The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Part 2 Review

Improvement Over the First Cour

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Part 2 (Mahoutsukai no Yome Season 2 Part 2 / 魔法使いの嫁 SEASON2 第2クール) continues the college arc. But, it’s better than the portion of the college arc that was in the first part of Season 2.

In the first half of the season, there was a lot of time spent introducing new characters and building them up. That’s necessary, but not very exciting. In this half, we get to experience a story built upon the groundwork laid down by the first half.

In particular, Part 2 focuses a lot on Philomela’s character. By the end of Part 1, we have a pretty good understanding of who she is as a person. However, in Part 2, she gets a lot of character development and we dive more into her backstory.

It’s not only the characters who are built upon in this half, though. Plot points that were set up in Part 1 become more important in Part 2. Remember the Testament of Carnamagos? We knew it went missing in Part 1 and was probably going to cause some issues. Well, those issues are the major conflict of this part.

It’s finally time to locate the Testament and put a stop to whoever’s using it. Though, even by the end of the season, I felt like there were some gaps in our information about the Testament. I like to assume the manga did a better job with that. But, I don’t know.

Anyway, in general, Season 2 Part 2 is an improvement over Season 2 Part 1. It builds upon Part 1 and ties up the loose ends from Part 1. But, that should all be expected. After all, these are two halves of the same season. I would have been disappointed otherwise.

Fewer Monsters, More Drama

One of the things I have to give the first part of this season credit for is worldbuilding via monsters. That half of the season introduced a lot of pretty scary monsters. I certainly wouldn’t want to run into them in a back alley.

Unfortunately, Part 2 doesn’t do that as much. I’m actually not sure if Part 2 introduced any new monsters. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t include other horrors, like Morrígan. Or, you know, the foreign god summoned by the Testament.

However, this part makes up for that by cranking up the drama. We get a bit more to do with Lucy and the Webster Tragedy. But, the big drama comes from Philomela. In a lot of ways, she’s the most important character of the season. She takes the spotlight away from even Chise.

At the start of the season, I wasn’t sure that Philomela was going to be all that interesting. She was just a depressed, shy girl who we knew was from an abusive, assassin family. Sure, there’s kind of a lot going on there. But, I wasn’t convinced it would make her a good character.

Well, I can now say that my worries were all for naught. I don’t know if “fun” is the right word. But, it was at least interesting to see how Philomela became the person we know her as.

To explore who Philomela is, the series had to dive into her relationship with Lizbeth. But, it didn’t stop there. It also went into Philomela’s relationship with Alcyone. And, it even went into Lizbeth’s relationship with Adam. The events that led to the Philomela we know began decades ago, long before she was even born.

Are We Done with the College Arc?

As many readers will know, I hate magic school arcs. And, that’s exactly what Season 2 has been. The majority of the season has taken place at a magic college. But, will this arc continue into the next season of the series?

Now, you could argue that the “college arc” was actually Season 2 Part 1. And, if you do, you’d say that Season 2 Part 2’s “Testament of Carnamagos arc” is separate. But, I’m going to argue that’s not the case. Instead, the Testament arc is a sub-arc within the broader college arc.

And, what I’m worried about is that the college arc is going to continue beyond Season 2. At the end of Part 2, Chise and the other students are home for Christmas break. The implication here is that they’ll be returning to the college once the break is over.

However, I feel like I could make an argument for both returning to the college and not. The argument for returning to the college is somewhat easier to make. Would we abandon all these supporting characters we spent the last two cours getting to know? It wouldn’t make too much sense for Chise to leave Philomela, Lucy, Rian, etc. at this point.

At the same time, what more is there for Chise (and Elias) to gain by staying at the college? When they left the college to save Philomela, they did so knowing that they were breaking the rules.

The college is primarily for aspiring sorcerers. But, Chise and Elias are mages. They play by their own rules and aren’t bound to the college. So, if they’ve accomplished everything they needed to at the college, why stay? This feels like a good time to move on to something else.

Final Thoughts

I ended up giving The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Part 2 a 6/10. That’s the same rating I gave to both the first part of Season 2 and Season 1. Though, I think Season 2 Part 2 is better than Part 1 and maybe a bit worse than Season 1.

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