The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 15 – Those Eyes Don’t Cry

Sealed off from the outside world, the students have a study group in the courtyard, something Chise’s happy about. When studying gets a little old, Violet and Jasmine break out some wooden magical puzzles for everyone to enjoy.

It’s another first for Chise, but I already knew she’d unlock her puzzle instantly. I didn’t know it would set off a trap that temporarily gives her black hair! I kinda wish we could have seen more of her, particularly beside the similarly raven-haired Lucy.

Elias, lost in thought about what Chise might like or dislike, ends up int he courtyard and observes the games. When Philomela arrives with Veronica and Alcyone, Rian invites his childhood friend to play with him, like they once did all the time.

Alcyone, intrigued by whatever Elias is, engages him in conversation, under the mistaken impression that he is, like her, an artificial fairy. But I can’t really blame her; the two look like two peas in a pod together! There’s also a profound sadness to the fact that somewhere within Alcyone there is a beautiful stored memory of Philomela and her parents.

Rian’s memory is full of days spent with Philomela, including playing with these very same wooden puzzles. But now, in the present, when he solves his puzzle before hers, he’s angry, because there’s no way someone so much stronger, smarter, and more talented than he would finish after him.

The disconnect between his longstanding opinion of Philomela and the tortured wretch before him is too much to bear, and he wrongly takes it out on her. She suggest that perhaps he shouldn’t expect that she’s anything like she used to be, or he’ll only be disappointed.

The two run off, and their friends chase after them. Isaac is mad at Rian for how he acted, and their fight carries over to the next day. Zoe admits he hasn’t had friends long, but he doesn’t think friends should treat each other like Rian treated Philomela.

Chise, followed closely by Lucy, chases down Philomela and takes her into her arms. When she sees her face, raw with anguish but devoid of actual tears, it’s like looking into a mirror at her former self. As we know, before she sold herself to Elias she was a tortured wretch herself.

Chise desperately wants to help Philomela by telling her it’s okay, there are things she can want and things she can do. But Mela has been so thoroughly pulverized by her evil grandmother (whom we see being awful to the wolf woman) that she is now stuck in an excruciating limbo: not allowed to win, or lose, or wish or hope for anything. Chise isn’t able to say any more as Mela departs.

Her inability to ease her friend’s heart weighs on Chise the next day, but her own heart is lifted when she and Elias are able to sit and shoot the breeze for the first time in a while. Chise also notices more ghosts floating around, and Violet comes past in to explain that they come out in greater numbers in the Winter.

After Philomela and Rian ran off, Jasmine took ill, so Violet took her to the nurse’s office. Now dozens more students are knocking on her door with the same symptoms. The most obvious explanation is that whoever has the grimoire is continuing to sap people’s magic. And since the College is sealed, there’s no escape from their machinations. Something’s gotta give!

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 14 – The Lure of Freedom

When Chise takes Philomela to her room, Alcyone says that Philomela is “very adverse to destroying things.” ‘Mela comes to and asks Chise why she’s being so nice to her. Chise’s response—that in Mela she saw someone kind but in pain, like her, whom she wanted to help if she could—perplexes Mela, who was bred never to help or accept help from others.

Chise tells Mela that she’s free to do what she wants, but those psychological blocks die hard. To whit: Lucy tries to be nice by offering a bottle of watter, but later tells Chise Mela would never trust any food or drink she did not obtain herself.

When Chise tells Lucy that she’s kind, Lucy admits she doesn’t fully trust her either. That’s fair, considering what Lucy’s been through, and the raw power she’s witnessed Chise demonstrating. Meanwhile, Mela doesn’t want to be someone who lacks the strength to break through the artificial barriers of her conditioning to take hold of her freedom.

But for now, that’s just who Mela is, as hammered home when he behavior seems to trigger a stored message in Alcyone from Mela’s grandmother. This message intends to stamp out any lingering wisps of rebellion from Mela. Her granny will never give Mela her freedom. But thanks to Headmistress Quillyn, she still has a chance to take it.

Outside the College, Muriel meets up with her white-haired contact, who turns out to be an ancient werewolf. What better beast to gather and track the scent of the book? Muriel transfers the nature of the book to the werewolf with a kiss; the sound design and visuals of his transition into, through and out of the intense “book world” is very craftily done.

The search through the city is accompanied by a very slick and jaunty bit of music with lots of cool Flamenco-esque rhythmic clapping. Muriel and the wolf reach a brick wall that Muriel unfurls with magic to reveal a secret shop. There, Muriel makes sure to spend liberally in order to get the proprietor to assist her (and not eat her).

The next day, Chise and her friends are studying when Philomela walks by with Alcyone. Chise waves hello, but Men recoils and retreats, clearly cowed by her grandmother’s message. But even if her relationship with Chise is quickly deteriorating, at least there’s progress on the book front.

Muriel and the wolf appear to have confirmed that the book and its user is in fact still within the College. Sure enough, a gloved hand uses the book on Jasmine St. George, who wakes up with a start. With the parameters of the search thus limited, the search for the book in earnest can begin. But I worry for the resulting dangers to come.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 13 – She Got That Dragon In Her

I have to award Headmistress Quillyn both for her gravitas while dictating her notice to the students and staff of the College, but also style points for magically affixing a notice to every dorm and office door without leaving her desk. She’s shut Hogwarts the College off from the outside world, both physically and magically, until they can figure out who is attacking people.

Some take this news better than others, but Chise’s tight little crew are more concerned with Philomela suddenly declaring she has to leave the school. For the time being, she’s stuck there with everyone else, as is her grandmother’s familiar Alcyone. But while she’s slow to speak up for herself, Lucy is well enough to return to the dorm she and Chise share.

As golems patrol the school grounds, Chise doesn’t sleep well, and in the morning all students are summoned to the courtyard in their tracksuits. They’re soon met by our boy Fabio Zucchini Macaroni Zaccheroni, who is kept in check by his supervisor/handler, Ms. Wachmann.

Fabio summons a brace of ghoulies for the students to fight using only weapons forged from blocks of clay he hands out. They have talismans to protect them from death, but this is a test meant to test the mettle of the young sorcerers when there isn’t sufficient time to use sorcery.

Chise doesn’t forge a weapon, because she’s never used one before—which doesn’t sound right but with Elias and other powerful sorcerers by her side, I suppose she’s never needed one. And she still doesn’t, as she learns when the monster attacks her. Her body moves all on its own, picks the beast up with one hand and snaps its neck like a twig. She’s the first to defeat her monster, followed by the knife-proficient Rian.

Others have more difficulty, while Philomela deals with her monster with ease and efficiency but doesn’t react well to Isaac’s praise, and curls up into a ball of insecurity. Rian and Chise then team up when Fabio challenges them directly. This brings out a bit too much of the dragon for Wachmann’s taste, and she stops both her and Fabio with her bare hands, demonstrating why Fabio doesn’t cross her.

When everyone passes and Wachmann takes Fabio away by the ear, Philomela is not looking well, so Chise pops her onto her back and takes her to the nurse’s office. Lucy claims to have to stay close to Chise when she tags along due to the mana she’s emanating, but c’mon, she’s worried about Mela too. So am I! And I definitely don’t want her going back to that wretched mansion with that even more wretched grandmother.

Meanwhile, outside of the sealed-off College, Muriel is hard at work recruiting someone who’s good at finding things to track down the stolen grimoire that’s being used in the attacks. After the first cour of this second season contained a large amount of buildup to a larger conflict, this first episode of the second continues that trend in preparing for bigger things.

It’s a perfectly cromulent outing with some fun and touching moments, but at the end of the day buildup is buildup. Eventually the payoff will have to come, and I’m confident we’ll get one before long.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 12 (Part 1 Fin) – Trick or Treat

The students’ little field trip in the Waste Tower is filled with dread and foreboding. There are some creepy moments like carnivorous plants only Rian and Chise can see, some not-so-friendly sorcerers in the caves Zoe has to paralyze with his snakes, and a far-too-handsy Fabio, who knows Chise is a Sleigh Beggy and “wants” her.

She doesn’t even have to unleash the dragon; Carty pops out to warn off the rogue sorcerer. Ultimately, the trip to the tower is pretty anti-climactic. No one there seems to be behind the attacks on Alice and Simeon. But we do learn that, like Chise, Rian has killed someone at some point. That’s how the two can see the plants while the others couldn’t.

While that’s going on, Alice tries to get through to Renfred for the umpteenth time, trying to get him to see her as his bodyguard and not his daughter. To which I say, why not both? Alice all but screams “kid” by confronting him in a ghost sheet.

It’s not that Renfred doesn’t trust her ability, but believes she has the potential to be more than him. Her old father may have sucked, but clearly her new one doesn’t. She shouldn’t sweat labels and just focus on being the best Alice Swayne she can be.

As Alice and Renfred fumble their way into another philosophical stalemate, Seth tries to keep Lucy from running after her friends. She doesn’t want anything to happen to them on her account. When she bumps into Alice in the hall, she’s in tears, so Alice lends her the ghost sheet.

This is how Seth finds her: a little whimpering ghost in the hallway. He pulls her into a hug which she accepts. She also accepts that Seth doesn’t hate her and didn’t abandon her. She knows that he was ostracized and had no choice but to leave. She thought she had to hate him because of that, but she never wanted to.

Finally, before this first part of seaon two wraps up (Part 2 will air in October) there’s the matter of Philomela and her grandmother moving to withdraw her from the College. Granny channels her voice through a barn owl handled by one of her servants, but Headmistress Quillyn happens to be in the courtyard when she arrives.

When Philomela’s classmates realize what’s going on, they’re outraged. Philomela clearly doesn’t want to leave, but she’s wired to obey without question. So Isaac takes her arm and runs off into the College with her, taking her out of the equation.

Once her granny and Quillyn verbally spar for a bit, the headmistress calls upon the cat dorm mothers, three of whom transform into their true Cait Sith forms. With Elias standing by in reserve, Quillyn has the upper hand, and announces that the entire College is being sealed off due to the spate of magical attacks.

I’m sure Granny Sergeant would have preferred to quickly whisk Philomela away under cover of secrecy, but the headmistress has bought her time to determine what she wants to do, which is most likely to stay with Chise and the others and continue her education.

Here’s hoping she gets that, gets to have her potpourri satchel-making date with Chise, and the attacker is found and dealt with, all when Part 2 rolls around in the autumn.