Bryce's Blog

I hope everyone is doing well, especially now that vaccines
are available to many people, one of which supposedly uses a different way to
tackle the virus in a different way, in comparison to vaccines that have been
used in before, from what I read in an article
from US News shared with me back in 2020.

Things are going alright here, considering my current state,
seeing as I can still do what I enjoy.

A while back, I was able to make some preorders for titles I
follow, and two of them arrived recently, which means that it is time to get
things dealt with.

Today, I will be reviewing one of those titles, which is
called The Ancient Magus Bride Volume
14 by Kore Yamazaki.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier
post, I will not go over it again.

After a teacher and student are discovered to have been
suffering from the same condition, the college starts to take measures to
figure out whom among the people within the college are responsible.

And with if the rising danger was not enough, more trouble
starts cropping up when Chisé and the others discover secrets hiding within a
place where students are not allowed to go.

Seeing as how this series is still going rather well, in
comparison to others, I am even more tempted than last time to give in to blind
praise than the last
time, but because doing that would disgust me, and I am dealing with stuff
makes things not as relaxing as they were before, I can still try to be as fair
as I can be.

After reading this volume, I must say that I very much
enjoyed it.

From the moment that I opened up this volume and started
reading the first few pages, I found myself engrossed enough that I wanted to
keep reading, though my computer just had to notify me of updates when I began
and had my time wasted getting those updates installed.

While this kind of hook can be created in various different
ways, depending the genre and the medium used to present the work, The
Ancient Magus’ Bride, like so many other manga series, was originally
published in a serial publication, which means that things must pick up in a
way that makes sense, based upon where the previous installment left off.

In the previous volume, Chisé learns about Lucy’s and Seth’s
past, and after we see Ainsworth and Marielle start asking questions pertaining
to the incident and the lost tome, Lucy decides to talk to Chisé, asking her
why she rescued her and Seth from wolf-like assassins, finally transitioning to
a scene where the head of the Rickenbacker family dissatisfied with what
Philomela has been up to, which really captured my attention, in addition to
the questions that cropped up when Marielle was trying to find out what
happened to the teacher and Lucy.

In this volume, the first chapter starts out with Philomela
noticing something, before transitioning to Lucy in the nurse’s office, with
Chisé saying that she had suddenly collapsed, and Ainsworth confirms that her
case and Simeon’s case was indeed the same, making them more determine to find
the party responsible, while making Chisé wonder what they were talking about.

While I would not say that this was the best way things
could have started off, it helped to remind me of what had occurred in the
previous, with the exception of the off-screen collapse of Lucy, as the mystery
behind who was responsible for causing troubles with the college was brought
back into focus, and starting with Philomela was a great place to start, after
seeing the head of the Rickenbacker family decide to do something.

If Kore Yamazaki had started off the first chapter of this
volume differently, there is a possibility that things could have started off
on a better, but I kind of doubt it, considering the very last panel of the
previous volume featured neither Ainsworth nor Chisé and Lucy, but rather
somebody related to Philomela, which could potentially cause problems.

Fortunately, things started off with the right focus, which
helped draw me right back into the world of the series, and makes me want to
give Kore Yamazaki a passing grade for doing such a good job.

Hopefully, future volumes will be able to start off just as
well as this one did, even though I am actually wishing for an even better one,
as that will help attract new readers, as well as maintain the current
readership.

I also liked how Chisé asked questions pertaining to how she
can stop acting rashly.

For much of the series, Chisé dove headfirst into things,
without bothering to gather intel or think things through, which is
understandable for somebody of her age.

However, unlike many series targeting the shounen
demographic, where rushing in pays off, it has come back to bite Chisé on
occasion, like with the dragon incident from volume
7, which does help to make this series stand out some.

While having Chisé decisions backfire her does help the
series stand out , it does not prevent this series from going down the drain,
because Chisé’s progression is one of the things that draws people, though
there may be some attracted by the romantic prospects of Chisé and Ainsworth more
than character development.

In this volume, she asks the person that helped her get the
offering she promised about how to have more self-control, to which he gives
the obvious answer and she then asks about something that could only be seen
with hindsight.

In response, he says, “What do you want to protect? Your
loved ones or your own desire to be found useful?”

After Chisé wonders about her desire, the acquaintance then
continues on saying:

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help everyone who
crosses your path. Just Remember, if you’re harmed in the process, you’re not
the only one who suffers. It’s one thing if only you die of it, but that may
not be the case.

Even though this advice may be obvious to an adult, as well
as those that are aware of what the world beyond the cage of society is like,
it was still something that Chisé really needed to hear and learn, in order to
make any real progress towards becoming somebody that can handle herself.

If Kore Yamazaki had no included a moment like within the
chapters found in this volume, I would have been disappointed, especially if I
later find out that these events occurred near the end of the series, seeing as
this series has yet to conclude in Japan, according the series page on Baka Updates Manga.

Thankfully, Chisé was taught a valuable lesson, which helped
to suggest that Chis´was still going to see more development soon, thereby
giving me reason to give Kore Yamazaki some more praise.

Hopefully, Chisé will take in what she learned in this
volume in future releases, as it would help to show that she is still growing,
and that is one of the things that has so far remained a constant in the
series, but I would not be too surprised if nothing panned out.

Another thing that I liked was how there seemed to be quite
a few things to laugh about.

While the humor found in these pages is not really that
unique for the series, or even anime and manga in general, it still helped to
keep things enjoyable, even when it currently hurts for me to laugh.

One thing that can really kill a work of fiction for me is
when there is no humor to balance out the serious moment because the
experiences in our lives are not all serious, nor are they all some kind of
joke that everyone notices. It is a mixed bag and that means things need to be
serious in one moment and not so serious in another to feel realistic and
believable.

In this volume, Kore Yamazaki manages to maintain that
balance quite well, though there were not really any funny moments that could
stand out from the pack, whether it was because done so well that it could be
considered a gem, like in the case of volume 60
of Detective Conan or it was just that memorable.

If Kore Yamazaki did not include these relatively minor
funny moments, I might have been able to enjoy the volume, seeing as I kept wondering
who the person responsible for recent events, but for my current situation, it
probably would have made it harder for me to relax.

The thing that I liked the most though was how the volume
ended.

Aside from how things begin, another important thing in
fiction is the ending, as the ending is supposed to leave the audience
satisfied, if it is either a standalone work or the final installment in a
series, or give them more reason to continue to on, if the work is an
installment in a series.

This volume, like many other installments of The Ancient
Magus&39; Bride, delivers on this, by having me on the edge of my seat.

After some relatively minor incidents, at least as of now,
Chise starts wondering about how the people responsible got the book and even
why they would use it to collect magical energy, ultimately unaware that a face
from earlier in the volume snuck up on her until the last minute, with the
final panel featuring said character and teacher telling Chisé and the gang
that they will be taught a very important lesson for the first class, after
entrapping the students.

While the capture of Chis´and her classmates was not as
interesting as the questions regarding the party responsible for stealing a
grimoire, things were handled well enough, and with a decent enough
cliffhanger, that I really want to get my hands on the next volume right away,
though I will have to wait until September, according to the product listing on Amazon.

f Kore
Yamazaki had not ended the last chapter o the volume like this or Mag Garden,
or whoever they had put this volume together, had chosen to end on a different
chapter, I probably would be disappointed, as the volumes in this series tend
to have great endings and I am not too sure that there would have been a
chapter that could have ended the volume just as well as any other.

Fortunately,
this volume continued the trend of having good endings, which makes me feel
like giving both Kore Yamazaki and Mag Garden a good round of applause for a
job well done.

Hopefully, the
future volumes will be able to end just as well as this one did, as that will
help to keep people coming back for more, but I would not be surprised if
things went down the drain.

Outside of
those things, I cannot think of anything else that I particularly liked, at least
that stood out as much as what I talked about.

Because the
volume started off fairly well, Chisé started to wonder about how to gain self-control,
which might lead to more development of her character, the humor was good
enough to help me relax, and the ending was as good as it usually is, this was
a pretty decent read.

Although I liked the book, there are some issues.

However, aside from things that are too minor to talk about,
such as typos, only one thing bothered me, which was the presentation of a
double page spread.

While I let this pass with previous volume, partly because I
would just be going over the same stuff I discussed in my review of volume
10 and mostly because it was not as big of a deal as it was in the tenth
volume, I cannot let it pass here because this is the third volume to have this
issue and the second where the content matters.

When Chisé and the other offer to visit the abandoned hall
for Lucy, they meet a new face, who takes them to what they believe is where
their task will be done.

Upon reaching the area, this new character tells them that
they will be looking for plants that appear on the night of Samhain, which is
widely acknowledged as the old name for what is now known as Halloween.

However, when I got to this part, I had a hard time reading
it without zooming in on the page because Seven Seas Entertainment decided to
have this double page spread be presented as a single image and I could only
tell they were talking about Samhain because of the mention of Halloween.

What the heck, Sevens Seas? This might fly with the print
releases, where this spread would be completely legible, but with a digital
release, double page spreads should be presented as separate images, so that
the reader can see them, especially because the Kindle app will not allow the
same kind of scrolling that a pirate site would.

Yes, I could switch to reading the print releases, but I
have more space for digital goods than physical goods and digital goods are a
bit more convenient, with the exception of needing to worry about a battery or
other power source.

If Seven Seas did the right thing, and split the pages for
the digital release, this volume would have been as close to perfect as one
could get, but the spread just had to preserved and in a place with something
important for the events of the chapter.

Hopefully, this will be the last book that Seven Seas does
this kind of thing with, as they tend to have good quality releases that only
has issues if the creator or the Japanese publisher had done something wrong,
but seeing as this issue has already cropped up twice before, I have a feeling
that this issue will crop up again, so I can only hope that it does not cause
something to go missing easily, like in the 10^th volume.

Thankfully, that was the only real hiccup with this release,
so Kore Yamazaki and Mag Garden, or whoever they had put this volume together,
can walk away knowing that they did a fairly decent job.

While there was only one issue, and it is likely an issue
that only plagues the digital release, it was still bad enough that it hurt the
quality of the release of the volume.

Despite the fact that an issue that plague two previous
releases occurred again and was as bad as the first time around, the good balanced
things out enough to make it worth reading.

I mainly recommend this to fans of The Ancient Magus&39; Bride
and Kore Yamazaki, as they will like this the most, though it might be better
to buy the print edition.

As for everyone else, this might be worth giving a try, but it
might be best to read the previous volumes first and focus on getting the print
edition.

If you liked this review and would like to see more, please
consider supporting me on either Patreon or SubscribeStar, or, if you
would like a copy of the reviewed title buy
The Ancient Magus&39; Bride Volume 14 from Book Depository, who offers
free shipping to many countries around the world, so I can continue following
this series and possibly find more worthwhile reads for you guys to check out.