Review : Mahoutsukai no Yome
"Even if he was lying, he was the only one to ever call me family" - Hatori Chise
Story : (1.5/5)
Started off highly anticipating, was expecting something interesting about ancient magic & adventure going on, and indeed it brought out some kind of a questing vibe. From my point of view, after its arc (usually 3 episodes in this anime) is over, the "NPC" seems to be insignificant until the next season. However, it got a tiny bit boring in the middle due to its similar writing with Violet Evergarden (in my opinion) and Violet Evergarden wins this anime by leagues.
The plot of episodes 20-23 is highly cliched, I simply think the "Hey, I don't want you to die, so I won't consult you and gonna do bad stuff" & "What?! You did bad stuff but I won't ask why and so I'll run away" etc. scenarios are just too illogical, the writing seems to me, builds things up but then destroy it in a get go, this is where I deducted my marks. The episode 24 is the sort of "review episode", the type of writing went back to the feel of first season (given there's also one review episode in the last episode of first season), which is a way much better experience than episodes 20-23.
Character : (2/5)
This is those kind of anime which its story progression is based on character development, yet the writing managed to make me give relatively low marks on this. The relationship between Elias and Chise is not romance from my point of view, more like a parental relationship also which they tends to switch roles from time to time. Both main characters wanted to try to learn and grow from their past, as Elias is a half of everything and Chise is abandoned. But, they usually get to one point and it did a minor reset to the development either due to the arc change or a conflict happens.
Side characters were introduced but some were left quite aside (e.g. Simon), some had a influence later on (Angelica & the Sorcerer duo), some are just for the quest, as I've mentioned before (Redcurrant & Mina×Matthew), hence the Violet Evergarden feel, but there will people who don't find this disturbing as to me, thus it isn't a big issue. There's one side character I just can't help but to adore, Silver. Bless the writer who decide to give her a backstory and also a cute side story (when Elias and Chise were in the Faerie Realm).
Music : (3.5/5)
Opening 1 is kinda rejecting at first but it gets better the more you listen to it and soon I'd be hooked to it. All in all, both openings are very good. The first ending theme, well, not my taste but it suits the shape of the anime, second ending is too motivated, to me just an average ED.
OSTs are purely brilliant, especially Iruna Etelero & Kimi no Yukue, absolute masterpieces. The theme OST is also quite catchy.
Art/Animation : (2.5/5)
Inconsistency, is the word I would choose. To elaborate, it begun with great art & animation like all WIT Studio animations (great examples are Shingeki no Kyoujin & Vinland Saga) do, episode 5 (or so, I've forgotten) to 19 is okay, two or three episodes had terrific art & animation, but gradually the art & animation quality is dropping as approaching episode 22. The last episode went back to the original quality.
The 2nd season (13-23) opening song art is lazy, by lazy i mean they use 80% scenes from the last season and only had a few things add-on (albeit that opening should have a preview of the future episodes). Nonetheless, the production fixed that in the last episode (I was like WTF, why now?)
Conclusion : (8.4/Average)
An average fantasy/romance/slice of life anime to me, not recommended for newcomers & old veterans, but can be watched when you got nothing to watch for say... after Violet Evergarden perhaps?
Watch it here! : https://kissanime.ru/Anime/The-Ancient-Magus-Bride