The Ancient Magus' Bride Season 2

Episode 5

Ah, kids grow up so fast. Chise's barely been at school for a week, and she's already made friends, enemies, frienemies, and forged at least one blood contract in a clandestine ritual on school grounds. She's really getting the quintessential college experience.

We've met most of her classmates already, but this week is where we finally start digging into the assorted students she'll be learning – or, more likely, getting into dangerous adventures – with. Though some of the kids are definitely constructed with more depth than others. Isaac seems like a very nice young man, but considering they didn't bother to give him a face, and his main job through this episode is to provide exposition, I suspect we won't be getting any deep or serious backstory from him. That's fine, honestly, because damn near every other kid in this school is brimming over with issues.

That makes sense, considering this is a fully man-made vortex of magical power. The various entities Chise encountered with Elias were largely separate and only tangentially concerned with human endeavors, and while there were grudges and conflicts, they were far more nebulous than your typical human squabbles. Here, you have seven different family lines vying for power, prestige, and knowledge, all boxed in together and hiding sharpened daggers behind polite smiles. Chise has been dropped right into the middle of all that and will have to slowly untangle the knot of secrets and deceptions surrounding her classmates.

That's easier said than done since many of her classmates aren't in the mood to spill their guts to the random mage who showed up at school with a giant skeleton and a hellhound hiding in her shadow. Of the cast we've met so far, Lucy is the most defensive, and also my favorite. She's obviously trying very, very hard to seem stern and unapproachable, but it's clear that it's an act that doesn't come naturally. She can rant and glare all she wants, insisting she's not here to make friends, but she's quick to act in the face of somebody mistreating another – immediately getting in Zoe's face, but just as swiftly apologizing afterward. There's just something very charming about her harsh, yet obviously well-meaning rapport. Plus, she compliments Zoe's snakes, so she can't be as bad as she pretends to be.

Speaking of, it's interesting how exactly Zoe's nature is portrayed here. Half-monster kids are nothing new to fantasy, but there are some particular choices in his story that make him stand out. Rather than some kind of magic remedy or sealing spell, he treats his hypersensitive hearing with the kind of earmuffs that real people with auditory processing disorders use. There's even some misunderstanding about them, with Lucy thinking he's using headphones to ignore the world, rather than trying to cope with otherwise distressing sensory overload. While there can be stumbling blocks when equating fantasy disorders with real-life disabilities, that purposeful subtext adds much texture to Zoe's story. It certainly makes his father's parting words more powerful – Zoe is different from those around him, and that may very well make life more difficult than his peers, but his parents would never regret having him just as he is. So it's incredibly sweet to see Chise and Lucy so quickly accept him as-is, and even complement the parts of him he's so intent on hiding away. Being part Gorgon might make life more complicated, but he's ultimately just a teenager like the rest of them.

Ironically, he's still got a better family life than any of his peers. We already know Chise's deal, but the rest of the College is lousy with familial baggage. Rian is none too shy about wanting to disown his family name, for reasons unknown. Philomela seems to be cracking under a lot of different pressures, one of which being her family's role as spies for the other houses. Lucy straight-up says that her family is dead, no doubt the cause for her defensive demeanor. I don't even know where to start with whatever the St. George twins have going on, but I respect Violet for rocking that skirt.

That's a lot of mysteries, and it's not even getting into the larger conspiracies among the staff, but I'm very glad to be digging into these new characters. It's also neat to see Chise in such a different dynamic from her usual cohorts, having to navigate new relationships with people her age, all of whom are going through their own struggles. It took a bit to really get going, but this arc is now fully underway, and I'm very much enchanted.

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The Ancient Magus' Bride is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.