel like a major highlight of any given episode. Given that you get one in every episode, sometimes upwards to three, it can be a nigh-overwhelming experience at times, if the emotional climaxes to many of these miniscule arcs fail to bring you to your knees as is. At least, that’s the idea, for you see, the series can feel quite droll at times, and the occasionally jarring and unwarranted comedy does not help with that. The color palette getting dreary to the point of mandating a monumental shift in brightness settings only adds to the occasional mundanity of this series, to the point where some revelations and episode-defining moments fail to be as earth-shattering as others. Thankfully, the humor can still land fairly well when inserted properly, the atmosphere is often wonderful, and the emotional and chilling moments shine intensely at conveying their mood.

A majority of the characters are perfectly fine as they are, with their own emotional arcs that Chise wanders through and helps resolve, with some humorous banter and sweet moments to boot, even if they aren’t necessarily too entertaining. However, Chise, an emotionally detached person desperately looking for some real meaning and warmth in her life, is one of the more compelling protagonists of the year. On top of that, Elias is interesting to see get pieced together as distrust looms stronger in the air by the episode. It is nice seeing their relationship develop, and especially how Chise develops as a person. Additionally, Silky is the most precious thing and Ruth, while arguably the weakest of the main tetrad, is still an entertaining character to have around. The main antagonist, Cartaphilus, can be rather unnerving, with how childishly detached he is, how nonchalant he is about using and killing people, how he constantly questions himself abruptly, and how his body is merely a husk that can be destroyed and replaced casually. On top of what we learn about him, he’s utterly disconcerting to watch, intentionally so; he is easily one of the best villains of these past years. Other characters such as Lindel are fine too, though sometimes no one is truly enough to sustain a truly compelling viewing experience, notably in the second quarter of the show. Additionally, the best episodes of the early are the ones that really bring out the most of life and death, and/or reach for those delicate heartstrings, such as episodes 3 and 5, while after somewhat of a slump in the second quarter, the show truly picks up back to the best of what it was before.

Some of the music has been largely carried over from the OVA, namely some of the more melodic, instrumental pieces. Thankfully, there are a variety of new, often emotional tracks added to the mix. There are some nice vocal tracks as well that play in the midst of emotional moments (such as Kimi no Yuke), even if they never get played again. Both Openings, "Here" by JUNNA (OP 1), and "You" by May'n (OP 2), are rather memorable for different reasons, for better or worse. The former is a nice song that truly captures the feel of the song, with instruments like the spanish guitar being used to excellent effect and the vocals by JUNNA being wonderful. The latter feels like it stumbled into this show by mistake and the animators tried to dress it up as much as possible. On top of being the weakest May’n song I’ve heard, it just doesn’t fit; they should have used the former song for all 24 episodes. ED 1, "Wa -cycle- (環-cycle-)" by Hana Itoki (糸奇はな), is irritating to listen to thanks to the way the wind instruments are used, particularly in the beginning; even afterwards, the song isn’t memorable. ED 2, "Tsuki no mou Hanbun (月のもう半分)" by AIKI & AKINO from bless4, is a vast improvement, being a slow buildup to a wonderfully emotional and fitting climax that pays off brilliantly. It is one of the few good ending themes of the season.

Ultimately, while not as magical as anticipated, Mahoutsukai no Yome is a charming, calming, and occasionally sweet and somber series, showing some of the wonders in life, with the shadow of death ever so ubiquitous. It is certainly one of the better anime out there nowadays, especially for the anime fantasy genre. It can certainly be understood why so many have been enchanted to such a spell-binding series, even if it feels a bit withered in places.