The Ancient Magus' Bride

The Ancient Magus' Bride is a gentle, dark fantasy anime set in the green hills and old towns of Great Britain. It is based on the manga by Kore Yamazaki, which began in 2013. This first season was made by Wit Studio and directed by Norihiro Naganuma. It aired from October 2017 to March 2018 with 24 episodes. Before the TV show, Wit Studio also made a three-part prequel called Those Awaiting a Star, which first played in theaters in 2016. A second season by a different studio, Studio Kafka, came out in 2023.

The heroine is Chise Hatori, a quiet Japanese girl who has had a very hard life. She lost her family young and was never truly loved or wanted. Feeling that she has nothing left, she lets herself be sold at a secret auction in London. The buyer is Elias Ainsworth, a very tall, strange being whose head looks like the skull of an animal, with long horns. He is a magus, which is an old word for a powerful wizard or magic user.

Elias does not treat Chise like property. Instead, he tells her two surprising things. First, she will be his apprentice, which means a student who learns a skill by working with a master. Second, one day she will become his bride. He takes her to his home in the English countryside. There she meets Silver, a quiet household fairy who keeps the house in order, and later Ruth, a loyal black dog who becomes her familiar, a magical animal partner bound to a magic user.

Chise learns that she is a Sleigh Beggy. This is a very rare kind of person whose body pulls in magic from the world around them. It makes her extremely powerful, but it also puts a heavy strain on her body. People like her usually do not live long. Elias wants to change that and help her survive, and the two must learn what they mean to each other along the way.

The world of the show is full of fairies, dragons, spirits, and old magic from British and Irish folklore. Some creatures are friendly and beautiful. Others are scary and dangerous. There are also other magic users with their own goals, and some of them do terrible things. Through it all, Chise slowly begins to see her own life as worth something, and Elias, who does not fully understand human feelings, slowly learns what it means to care for someone.

The show moves at a calm pace, much like a slice-of-life story, with quiet days of learning and small moments of wonder between the darker chapters. Reviewers have praised its lovely art and its strong sense of magic and mystery. The manga had more than five million copies in print by the end of 2017, and the anime won Best Drama at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards. It is a good choice for viewers who enjoy fairy tales, slow romance, and stories about healing from pain.