![The Ancient Magus’ Bride Season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: The End Of The Beginning [Anime Review]](https://thathashtagshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Magus-Bride.jpg)
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II” is the final episode of the first cours of this season. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the anime‘s story. Judging by how the episode ended, it’s not the end. Nor is it the beginning of the end. On the contrary, it appears only to be the end of the beginning of the story for Chise Hatori and her new friends at the College.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: Details
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. 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, Ep. 9, Ep. 10, and Ep. 11 here) of season 2 of this dark urban fantasy supernatural mystery horror anime series. As I mentioned before, it’s also the finale episode of this first cours of said anime. 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. And from the looks of it, it looks like Studio Kafka is adopting the new industry standard of dividing their anime production schedule into cours. You know, to make it easier on everyone and to ensure top-notch quality production.
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. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. 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, Minami Tsuda (Sarah Roach in English dub) as Lucy Webster, and Maki Kawase as Philomela Sergeant. Other notable voice cast for this episode include Seiichiro Yamashita (Ricco Fajardo in English dub) as Rian Scrimgeour, Daiki Kobayashi (English dub voice actor unknown) as Zoe Ivy, and Koutaro Nishiyama (Derick Snow in English dub) as Isaac Farrar.
Where to Watch
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II” premiered on June 22, 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. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II” below. If you want to watch the end of the beginning for yourself, then stop here and come back once you too have yelled at the anime for leaving off on a bit of a cliffhanger.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: Plot Summary
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II” picks up directly where we last left off in the previous episode. “Prof. Fabio” gives Chise and her classmates an assignment to look for weird plants and shiny rocks in the Waste Tower. One of the weird plants turns out to be an invisible plant that only certain people can see, which includes Chise and Rian. It’s a bit odd, but that pales in comparison to how dangerous the Waste Tower is. It doesn’t just have dangerous fauna/floral, it also has dangerous inhabitants in the form of violent and questionably sane sorcerors.
“Prof. Fabio” turns out to be one of them when he reveals himself to be one of the Waste Tower inhabitants. He seems more interested in trying to “seduce” (for lack of a better term) Chise away from Elias instead. Chise is having none of it, of course, and “Prof- Fabio” seems content to leave it at that, although not without revealing that the invisible plant can only be seen by murderers. It is something that bothers Chise greatly and has interesting implications for Philomela and Rian, considering that they, too, could see it.
Fortunately, the real professor (a blind woman) shows up when they return and reveals that the fake professor is someone named Zaccharoni. We still have no idea who he is, but at least he didn’t harm any of the kids. He even seems to have genuinely done what the real professor wanted to do anyways. Unfortunately, it seems Zaccharoni shall remain an enigmatic figure for now.
The College Vs. Lizbeth Sergeant?
Meanwhile, while Chise and her classmates are busy in the Waste Tower, Alice Swayne has been busy trying to convince Mikhail Renfred not to treat her like a kid…by knocking him down while dressed in a Halloween ghost costume. It gets mixed results. However, it does feel like their relationship is slowly advancing… somewhere. I’m not sure where it’s advancing to, but we’ll be entertained regardless. It even results in Alice bumping into Lucy Webster, which results in Alice handing Lucy her ghost costume in an attempt to make her feel better. It does allow Lucy to hide her crying from her brother and finally have that heart-to-heart with him that they both sorely need.
Unfortunately, the fun and game ends when Philomela’s grandmother comes to announce Philomela’s unwilling withdrawal from the College in owl-familiar form while being carried by Alcyone…solely because she thinks Philomela is wasting her time there. As Philomela’s classmates lead her away, led by a surprisingly angry Isaac, President Liza gets angry as well. Liza announces the sealing of the College until the recent spate of attacks has been dealt with and politely tells Lizbeth Sergeant to go away. The College kitties aren’t nearly as polite and tear apart the owl familiar. They leave Alcyone alone, though, because she’s not Lizbeth’s familiar. She’s Philomela’s.
Lizbeth, though, is quietly livid at this turn of events and decides to move forward with her plans. What plans, you might ask? Hopefully, we’ll find that out whenever Studio Kafka continues The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 with the second cours.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: The Good
The dark fantasy drama and action are in full swing with The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”. Thus, fans of those genres will definitely love this cours finale episode. I know I did. I mean, seriously, that last bit with the cait siths? It was dark fantasy at its finest. It even had a nice touch of humor in it because the horror kitties were still very recognizably kitties.
The plot advancement is another big plus for The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”. First of all, Joseph/Cartaphilus briefly takes control of Chise? That’s not a good thing. Not at all. We’ll have to see how bad it gets for Chise in the next cours. As for Philomela’s abusive grandmother wanting her back so that she can abuse her more efficiently? It’s nice that everyone, including the President of the College, is willing just to tell her to go to hell.
There are some very interesting implications about Lizbeth being responsible for the College attacks, though, so if she is, taking her out might finally let Philomela be free of her once and for all. Again though, we’ll just have to find out if this is the case whenever Studio Kafka gets around to making cours 2 of season 2 of this anime.
The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: The Bad
I suppose if there’s one criticism I can make of The Ancient Magus’ Bride season 2 Ep. 12 “A small leak will sink a great ship. II”: it’s that it left off on one heck of a cliffhanger. It’s not enough to make me lower the score from 100 out of 100, though. It’ll certainly make us very eager for the next cours of the anime. Again, whenever Studio Kafka gets around to working on it.
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