The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 04 – To Grandmother’s House We Go

Last week’s semi-cliffhanger felt like Chise was suddenly transported somewhere dangerous, but this strange foggy place is actually completely detached form normal time and space. It was once home to Elias, and its sole current occupant, a woman named Rahab, was his teacher for decades, as well as Lindel’s.

While there was an uncanny sense of threat—”summoning” being scarcely different from “abducting”; using telekinesis to examine the tie Elias gave her—but it turns out Rahab was simply testing something out, and it happened to work. She has no ill will towards Chise, and is in fact eager to hear how Elias is doing, and who Chise is to him.

Rahab taught young Elias a great many things—as much as she could—including doing her best to explain what a “bride” is: a partner; someone by your side; someone you care about. Those are all true, but they barely scratch the surface of the love required to consider someone your bride.

This meeting with Rahab, who has a serene, grandmotherly-like aura about her, is how Chise learns for certain that what Elias had in mind when he wanted her to be his “bride” may not be that classical idea of one’s wife, which obviously tracks.

As for the simple act of smiling, Rahab laments she wasn’t able to teach Elias that, but Chise reports that nowadays he’s smiling a lot. You can see the sparkle of pride and relief in Rahab’s eyes to know how well Elias is doing, and how much humanity he’s been given thanks to Chise. Chise in turn thanks Rahab for taking Elias in and teaching him, since it led to him rescuing her.

When Chise returns to her home where Stella, Angie, and Elias are waiting, only a moment or two have passed from when she disappeared. Chise now knows a lot more about where (and who) her Elias came from, and surely feels closer to him, even if he’s still fuzzy on the whole “bride” thing.

When it’s time to head back to the College (does Chise just stay at her dorm part time?), she notes it’s getting late, but Elias intends to use a “back passage”, a place or a thing regular humans either rarely if ever interact with or which is hidden from them entirely.

A centaur guide leads them through a red phone booth, and urges everyone to maintain contact through hand-holding, as it would not be pleasant to get lost. We learn why when a pack of monstrous drooling beasts known as “the Guard Dogs” appear. The Centaur offers fresh meat in exchange for safe passage along a narrow route.

The back passage is another instance of how magic and magical things can be extremely useful, even miraculous, but only if properly respected. Break the rules and things will get very ugly very fast. I couldn’t tell you exactly what Philomela was doing in either of her scenes, nor what Lucy was dreaming about that made her awaken with such a start, but I do know that the bags under their eyes indicate it’s taking a toll.

Lucy and Mela still seem quite distant from Chise so far, who is by all accounts a go-with-the-flow social butterfly at the College, unlike the two of them. Confidence emanates from this show’s unrushed, measured presentation that prioritizes atmosphere over alacrity. But whatever’s going on with these two young women, it’s a given that Chise will eventually become involved.

The Dangers in My Heart and KonoSuba…Explosion Dropped

We don’t consider either The Dangers in My Heart or the KonoSuba spinoff to be bad shows by any stretch. But this Spring is absolutely stacked with fantastic series, so we’re saying sayonara to the two that have felt just okay. —RABUJOI STAFF

Oshi no Ko – 03 – Struggling Out Here

The moment Arima Kana saw Aqua, he should have known he’d be going down the path of acting, regardless of whether he’ll be studying it in school. She’s just so goddamn charismatic, and she also cares deeply about the art of acting, to the extent that she just wouldn’t allow someone with Aqua’s talent to sit on the sidelines.

Due to her celebrity, they can’t just meet up anywhere, so Aqua takes her to Taichi’s house, where she reunites with the director she worked with a decade ago and gets a home-cooked meal from that director’s mom. Kana tells him about an streaming TV drama she’s the lead in, an adaptation of a popular shoujo manga.

What ultimately gets Aqua to relent and agree to act in the drama as Kana desires is a name: Kaburagi Masaya. Aqua first learned that name when he unlocked Ai’s third and oldest cell phone, which took over four years and well over forty thousand attempts. Kaburagi was among the contacts on that phone, and this acting gig is an opportunity for him to investigate him.

When Ruby hears from Miyako that Aqua is going back into acting, she’s legitimately touched, since now both she and her brother are going to be an idol and an actor like their mother intended. But unlike Ruby, fulfilling his mom’s dream isn’t Aqua’s primary motivating factor. There’s also the matter of the show Kana is in and Aqua is about to appear in…kinda sucking?

The fact of the matter is, the tv drama is being produced as glorified promotional material for a number of attractive male models who are on the rise. Kana has herself wrapped up in a frikkin’ Zoolander joint! As really, really, ridiculously good-looking as her co-stars are, they suck at acting, and she’s holding back her true powers lest she make them look even worse.

That adaptability and pragmatism is why Kana is still in the business at all, as she admits she had an extended rough patch after her peak child actor years. She’s been in this industry long enough to know that good acting and making a good show are two different things. But she’s going to make the most of this opportunity, even if she has to do “lousy” acting.

When she was little, she flaunted her talent and was branded a difficult prima donna, and gigs gradually dried up. She was down, but she’s far from out. The hunger to perform and appear on camera and move people is still there, and having Aqua acting by her side again—lousily or not—means everything to her.

Having heard Kana’s genuinely heartfelt appeal, Aqua re-watches the show thus far and gains a greater appreciation for the aspects of the production that make the show look much better than it should considering the pitiful acting abilities of all the model bros. He also holds Kana in the highest regard when it comes to acting talent, to the point he’s actually pumped up about performing, even if his primary goal is to score some of Kaburagi’s DNA.

The day of his shoot arrives, and the male lead doesn’t even bother properly introducing himself, which Kana says is typical of young rising stars. We get a detailed primer on the usual shooting process for a show, and the accelerated and abridge version being done by this show on a shoestring budget and narrow schedule.

The bottom line is, now that Aqua is on set, he’s fully committed to putting in the maximum effort. That professionalism isn’t just a result of him being mentally much older than he really is, but Ai’s upbringing, and a desire not to cause any more trouble than Kana already has.

There’s a dark irony to the fact he’s portraying a stalker villain not too dissimilar to the man who murdered Ai, but he does his job when called upon, and in between shooting Kana tells him his acting feels like he put a lot of preparation into it. Like her, she can tell he’s put his ego aside and thrown himself into the story. Kana is energized from the realization that in this “world of darkness” there was someone other than her struggling.

She may not know the precise source of Aqua’s struggle, but is perceptive enough to sense that he is struggling. As their relationship progresses, it will be interesting to see if Aqua considers truly “letting her in”, even as he overhears the producer and director talking about how they couldn’t care less about acting and they only snagged Kana because she’s a dirt-cheap freelancer with a recognizable name and face.

Suffice it to say, I love Arima Kana to death. Han Megumi’s voice performance and Kana’s body language and expressions are phenomenal, and both her arc and her chemistry with Aqua are effortlessly compelling. While she’s not quite Hoshino Ai, in just one episode Kana has managed to vault herself near to the top of my very favorite characters of the spring.