The Ancient Magus Bride just feels like the kind of manga that deserves the oversized, hardback volume treatment. Which isn’t to say that Seven Seas’ standard, paperback release isn’t very nice, but reading this story I felt like it could appeal to the people who like those nicer-than-average releases. I myself would have loved an even larger, more luxurious printing to better invite reading this story in the careful, studied pace to better appreciate its quiet, subtle moments.
Chise is special; she can see the “otherworld,” but it has brought her nothing but misery her entire life. Effectively an orphan, she agrees to be sold to the highest bidder in hopes that she can find a life with more meaning. No one in the magical world expected that the inhuman, centuries old magus Elias would swoop her up for an enormous sum to become his apprentice. Elias has some other plans for Chise as well, but in the meantime Chise feels loved for the first time in her life and she’s not opposed to forming attachments if other people truly care for her.
It did take me a little while but I can now see why some people are comparing the story to the works of Diana Wynne Jones (of Howl’s Moving Castle, The Merlin Conspiracy, and Fire and Hemlock); it’s not so much the structure of the story or the characters — Chise lacks the initial vibrancy and curiosity that Jones’ leads have — but rather how both of the stories approach magic. The magic here is not a strictly ordered system that has been sanitized and simplified like it often is in anime; here is it wild and weird, where a spell might involve a special ingredient, a memory, or some odd words. In that way it feels like a throwback to young adult fantasy novels from the 1990s and 80s honestly. The series deliberate pacing also contributes to this general feeling, as there is no race to reveal some greater villain who is manipulating the world etc. It almost feels rather slice of life-esque with how Chise spends most of this first volume simply meeting people. The volume ends with the start of an arc and a bigger problem, so maybe this is just the prelude to a faster pace — I’m dying to continue with it.