The Ancient Magus' Bride (2017)

[魔法使いの嫁]

Volume 7

Author/Artist: Kore Yamazaki
Publisher: Blade Comics

Synopsis:
Ruth goes looking for Chise, who is trapped by an out-of-control Elias.

Story/Characters:
I would have thought Elias just needed a little time to cool down, but probably because he's so bad at processing emotions, his possessive streak is getting out of hand. Partially because of how Chise's personality is, she's not freaking out, which would likely make matters worse, but she is aware of her potential peril. She tries talking him down and when that doesn't quite do the trick, she threatens more drastic action, which is enough to get him to finally let go. When Ruth arrives and finds her comforting Elias, he's struck by how they're like a mother and child, an inversion of their usual relationship, but this ties into how their roles as student and teacher are inverted when it comes to humanity and this dynamic of inversion is one of the things I like about their relationship, as I noted in my review of the anime.

Just when things seem to be settling down, we have poachers showing up at the dragons' sanctuary, setting up the next arc of the story. Before we get into that further, we have Chise paying a visit to Angie, where she meets Angie's husband David. It turns out that Chise accidentally cast a sleeping spell on Elias and needs Angie's help to fix the situation. Her interactions with David give us the interesting perspective of someone on the outskirts of the world of magic.

We then check in with the sorcerers. In addition to our good friend Renfred, we're introduced to two of his colleagues, Adolf and Torrey. They discuss current topics such as Chise and Cartaphilus. Speaking of Cartaphilus, Chise ends up encountering him while dreamwalking. It gives us a little insight that there's a little more going on with him than just evil for evil's sake, but we'll pick up that thread later. When Chise wakes up, Alice is there and we see the rest of the sorcerers when she comes downstairs. Torrey gets a little carried away when he sees the Sleih Beggey in the flesh, but Renfred has Alice get him to heel before Elias gets too upset, which was a nice touch. We see that Elias has kept Renfred's offer of enrolling Chise in the College from her, as he expected, but there are bigger fish to fry. They tell Elias about the two young dragons that have been taken. Elias, of course, doesn't want to get involved, but Chise does and he yields to her. Chise contacts the auctioneer who sold her to Elias and he arranges for them to participate in the auction for the dragon. When they arrive to the auction house, Torrey tries to recruit Chise, but she declines. Meanwhile, Renfred is having a discussion with Elias about Chise and how his possessiveness is stifling her potential. Now, they've got a particular trump card, as the College's available funds are rather limited. Because Chise was the one who put herself up for auction, she actually got half of the amount that was paid by Elias, so that's a decent chunk of change. There's another factor as well, when a witch participating in the auction offers to collude with Chise in the auction in exchange for some of that sweet Sleih Beggey blood. (She'll come into play again later.) However, before the auction can play out, the dragon goes berserk, breaking its bonds and growing to near full-grown size. True to form, Chise pulls out all the stops heedless to her own well-being in a bid to save the dragon. There are consequences, of course, and we'll pick that up on that next volume.

Art:
We get some nice character interaction moments throughout, some sweet and some comedic. I particularly like Chise giving Elias the medicine to wake him up. We get some big action when the dragon goes berserk and there's a great two-page spread of London nightscape.

Other:
We get a bonus comic with Yamazaki talking about a place called British Hills in Fukushima, which sounds neat and something I should check out one day.

Conclusion:
There's some nice work building on Chise and Elias' relationship and introducing more of the sorcerers is promising for getting to explore that side of the world of magic. The capture of the dragons makes for good setup for the next conflict. There's more than enough to make fans of the series happy, so add it to your collection.

Rating:
Own It