The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” not only gives us a more detailed look at Chise’s classmates, but it also gives us a look at Chise’s life when classes at the College are over and done with. Admittedly, it seems to be more or less the same as what Chise’s life was before she started attending said College. With the addition of a certain slightly murderous and questionably sane immortal alchemist, of course. He seems to be a bit reformed now though, at least.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”: Details

'The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2' NA key visual.
At last, we start to have an idea of who those people in the background are.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” is the third episode (you can read reviews of Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 here) of the second season of this dark urban fantasy supernatural mystery horror anime series. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the manga of the same name by Kore Yamazaki (Frau Faust). Studio Kafka remains the animation studio behind season 2.

Kazuaki Terasawa remains the director behind The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2, with Naokado Fujiyama, Takeharu Sengoku, and Kyouhei Shinfuku producing. Terasawa is also the writer, with Junichi Matsumoto returning from season 1 to compose the music once more.

Speaking of music: JUNNA returns to sing “Dear” as the opening theme music. Meanwhile, “Mubansou” by edda is the ending theme music.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” features the voices of Atsumi Tanezaki (Dani Chambers in English dub) as Chise Hatori, Ryōta Takeuchi (Brian Mathis in English dub) as Elias Ainsworth, and Koki Uchiyama (Austin Tindle in English dub) as Ruth. Other notable voices in this episode include Aya Endō (Rachel Glass in English dub) as Silky/Silver Lady, Mutsumi Tamura (Jennifer Green in English dub) as Alice Swayne, and Sumire Morohoshi (Skyler McIntosh in English dub) as Stella Barklem.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” premiered on April 20, 2023. You can watch it only on Crunchyroll.

Warning: spoilers for The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” below. If you want to see what Chise does after school for yourself, then stop here and come back once you’ve also finished harvesting those pumpkins for Halloween. Assuming that you celebrate it, of course.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”: Plot Summary

'The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2' Ep. 3 "Birds of a feather flock together. II" screenshot depicting a chibified Chise talking to a chibified Elias.
It’s exactly as fluffy as it looks.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” picks up right where we last left off in the previous episode. One of Chise’s new classmates, whose name is Rian, is asking Chise for magic lessons. His teacher/guardian, Tory Innis, though interrupts that request in order to provide what Chise and Alice are looking for: directions to where Renfred took Elias after the magic class debacle. After Chise and co. head off around the corner to follow the directions though, Rian continues to plead with Chise to teach him magic. Chise doesn’t exactly agree to it, and Rian gets downhearted when Will-o-the-Wisp doesn’t like him because his “strength smells of rust”. We have no idea what this means, and likely neither does Rian. However, it seems he won’t be learning magic anytime soon.

Fortunately, Chise has other classmates to meet in the cafeteria, where she even ends up bonding with them. Chise’s classmates are a rather colorful bunch. They include a girl with half-black and half-white hair, a guy who looks like he’s an Assassin wannabe, a pair of twins who really like confusing people about their gender, and a green-haired guy who’s really afraid of Chise and Elias. Chise even learns the name of the silver-haired girl as Philomela, and learns the names of the ones Philomela is following. Philomela also looks deeply depressed, which catches Chise’s attention. Unfortunately, she can’t do anything about it now, since it’s time for her to return home for the day.

Chise and the Afterschool Break

'The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2' Ep. 3 "Birds of a feather flock together. II" screenshot depicting Elias lying on Chise's lap to find out what it's like to lie down on the "ground".
Nothing like Elias getting a lap pillow from Chise to scream “Break time!”.

Chise’s idea of relaxation turns out to be taking a nap in the front yard of their house with Ruth. Elias tries it out, but his horns get in the way. Fortunately, Chise offers him her lap to lie on, and thus Elias finally is able to see the blue sky from a supine position. Silky interrupts the scene though with a mild prank with a pair of pruning shears. It seems it’s pumpkin harvesting time, and my do they look delicious. Even a brief appearance by Joseph while Chise is washing the pumpkins doesn’t ruin the mood, although he seems to have calmed down now.

Then Stella appears on her monthly visit to Chise and Elias’s home. As she happily chats with Chise though, Elias finds that he doesn’t feel nearly as much jealousy as he did last time. As he wonders why, Chise and Stella go on a walk with Ruth. Unfortunately, Chise and Ruth are suddenly spirited away in the middle of the walk, and just as suddenly find themselves standing on water? What’s happening here? Well, we’ll presumably find out in the next episode of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”: The Good

'The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2' Ep. 3 "Birds of a feather flock together. II" screenshot depicting Chise, Rian, and Alice peering in on Elias getting a tongue-lashing by Renfred.
They’re not eavesdropping on purpose, they swear.

As a direct adaptation of Kore Yamazaki’s manga, the story of The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II” continues to be the best. This episode is basically a fun relaxing moment for Chise, with her (and us) finally getting introduced to her classmates. It’s even got a lot of the cutesy scenes in chibi style for us. Heck, it even ends on a dramatic cliffhanger. There’s not much I can criticize about the story here.

And also as usual, Studio Kafka does an amazing job with the animation of The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has just amazingly detailed eyes. They’re beautifully animated eyes. I don’t know why Studio Kafka has just an obsession with gorgeous eyes, but I want them to keep on drawing them like that.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”: The Bad

'The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2' Ep. 3 "Birds of a feather flock together. II" screenshot depicting a panicked Zoe after seeing Chise and Elias up close.
Chise and Elias aren’t bad, Zoe. Really. They only look like they’re evil sorcerers to someone who presumably has the Sight.

Again, not much I can criticize about The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 3 “Birds of a feather flock together. II”. Especially since I’ve been a big fan of this series since I read the first volume of the manga all those years ago. Seriously, if you’re lost as to why I’m giving this episode 100/100, go watch season 1. If you’re a fan of dark urban fantasy, then you won’t regret a thing.