As a member of Crunchyroll, I get to watch some really cool anime Really, really cool. Like this one. Yeah, it's another romantic one like Fruits Basket but like Fruits Basket its also a fantasy that's got some dark moments. I'm telling you...wayyy darker than Fruits Basket. In FruBa, the main character falls for a boy whose cute cat form may become a monster under certain circumstances. In TAMB, Chise Hatori sells herself to be the bride of an actual monster. A possible man-eating monster, a magus named Elias Ainsworth (nicknames: Pilum Muralis (lit. "Wall Spear"), the Child of Thorns, and the Thorn Mage, and other less pleasant names others in the series call him). His head is a skull with horns, eerily reminding one of the Wendigo of American legend. A half-man/half beast that was once human, the Wendigo is cursed because as a human it resorted to cannibalism. And there's cannibalism hinted at in Elias' past. Yes, this anime has some disturbing moments. But it has some remarkable moments as well. It is an anime with a theme of struggling to overcome your inner demons. Elias struggles to overcome his beastly nature. Chise struggles to overcome her depression, the fact that she is cursed to see monsters, and that her mother committed suicide because of that same curse. Both Elias and Chise struggle to learn to love and live with one another while trying to find a way to keep Chise from dying from her condition at a young age. She is a Sleigh Beggy, a human mage that can draw magic from her surroundings. Sleigh Beggies are worth a lot of money, so there's always a subplot of someone trying to get to her, but they also die young. This is a great anime. It has some of my favorite Japanese voice actors in it, coupled with the rich animation of English countrysides and English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish mythologies. And there are dragons. And the cryptid Wendigo mystery behind who Elias really is. The Ancient Magus' Bride is another anime that ranks very high on my recommended anime list. There are two seasons, so far...and some OVAs. Fans of The Ancient Magus' Bride or Mahoutsukai no Yome, as it is called in Japanese, are eagerly awaiting the 3rd season...when Chise attends the Magus Academy in London. I don't imagine it will be anything at all like Harry Potter.
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anime n' mangaI blog about a lot of regular, harmless sci-fi and fantasy anime n' manga, but I'll throw the occasional yaoi n' yuri (gay) posts in here. 'Cus I like that shit too. archives
December 2021
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