The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” gives us a peek at what Chise might be look if she were to fully go to the dark side. Does that mean that Chise’s actions might turn even more morally ambiguous over time? Well, I guess we’ll just have to find out, shall we?

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience Does Make Cowards Of Us All. II”: Details

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” is the latest episode (you can read reviews for Ep. 1, Ep. 2, Ep. 3, Ep. 4, Ep. 5, Ep. 6, Ep. 7, Ep. 8, and Ep. 9 here) of season 2 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 is still the animation studio behind season 2, and said season 2 is so far their only anime.

Kazuaki Terasawa remains the director behind The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 in general, 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 for The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2. Meanwhile, “Mubansou” by edda is the ending theme music for the same.

Voice Cast

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. 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, Koki Uchiyama (Austin Tindle in English dub) as Ruth, and Minami Tsuda (Sarah Roach in English dub) as Lucy Webster.

Where to Watch

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” premiered on June 8, 2023. You can watch this episode and all previous episodes of season 2 (as well as season 1) only on Crunchyroll for now.

Warning: spoilers for The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” below. If you want to watch Chise take her first steps into the dark side for yourself, then stop here and come back once you’ve survived the bloody action and drama.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience Does Make Cowards Of Us All. II”: Plot Summary

The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2 Ep. 10 "Conscience does make cowards of us all. II" thumbnail image showing the female werewolf in full snarl.
Is it just me, or do the braids make her look weirdly cute even in spite of the fangs?

The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” picks up where we last left off in the previous episode. Very directly, really. As it turns out, Seth’s driver lives due to a protection charm Seth had him wear, diverting a lethal blow into one that still caused serious injuries but at least isn’t immediately lethal. The witch Mariel even showsv up to give him medical aid and a lift to somewhere safe. Not without a price though. This is Mariel, after all, but it still beats no help at all.

Unfortunately, events are happening too quickly for word to spread to Chise, Seth, and Lucy. When they reach Seth’s car and find no driver present, they are immediately ambushed by said driver’s attackers: a pair of white-furred werewolves, a male and a female. Said werewolf pair also reveals themselves to be the ones responsible for the murders of nearly the entire Webster family, and have come here to finish the job by taking out Seth and Lucy. Chise and co. flee into the College, but apparently, the College has never heard of security, because the werewolves just follow them in. Even worse, for some reason, Lucy can’t use her magic to help. Ruth and Elias try to stop the werewolves, but they’re a lot stronger than they look. Ruth gets injured, and Elias is only barely able to fend a single werewolf off.

Fortunately, Chise has a plan to deal with them. Unfortunately, this is also where she takes a step into the dark side. Just a bit.

Chise Hatori: The Start of Darkness?

The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2 Ep. 10 "Conscience does make cowards of us all. II" screenshot depicting the 2 werewolves being attacked by the Hounds.
Yeah, these not-Hounds of Tindalos show no mercy and are always hungry.

Chise opens the path into the not-Hounds of Tindalos’ shortcut, and Elias lets the werewolves follow them in, all knowing what would happen. Predictably, the Hounds begin to tear apart the werewolf pair. When the female werewolf starts crying out about their child though, Chise has major second thoughts about her actions, and thus decides to show them mercy by basically bribing the Hounds with more food than they could get now. It works, but only in time to save the female werewolf. The female werewolf just takes her dead mate’s head and runs off, eager to put this whole ordeal behind her.

Lucy is angry at Chise for sparing that werewolf, but not as much as we thought she would. It seems she decided that act of mercy will also allow her to find out who killed her family. Unfortunately, she collapses soon after that discussion. It seems that according to Mariel’s findings (who Elias had hired to find out what’s going on), that stolen magic book is still draining the magic of the people the perpetrator attacked, which includes both the dog centaur Prof. Simeon and Lucy. How will Chise and co. fix this problem? Well, hopefully we’ll find that out in the next episode of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience Does Make Cowards Of Us All. II”: The Good

The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2 Ep. 10 "Conscience does make cowards of us all. II" screenshot depicting one of the werewolves blocking Chise and Lucy's way in the shortcut...but not for long.
While it’s certainly good that Chise is very creative about her solutions, well…

The highlight of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” is definitely Chise’s start of darkness. While Chise doesn’t go full on morally ambiguous hero here objectively speaking, she believes she is. Chise has a strong aversion to outright killing beings to fix her problems, and so even this justified case of self-defense is very much morally dark grey to her. It likely played strongly into her eventual decision to show mercy to the werewolves, even if it came too late for one of them.

That said, the fact that Chise did decide to spare them shows that she still has both a strong conscience and a strong moral compass. So despite Joseph/Cartaphilus’s dark hopes (and indeed, despite the very title of the episode), Chise does show that she’s a far different being than him. The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” may very well be the start of darkness for Chise. However, it’s also pretty clear that she’s navigating that darkness with a moral and just approach.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience Does Make Cowards Of Us All. II”: The Bad

The Ancient Magus' Bride season 2 Ep. 10 "Conscience does make cowards of us all. II" screenshot depicting caressing her husband's corpse in the shortcut.
Who knew the anime could make us feel so sorry for a pair of mercenaries/assassins who were just trying to tie up loose ends?

If you’re a fan of the slice of life comedy aspects of this anime only, then The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 10 “Conscience does make cowards of us all. II” is probably not for you. It looks like it’ll be a bloody dark fantasy for a bit longer. Maybe you could watch Horimiya or A Galaxy Next Door instead? Those are fun romcoms for those wishing to cool off after all that dark fantasy action.

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