©2022 Kore Yamazaki/MAG GARDEN-Mahoome Partners
Samhain (Halloween for Christian audiences) may have ended on AMB, but it’s still airing right in the middle of spooky and vampire season. So it’s only fitting that our favorite characters crawl through the school hallways, telling scary stories and getting up to mischief in the dead of night. However, it is not the spirits or the darkness of the night waiting to terrify us, but the all too mundane and human harms that lurk beneath the surface.
The whole “Test of Courage” is a pretty fun set-up. It’s funny to see Violet, a British teenager, trying to hastily adopt a typically Japanese custom and get it half right, with one-dollar Halloween stamps and ghost stories seemingly fabricated to re-contextualize the enchanting landmarks surrounding the university. I especially loved how things ended with everyone watching a crappy B-movie together, a quintessential teenage experience, before ending with a surprise ghost reveal that was immediately frowned upon by the teachers. The staff did not understand at all. Like, yeah, the College is haunted too. We have an invisible dark man who wears a dog skull on his head and teaches you all kinds of magic. Let’s continue, guys.
The better reason it works is because it gives our large cast the chance to interact in intimate, personal moments that continue to reveal more about them and the world they inhabit. grew up. I especially loved Violet’s confession to Rian. While he’s just trying to give Rian’s perspective on why Philomela doesn’t respond to his challenges, Violet and Jasmine’s family situation is based on real-world expectations of compatibility about gender rather than the more abstract magical expectations of Philomela or Lucy’s backstory. Nothing we see of AMB’s world suggests that Violet’s fondness for dresses and skirts would make him less magically competent, but it was enough for his parents to gently push him out of line. taste, preparing Jasmine for a more traditionally masculine look. She will look like a “suitable” heir. Even for something so superficial and meaningless to either character’s ability to continue their family legacy, any deviation must be passive-aggressively dismissed.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a much less dramatic incident or dangerous circumstance, but it’s another example of how their family’s traditions and restrictive demands have locked these kids in. . At the same time, it recontextualizes everything we’ve seen from the twins before, as a brother wants to be who he is, even as his parents force his sister to take on accepting this role, he still refused. Isaac becomes a bit more well-rounded, even if he still has no face, and it’s sweet to see him try to work things out with Philomela and give her a chance to vent. He may not know exactly what she’s going through, but he can sympathize with her oppression—and is fed up with Rian being a jerk—enough to give her a helping hand right away. Even if she’s not at a point where she can accept that advice or sympathy, it still means a lot. While they may or may not participate in the larger story down the line, each individual adds a critical perspective to the history and culture that emerges throughout the section.
The couple I was most excited to discover (no, not that… oh okay, maybe a little bit like that) are Chise and Veronica. Throughout this second season, one of the biggest mysteries weighing on my mind was what the hell Veronica’s deal was. Between her unbreakable poker face and Reina Ueda’s completely mysterious performance, figuring out what’s going on in this girl’s head, especially when she’s around Philomela, is like trying to Try freezing fish with your bare hands. So finally getting (some) answers is by far the most satisfying and engaging part of this episode.
In contrast to her classmates’ endless struggles under their family’s restrictive traditions, Veronica seems happy to thrive in that environment. She sees an assassination attempt as proof that she is capable and important enough to be a threat, as if it were an extra gold star for homework. She’s so comfortable with their family’s hierarchy that even as a child, she casually gives orders to Lizbeth, by far the scariest character in this season. Even her adoption of Philomela as her protector comes from a sense of sympathy, acknowledging the girl’s suffering but never even considering the possibility of freeing her from it. Now, she doesn’t seem as inclined to reinforce those strictures as Lizbeth, but she has accepted and internalized them as a fact of life. They all lived in a cage, and while the others struggled with the locks or sulked in the corners, Veronica happily made her perch as comfortable as possible.
It’s a fascinating foil to the other kids, establishing Veronica as an almost passive preservation of their family’s toxic status quo. It’s hard to tell her, but I read that she really doesn’t understand what Chise is trying to do by reaching out to Philomela and thinks our heroine doesn’t understand the unbreakable rules of heritage . Of course, on my part, that might even be too generous because it’s hard to understand the character’s intentions here. Did she say this to Chise as a polite warning? Danger? A simple statement of fact? Damn if I know, but that ambiguity makes Veronica intriguing as we learn more about her.
It’s so amazing and compelling that I’m actually sad when we find a way to develop the plot in the next episode. I’m so excited to see the werewolf assassin return and learn more about the magical disease plaguing the school, these episodes exploring the cast are absolutely fascinating. I hope we can return to this dynamic soon.
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Bride of the Ancient Magus is now streaming on Crunchyroll.