I promised I’d go through these volumes quickly and this volume is a lot more action packed than the previous one. Generally action scenes in manga don’t require a whole lot of discussion but Magus Bride is much more interesting in the way that it portrays its fights. It’s never about the fights, it’s about the goals of the characters and how Chise is going to get cursed for the millionth time. But let’s not waste time and let’s dive into this volume. I even re-read it on the bus today to refresh my mind, spoiler alert, it’s very good.
It took me a second, but the werewolf has been using homeless people to pay for passage through the back alleys I think. That’s pretty messed up. Meanwhile Philomela is squaring up with the Vice Chancellor and I do not like that woman. There’s something about her that irks me, but seeing how she’s being portrayed up to now I think that’s intended. I don’t think she’ll be a villain, but there’s definitely some darkness in her past that we’ve yet to dive into. She tries to kill Philomela which probably is the right call but doesn’t sit right with Chise and the students. While the college forbids them from chasing after her, Elias says that they’re mages and not alchemists so the rules don’t apply to them. I love how subtly Elias is changing as this manga progresses. He’s much more in tune with feelings than he was fifteen volumes ago. Sure, Chise making a pact with Philomela is probably important to mages, but not as important as it suddenly is to Elias. He clearly cares about her. Speaking of Chise, she turns into a dragon and swims through the leylines to get to where Philomela is. There she’s confronted by the shadow of a war god. This god asks Chise to name her and to give her a sprig of mistletoe. She promises to do so later, when she has the means to, and she calls upon the goddess Morrigan. Morrigan swiftly deals with the people in the Sargant household.
We also get some backstory on Philomela that we desperately needed. Her father, Adam, was the son of the current lady of the house. He left the house after he realized he wasn’t in line with their morals. His wife was supposed to be his test dummy, but they ran away together and had a child. I like how morally gray they leave their relationship. There’s love there, but they also acknowledge the toxicity. Either way, they both die, Iris being murdered by members of the Sargant family and Adam by suicide. Philomela is then retrieved. We also learn that Alcyone was created to take care of Philomela and that even back then she showed signs of growing as a ‘person’.
After the students are let out of Elias’ shadow, they join up with Chise. Zoe stalls the werewolf and manages to use his gorgon powers to remove the curse from the werewolf. Things are about to get very interesting. Lucy confronts Philomela about the spider belonging to her family that she finds in her room. Philomela is far past her breaking point and is about to snap even more. We end the volume with something seemingly happening to Chise. That’s a hell of a cliffhanger. Next volume should be amazing and as soon as I finish writing this post I’ll make sure to pre-order it.
We also get a little note from the author where she promises us that she hasn’t forgotten about some of the other plotlines that have been set up. I hope this manga keeps being serialized for a long time since it’s quickly become one of my favorites. Every time I read a volume I’m just entranced by it and I can’t put it down. I almost missed my bus stop today. But that’s been volume 17, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have and thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 