Mahoutsukai no Yome Season 2 Part 2

Following a series of attacks that have left teachers and students alike sapped of their magic, headmistress Liza Quillyn decides to seal off the College, rendering it impossible to enter or leave the premises. As a result, Philomela Sargant is unable to comply with her grandmother Lizbeth's order to withdraw from the school.

Trapped inside the College, Chise Hatori and her classmates begin to adjust to their novel and stressful circumstances. But as time goes on, Philomela's condition only gets worse—both mentally and physically. Meanwhile, details about the tragic past of Chise's roommate, Lucy Webster, continue to resurface. As Chise grapples with worries about her friends and with her evolving self, the identity of the mysterious magic-draining culprit plaguing the College may finally come to light.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hatori, Chise Main

Tanezaki, Atsumi Japanese

Ainsworth, Elias Main

Takeuchi, Ryouta Japanese

Ruth Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Silky Supporting

Endou, Aya Japanese

Cartaphilus Supporting

Murase, Ayumu Japanese

Sargant, Philomela Supporting

Kawase, Maki Japanese

Swayne, Alice Supporting

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Webster, Lucy Supporting

Tsuda, Minami Japanese

Renfred, Mikhail Supporting

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Jade Ariel Supporting

Naitou, Ami Japanese

Fujiyama, Naokado Producer

Hasegawa, Hiroya Producer

Shinfuku, Kyouhei Producer

Naruse, Kouichi Producer

Reviews

Dec 21, 2023

whiteflame55

Recommended

An improvement from the previous part, I think this is the moment where I can best see why it’s worth sticking with this series. I can’t say it’s really grabbed me before this (aside from the OVA “Those Awaiting a Star,” which I still think is the best this series has to offer), but when it delivers on its mysteries, shows some genuine character growth and gives Chise a chance to substantially contribute to someone else coming out of their shell, it really works. It’s nice to see the lessons Chise learned coming to the fore here.

The season looks great as always, and that OP ... is top tier. Very solid all around. The plot really gets and stays going this time rather than the fits and starts of the last half season, and it answers enough while leaving plenty of mysteries left to be solved that I’m both drawn in and satisfied.

Not to say it’s perfect. There are still a lot of enigmatic characters here, some of which get enough screen presence that we should really know more about them. It’s also brought down a bit by just upping the ante a lot in the last couple of episodes. When you have to bring in gods, you know things are getting spicy, but I don’t think this show does enough to justify it, particularly with the villain being a tad one dimensional. They gave her good backstory, but her motivations just seem so basic, especially given that very background. Just felt like it was going somewhere and petered out.

Still, a worthwhile and in places a powerful watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Dec 21, 2023

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

The Ancient Magus' Bride — the continuation from fantasy-esque sceneries to downright school-ish nightmares...that as much as its original premise pulls us into its world, the arc that follows thereafter, desperately pushes us out of its world.

It's no secret that famed mangaka Kore Yamazaki's Mahoutsukai no Yome a.k.a The Ancient Magus' Bride, par for the course of the anime, has received mixed feelings with the rather drastic tonal shift from a full-on fantasy quest to the "back to school" elements. As much as is evident from Season 2's split-cours throughout both Spring and now with Fall's continuation of the manga's ever-so-divisive College arc since Volume ... 10, Part 2 here continues the adaptation from Volume 15 to cover the remainder of the manga right up until the latest Volume 19, before its eventual hiatus earlier this year and the resumption of the manga's serialization just very recently. By all accounts, the entirety of the manga (at this point) has been completely adapted, though not without its glaring flaws.

I, for one, like Humpty Dumpty, have been on the fence about the whole College arc since Spring much earlier in the year, being an anime-only who had not read the manga prior to the end of Season 1 way back in 2018. Not so much regarding Chise's extended growth as she goes back to school to improve her magic craftsmanship, but of the radical shift to the one central character that would help spur her and her classmates' growth: the rather unkempt girl that is Philomela Sargent. Like the prequel where it's all about Chise and her growth from being a slave to a magus's bride, Philomela's showcase of her life has been nothing but nightmares one after the other, which is more pronounced in Part 2 here of her origin story that explains why the relevant people in her life got their karma in one way or another, not as a result of her poor upbringing, but of the amount of shock and torture that she got while growing up, not knowing of the consequences of her presence being a bane. Philomela's story may look and sound like a chore (given Season 2 as a whole), but I'm kind of glad that Kore Yamazaki knew when to pace her story right while weaving Chise, Elias, and the classmates who have journeyed with said "bastard child" to have her redemption story and finally bring this rather long-winded arc to a resounding close. Over time, the "justified" hate that Philomela got, you can't really blame it on said daughter, as it was the people who turned her life upside down, from having the guardian of Alcyone to protect her from harm to Chise and the others finally getting the facts onto her head that she is no longer isolated from her issues alone and has friends to keep her accounted. That is the magic that the series has been known for for six years now since the start of the anime, and I'm FINALLY glad to see it executed here.

Alas, the studio shift from Wit Studio to Studio Kafka, barring The Boy from the West and the Knight of the Blue Storm OAD series, despite having a majority of the original staff team join the "replacement" studio, it still looks good, but doesn't quite have the finesse that Wit Studio has been known for, the studio that is now a shadow of its former self. It's not necessarily the fault of director Kazuaki Terasawa's staff team since the OAD series to maintain its consistent quality, but you can tell that the level of passion when comparing against Season 1 and 2 (plus the OAD series) has definitely waned over time, losing its original magical wonder that made the premiere season a near-perfect masterpiece.

On the music side, JUNNA has (nearly) always been a mainstay of the series, and her latest OP song, I would say, is great, but it will never top her very own OP song for the 1st cour of Season 1. The number of emotions and expressions presented here is part of why JUNNA's songs make sense, and for the assumption finale here, it's always a very good job. Sadly, I've cared even less for the ending song for it to not be notable and just a pure skip, something that Part 1 actually did quite well.

As a whole, I'm so goddamn relieved that Kore Yamazaki's series has finally got its complete-but-incomplete adaptation, because while the manga isn't by any means perfect, so is the anime, with the entirety of Season 2 being a slogfest, Mahoutsukai no Yome a.k.a The Ancient Magus' Bride is a fantasy story to be had, though she took some stumbles with the College arc that, for all its complex and convoluted intents and purposes, gave the series a bit of a bad rep. It's no doubt one of the most engrossing fantasy stories of the modern age, but your mileage will vary.

It'll take years for yet another season to come out, and for now, the anime is as close to the imperfect adaptation of the series as yet. Yet, if I have to judge the College arc as a whole, it was kind of disappointing from a narrative standpoint. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but a decent chunk for the other side of the half.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 22, 2023

chekkit

Not Recommended

Incredibly slow and sluggish from start to finish... we have finally come to an end with this school arc. And thank goodness for that!

This whole arc, from first to second cour, has been a difficult watch. In that I very much enjoyed the typicals that come with this series: The gorgeous art and animation, the music, Chise and Elias, the familiar magical elements... the OP is fun to see with every episode beginning! Beyond that however, our main characters are sitting around twiddling their thumbs playing second fiddle to Philomela. The true MC of what felt like the longest filler arc I've come to watch.

By ... the time this season ended, I couldn't recall a single moment that particularly caught my interest. It was all situated around helping Philomela as she painstakingly hid everything from the cast up until the final moment. Impossible to talk to, impossible to get close to... we spend almost the entire time watching her suffer alone and refuse all aid. To the point you know what to expect in that it self-destructs on her sooner or later. To the point you can sum up both parts of season 2 into a few words: "Chise goes to sorcerer school and makes friends+helps them with their problems". That's it. What few moments you get to even see of Chise and Elias doing SOMETHING together, I was cheering for that little bit of familiarity before taking a back seat to everyone's problems once more.

I guess the only thing that really came out of all this is Chise getting a little bolder and coming out of her own shell. She made friends. Elias made a friend. But nothing was exactly... learned or necessary in the grand scheme of things. Lots of foreshadowing on Chise's part from the tiny hints we've got here and there-- which looks promising in the final preview of a new arc we got at the end of the last episode. Something that looks actually story-driven!

This is my hope that we can return to form in the next season. Because otherwise? You could entirely skip season 2 and just know that there are now Friends in the mix I guess. Though if we're lucky they'll all just go back to school and Chise will be done with her studying so we don't have to suffer anymore.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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