The Ancient Magus’ Bride vol. 1

One could say that Chise Hatori has led an unlucky and unloved life.  This would be before she was auctioned off for the tidy sum of five million pounds to a mage with an animal skull for a head named Elias Ainsworth.  While this would seem like just the latest tragedy in a life that is full of them, Elias immediately whisks her off to Europe and informs her of three things:  One is that she is going to be his apprentice.  Another is that she is a “Sleigh Beggy,” a kind of “queen bee” of magic users.  The last is that she’s going to be his wife as well.  That last one might seem like it’s going to be rather problematic story element to deal with, but mangaka Kore Yamazaki manages to get around it in some interesting ways.  Primarily through establishing Elias as a kind of “other.”  If his “animal skull for a head” didn’t indicate that he is not like us, his vast knowledge of magic and general lack of such regarding social customs drive the point home quite well.  Basically, he’s someone who doesn’t get that just because you buy someone at an auction doesn’t mean they’ll want to be your wife.  Even with these issues, Elias is still presented as someone who cares for Chise, and she makes it clear that she’s not too keen on the idea of becoming this magus’ wife anytime soon.  It’s not all serious as Elias is amusingly castigated for his lack of social graces by his friend and artificier, Angelica.

Questionable social practices aside, this is a very good-looking series that mines the familiar idea of magic being something that people have forgotten about in the march of progress quite well.  We see Chise learn about the dangers of interacting with the faeries who congregate around her, share a dying dragon’s dream of flight, and begin to unravel a centuries-old curse.  Even though this takes place in the present day, the fantastic exists right alongside it and ready to snap up the unwary at a moment’s notice.  Yamazaki is good about setting out the rules of magic here, and I’m curious to learn more about magical society in this world as well as what being a “Sleigh Beggy” actually entails.  The characters are also fleshed out quite well in this first volume.  Chise steadily becomes more assertive as she learns about this world and grows more comfortable within it.  Elias may seem like the unflappable wizard with all the answers, but we see relatively early on that he can be “flapped” and in quite amusing ways as his interactions with Angelica show.  Really, this first volume was a fantastic start and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how Chise and Elias’ lives develop from here.