When I mentioned The Ancient Magus’ Bride season two in my feature detailing reasons to be excited about anime in 2023, I noted it in passing inside a long list. This frustrated me because this series deserves all the love and attention it can get. At last, however, a new promotional video has been released announcing new cast members and an exact April premiere date.
Set to premiere on April 6th, The Ancient Magus’ Bride season two will cover the college arc that Crunchyroll officially summarized as:
Chise was able to accept Elias and herself, if not necessarily everything about her situation. After Cartaphilus fell back into a slumber that would not last forever, Chise was able to go back to her regular life. Then she receives an invitation from a mutual aid organization for mages called the College.
Under the British Library exists a secret society of mages. Encounters and interactions with people are about to open some new doors.
This is a story about saving yourself to save another.
As we can see in the promotional video, the new season will introduce many new characters. The new cast members joining the series are (character names first):
Lucy Webster: Minami Tsuda
Philomela Sergeant: Maki Kawase
Rian Scrimgeour: Seiichiro Yamashita
Zoe Ivy: Daiki Kobayashi
Veronica Rickenbacker: Reina Ueda
Isaac Farrar: Kotaro Nishiyama
Mikhail Renfred: Satoshi Hino
Alice: Mutsumi Tamura
What still strikes me as the most notable aspect of this series is the establishment of a brand new studio, Studio Kafka, only for producing this season. You might recall that WIT STUDIO created the first two-cour season, and they did a phenomenal job with it. In all my years of reporting on anime, I’ve seen studios grow out of other studios, such as Trigger becoming the spiritual successor to Gainax (RIP Gainax bounce). But it’s hard to remember another instance where a studio was created only to animate one title. The fledgling Studio Kafka has helped on a few other series episodes (Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song episode 4 and Backflip!! episode 6). But they’ve yet to fully animate anything that isn’t The Ancient Magus’ Bride.
You might be worried about other aspects changing because the series uses a different studio. But you will be pleased to know that the cast is unchanged from the previous anime adaptations. Additionally, Kazuaki Terasawa is back as the director (after being in charge of the OAD series). He’ll work off scripts written by Aya Takaha, Yoko Yonaiyama, and Chiaki Nishinaka. Also returning to the series is Hirotaka Katō as character designer and Junichi Matsumoto as background music composer.
Sources: Anime News Network, Crunchyroll News
